Face au soleil levant

We'd call it racist today, but this constantly amusing bit of rabble rousing did what it had to do at the time, while allowing somewhat refreshingly that not all Japanese were monsters. When this was made, the outcome of the war was still not assured, although the bombing raids over Tokyo were in full swing, as the end of the film shows. Along the way there's an incongruous mix of white RKO stock leads unconvincingly playing the main Japanese characters while actors of actual Japanese descent play minor supporting parts. J. Carrol Naish may seem silly as a Japanese businessman, but he is surprisingly sincere as the misguided father who goads his nonviolent, Americanized son with jingoistic pleas to enter military service. To the father's eventual dismay, the son, played by Tom Neal in one of Hollywood's more notable instances of miscasting, becomes an increasingly callous savage who comes to relish Japanese atrocities while on duty in China. Showing that Hollywood could do the Goebbels thing with the best of them, the film proceeds to show Japanese soldiers pushing opium on children, yanking mothers away from crying infants, hauling Chinese women into prostitution houses, bayoneting children, and--worst of all--slapping around American nationals! The highlight is a wacky, drawn-out duel of strength between an American boxer (Robert Ryan doing his "The Set Up" thing six years before the fact) and a Japanese jujitsu expert. The film's opening titles claim that the whole thing is 100 percent true and authentic, a perfect red flag to take it all with a grain of salt.

"Know the worst about the Japs!" screamed the original ads for this delirious WW II time capsule, a violent, rabble-rousing propaganda piece purporting to show how Japan rose to become a world terror. But with the first act of Japanese savagery, the film's true intent becomes crystal clear: to foment outrage and demonize the enemy by dishing out heaping helpings of barbaric cruelties. Atrocities on the menu include gang rape, wince-inducing torture, bayonet practice on babies, the mass slaughter of innocents, and the likes of Tom Neal, J. Carrol Naish and Abner Biberman playing sons of Nippon in heavy Asiatic makeup.

By turns, unintentionally hilarious and horrifyingly brutal, the film is never less than gripping thanks, in large part, to Edward Dmytryk's deft direction. Worth the price of admission alone is a blistering, brilliantly edited ten-minute ring fight between an American boxer played by Robert Ryan (a real-life college boxing champ) and a towering Japanese judo expert played by Mike Mazurki. It's a genuine showstopper, expressly designed to whip homefront theater audiences into a frenzy of cheers, cat-calls and general bloodlust. With Gloria Holden, Margo and Richard Loo (wonder of wonders, a genuine Asian).

Unlike boilerplate propaganda films of WWII, this one has some complexity. I suspect Washington DC was smelling victory in 1943 and was correctly concerned with post-war occupation and how the American public would react. Thus, as other reviewers point out, the enemy is depicted as Japan's medieval warrior society and not the Japanese people as a people. The movie's propaganda aspects center on familiar stereotypes (cruel soldiers and inhumane policies), but more importantly, these ugly aspects are also portrayed as the result of a conditioning process (Taro), and not the result of some genetic, sub-human flaw as in typical propaganda films of the time.

This distinction opens the possibility that a reformed social order with better values and socializing process can produce a more modern and democratic people better attuned to Western ideals (Tama, Reo, & the early Taro). The end result thus suggests that the Japanese people may be human after all, yet suffering from what may be termed a "social disorder"-- A disorder that a good dose of American-style democracy can remedy under an astute post- war occupation regime, such as Gen. MacArthur's turned out to be. Now, no matter how self- congratulatory these political assumptions may be, the result turns out to be shrewdly visionary in an historical sense.

Of course, this is a pretty heavy load for what is essentially an RKO programmer. Nonetheless, the subtext plays out in a screenplay more shaded than most. I suspect audiences expecting something more typically simplistic were a bit put off by the ambiguities. Still and all, there are familiar American stereotypes to anchor the audience—the good-hearted Irishman (O'Hara), the competitive sportsman (Lefty), and the enterprising reporter (Sara). Revealingly, they're shown as getting along quite well with those liberally minded Japanese who will share power during the post-war period.

This mixture of crude stereotype along with the more subtle humanizing aspect creates a rather awkward combination that doesn't work very well for the movie as a whole. Perhaps this is why the film remains pretty obscure in movie annals. Nonetheless, two episodes remain memorable for me. It's easy to overlook architect O'Hara's passing observation about sturdy Western construction materials. These, he points out, can withstand natural calamities that Pacific islands are prone to, such as earthquakes and floods, better than traditional, less substantial, Japanese materials. To me, this illustrates the potentials of a genuinely cooperative internationalism outside this particular one-sided context. Also, the central action scene of a gangly American boxer (Ryan) vs. a Japanese martial arts expert (Mazurki) may not be very convincing, but it certainly is eye-catching.

Now, I'm in no position to judge the historical accuracy of the events depicted here and claimed as fact-based by the prologue. Nonetheless, the movie remains an interesting one for its generally humane message in a time of real war.

Although some very interesting things were said in it, in the final analysis Behind The Rising Sun was more propaganda than truth to it. It was also insulting and in fact a couple of things might have gotten director Edward Dmytryk membership in the Hollywood 10.

J. Carrol Naish and Tom Neal with Oriental makeup on them play father and son. Naish a member of the rising new business class in Japan can afford to send Neal to Cornell in America. He comes back sporting new hep cat idioms of expression.

The film tries for some verisimilitude as Naish says that Japan is about to take its place in the world, that the white man is not a majority by any means in the world. Neal doesn't quite to make of his dad's militance but drinks it in far more than he realizes then. That bit of dialog I'm sure got noticed by the folks at House Un American Activities Committee headed around then by Mississippi racist John Rankin.

Later on the roles reverse as Naish decides his country has become to fascist with its Samurai based code of military behavior. Japan is the great example always held up by historians about the need for civilian control of the military. By then Neal is a true believer in the destiny of Japan.

Another thing that got HUAC's attention was George Givot playing the Russian journalist who becomes friend and benefactor to Americans caught in Japan after Pearl Harbor. A friendly portrayal of a Communist would certainly do the trick with the HUAC thought police.

At one point Neal and former employer engineer Don Douglas have a nasty confrontation and decide to settle it with seconds. Neal gets wrestler Mike Mazurki who excels in Judo. Douglas gets his friend Robert Ryan to go in for him. In real life Mazurki was a wrestler before turning to acting and being really good at it. Ditto for Ryan who did box as an amateur and both look like they know what they're doing. Both go into the ring using their arts. Ryan and Mazurki must have had one good laugh over it because the heavier and very agile Mazurki would have killed Ryan.

A couple of other key roles are Dorothy Thompson like reporter Gloria Holden and Margo playing the girl Neal wants to marry. Her heart is truly broken.

Behind The Rising Sun had some serious things to say, but in the end with that insulting makeup just doesn't hold up today.

Well, where do I start? I would like to point out some erroneous statements by the first viewer commenting. He states that the introductory statement says it is "100% true" and "authentic". Actually, its says "true-to-life", which I would construe to be similar to today's films saying that the movie is "based on...". It states that the film is not biographical, but the incidents depicted did occur. We know from historical works that the Japanese were responsible for many atrocities in China, especially Manchuria...the giving of opium to the starving villagers, the bayoneting of infants and toddlers, the raping of Chinese women and the setting up of houses of prostitution to "service" the Japanese Army & so on. So as Hollywood has always done, they take real facts and fictionalized & personalized them to give them more impact. A statement by the previous commenter, about how all the major roles were played by white actors, while actors of Japanese heritage played lesser/support roles. Well, as far as I can tell by cast listing, there were no Japanese actors in the movie. Philip Ahn (Korean descent), Benson Fong and the other Asian actors are Chinese ancestry. J. Carroll Naish had played other Asian characters throughout his career. Tama was played by Mexican-American actress, Margo (married to Eddie Albert).Tom Neal makes a very strange Japanese, even for the time...For a propaganda film, it is more even handed in its portrayal of the Japanese characters and the upheaval in Japanese society then many war films of its day. There are two story strands, the brutalization of Taro, from a americanized frat boy to a murdering martinet and the humanizing of his father, Reo Seki, who comes to see the loss of son and his son's happiness in marriage to Tama, a farmer's daughter and the destruction of the rigid social order of his beloved country... The Russian is portrayed positively; the German a bit dismissively; and the three Americans (woman reporter, the male engineer, the baseball coach), are all different faces of American society: the brave American (the woman reporter); the status-quo American (the engineer) and the "ugly" American (the baseball coach).