Tokyo File 212

This isn't actually as bad as it looks. It is really a Japanese tragedy, the main protagonist being a young idealist soldier being trained to be an infallible kamikadze suicide pilot, and just as he is to be awarded his final approval and to be sent out on his first and final mission, the war ends. He is picked up by interests who don't want the conflict to be over, and so he is involved in the Korean war on the communist side. The main asset of the film is that it is made on location, all the rich environment scenes are genuine, and the film gives a fascinating overview of Tokyo after the war in the shadow of the Korea war. The story isn't bad either, it is a bit muddled and unclear, but if you can follow the dire straits of its windings, you will understand the logic of it. Florence Marly is the asset among the actors, giving a very interesting and entertaining performance, while Lee Frederick is like a worse copy of Fred MacMurray. It's the Tokyo scenes that make the film something you shouldn't miss, if you are at all interested in Asia and especially not if you are a fan of Japanese culture.

Lee Frederick gets off the plane in Tokyo. He's a newspaperman, there to conduct a survey. In truth, he's an intelligence officer. There's information leaking from someone through the Communists in Tokyo, and his old college room mate, Katsuhiko Haida, in involved. After getting his assignment, he goes to his hotel room to find stateless Florence Marly there. She announces she is going to be his secretary.

It's an ambitious movie in its own way, trying to offer a view of post-war Japan as more than updated Terry & The Pirates Character. Unfortunately, Frederick is not a particularly good actor, and tries to substitute emphatic delivery for emotion.

Where it succeeds is in offering a different view of Tokyo than is usually seen. A lot of footage was shot onsite by uncredited cinematographer Ichirô Hoshijima. He shows a city quite a bit different from the Tokyo seen in the Japanese movies of the time: not from afar, where the grace and symmetry of the great public works are on view, nor the carefully constructed backlots of the studios, but street views, where crowds jostle each other and the dirt, grime and decay sit right next to the proud civic monuments. It's a livelier city than the quiet alleyways of Ozu, or the jumbled offices of Kurosawa. It's not a place where actors perform for audiences, but a place where people live and work.

It's great camerawork. Unfortunately, the story is simplistic and straightforward, and even such distinguished Japanese actors as Tatsuo Saitô and good intentions can't overcome a mediocre story and a poor lead actor.

( SPOILERS) The movie "Tokyo File 212" starts off with a suitcase explosion in a park in downtown Tokyo at high noon. As the screams subside and dust clears were brought forward some two weeks before this dastardly deed took place to see what were the events that put it into motion. Top Secret US Government Agent Jimmy Carter, Lee Frederick, is sent on a top secret mission to Tokyo Japan using the cover of a reporter for the media outlet "The National Weekly Indicator". Jimmy is to check out the Communist infiltration of the Japanese labor movement and a top Japanese labor leader Toro Matsuto, Katsuhiko Haida, who was a friend of Jimmy before the war. Jimmy looking up Toro's Father Mr. Matsuto, Tatsuo Saito, is told that Toro became a very disturbed and unstable young man since he came back from the war and never recovered from his experience as a Kamikaze pilot trainee.

Toro was looking forward to fly into the sunset and go out in a blaze of glory by slamming his bomb laden suicide aircraft into a US warship and take hundreds of hated Americans out together with him for his country and Emperor. But the war unfortunately ended before he could make his grand and glorious exit and that left him a hurt and broken young man. After the war Toro felt lost and confused and drifted into the evil clutches of the Communist movement. There Toro thought that he finally found a home and cause for living as a top labor leader in Tokyo. At his hotel room Jimmy finds sleeping in his bed beautiful and mysterious Steffi Novak, Florence Marly, who just happened to know everything about him. Steffi tells Jimmy this story about her sister Christina,who's in Communist North Korea, and shows him a number of letters that she received from her. In her letters Christina tells Steffi that as soon as the war in Korea is over she'll be back home, in Tokyo, reunited with her.

Unknown to Steffi is that her sister was murdered by the North Koreans commies,with a bullet through her skull, who dumped her body in the Imjin River. The commies here in Tokyo who she's working for sent her those letters that are forgeries in order to keep her in line. Jimmy together with Steffi track down Toro in a sleazy downtown Tokyo commie bar hangout where Jimmy is attacked and almost killed. He's then told by the commie bar owner to stay away from Toro if he want to live and next time he won't get off this easy. The commie boss-man of the Tokyo labor movement Mr. Oyama,Tetsu Nakamur, starts to feel that Toro is having second thoughts about being involved with his gang of murderous cut-throats. Mr. Oyama then has a bunch of his goons kidnap actress Namiko, Reiko Otani, Toro's girlfriend and beat her up and dump her from a speeding car and make it look like it was the work of the Tokyo police. This is Mr. Oyama attempt to get Toro, like he did with Steffi with the fake letters from her dead sister, into line. Toro still can't give up Namiko for the good of the movement and it's seen by Mr. Oyama that he had outlived his usefulness and plans to have him done in. Toro going to the hospital to see his beloved Namiko to tell her that he's leaving the movement for her finds that she was murdered by those dirty rotten commie swines and runs for his life knowing that he'll be next.

Captured by Mr. Oyama's goons outside the hospital Toro is brought to Oyama's office headquarters in a downtown Tokyo high-rise building and told by Mr. Big that by tomorrow he'll be found floating in Tokyo Bay. But before he's done in Mr. Oyama wants Toro to see his dad Mr. Matsuto Jimmy and Steffie, who finally saw the light and became one of the good guys or better yet good gals, blown to pieces outside his office window in the park across the street. Toro is then told that he'll be framed for all this.

Reading a forged pre written letter that will be attributed to Toro Mr. Oyama puts it in his left breast pocket and smirks with satisfaction as if he achieved a great accomplishment by pulling all this off; And this is the part where we came in at the start of the movie. Toro in a last act of desperation rips the pocket out of Mr. Oyama's jacket and like the brave and fearless Kamikaze pilot that he dreamed of being during the war dives head first out of Mr. Oyama's office window and falls to his death down on the Tokyo streets. Toro's brave and selfless action alerted his dad Jimmy and Steffi to get up and run from the park where the suitcase bomb was planted to kill them and it exploded without hurting or killing anyone.

With the evidence of Mr. Oyama's crime in the dead Toro's hand the Tokyo police and Jimmy run up to his office to arrest him for the murder of Namiko and attempted murder of Jimmy Mr. Matsuto and Steffi. Mr. Oyama like the cowardly rat fink that he is tries to save his dirty rotten commie neck, don't they all, by spilling the beans on the movement in order to make a deal at the expense of those who were willing to serve and die for him. But one of his henchmen at the office just had all he could take from this lowlife commie, now ex-commie, creep and takes him out with a dagger to his gut: END OF STORY.

The acting and direction in the film is C level. It was hard to tell the obvious amateur actors in the military intel office from the supposed professional actors. But despite the horrible acting and direction, the characters were well-developed and a few were even sympathetic. The commie Jap who sees the light was one of those. This was not your usual phony commie scare movie of the fifties. This was the real McCoy, because North Korea did try to disrupt Japanese shipping from Tokyo to the war effort. And there was quite a large communist movement in Japan after Japan was returned to the Japanese; it gave some Japanese men a way to oppose American occupation of their homeland. Fortunately, making money became more important than regaining international honor in the eyes of the world, and the vast majority of Japanese rejected communism naturally. Socialism really did not appeal to the Japanese masses. Capitalism was far too attractive. The movie does not bring this out well, but the story was more interesting than the acting.

A B-Movie must. The lousy dialogue is compensated for by the fact that a lot of key scenes are in Japanese - without subtitles.

Filmed entirely on location, it provides some interesting shots of post WWII Japan and the cast includes real soldiers who were part of the American occupation force. Francis Marly is great as a broadly sketched femme fatale. A trivia buff's footnote: the producer was famous San Francisco attorney Melvin Bell