Tora ! Tora ! Tora !

I just finished reading a great book on the history of Japan in the Second World War, "Rising Sun" by John Toland, and decided to watch Tora! Tora! Tora! again.

This is a great movie and immaculately accurate down to the last detail, such as how the Japanese trained for the attack on Pearl Harbor at Kagoshima City on Ryukyu Island. The book describes how the pilots in crews of three, zoomed down over the mountains behind the city, over the pier, and dropped torpedoes at a breakwater 300 yards away. The movie had all these details. Throughout, it was accurate even down to the exact wording of communications and quotes from the various people involved.

I loved how the Japanese directed the Japanese parts and vice versa for the Americans. It really told both sides of the story.

Technically as a film though, it has limitations. Some of the models used are kind of cheesy, but some are actually pretty good. But hey, it was 1970, this is before Star Wars even. And a lot of the acting is pretty wooden.

If you're looking for great special effects, and not much substance, see Pearl Harbor. If you're interested in the story, the "why", and figures involved in this historic event, definitely see Tora! Tora! Tora!.

Better yet, read the book I referenced above - it won the Pulitzer Prize and you won't be able to put it down - and you will be spellbound by this movie knowing all the background and reasons for the Japanese attack, and all the details about the characters.

Tora! Tora! Tora! has long been a favorite of this WW2 buff. Considering I have had 34 years to study and learn about the war since the film first was shown, I still maintain it is almost unbeatable in terms of realism and historical accuracy. An added attraction for me has always been it's total lack of a love interest. Unlike the recent "Pearl Harbor", T!T!T! is not complicated by any silly love stories. While by recent standards the movie may seem slow paced and plodding, the details of the events leading up to the attack is gratifying to see and actually educational. The attack action is thrilling, well paced, and in its use of models, actual planes and other equipment,is extremely realistic with few distracting anachronisms. Be aware that this is definitely not a movie to watch if you are in a hurry.

My father and I saw the Virginia premier of "Tora! Tora! Tora!" We were there as a guest of my father's best friend (a Pearl Harbor survivor). There were a lot of Pearl Harbor survivors at that premier.

I remember the survivors talking about how accuratly the attack was presented. They also talked about some of the inaccuracies (mostly uniforms and aircraft) but overall they thought it was great. Many grown men cried as they remembered fallen comrads.

I'm still impressed with the special effects. Several postings have complained about how "fake the backgrouds" looked. I've been to Pearl Harbor and the movie was actually filmed there.

There have been comments about the lack of suffering shown. Even if it had been filmed the studio would not have released it. Combat footage from World War II is shown on the History Channel today couldn't been shown in the theaters or TV when I was growing up (the 50's). It was considered too graphic for public consumption!

FOX had to build the full-sized battleships that you saw in the movie. They weren't computer generated images (CGI). Actually, they only built one that stood in for all the other battleships. There wouldn't be another massive shipboard set built along that scale until James Cameron's "Titanic".

The models of the ships (both U.S. and Japanese) built were also done on a large scale.

They had to assemble a fleet of flying Japanese aircraft (they modified existing surplus U.S. Navy and Air Force trainers) and rent real B-17s and P-40s. Those planes you see up there on the screen are real. Many of those "Japanse" aircraft are still flying and can be seen at Air Shows across the nation.

Whereever possible, the exact locations of the attack were used. In at lease one case, a hanger that was scheduled for demolition was destroyed in the filming of the movie.

It's much better than "Pearl Harbor".

It never ceases to amaze me that people know as little as they do about their nation's past, even when Hollywood mostly propagates myths.

"Tora" does not mean "kill" in Japanese. It means "Tiger" (Prange, Gordon W.,"At Dawn We Slept", New York: Putnam, 1981.)

This movie was one of the better dramatizations of the Pearl Harbor debacle, focusing more on the miscommunications and errors in judgment shown by the military leadership in Hawaii. Also covered is the pure luck the Japanese First Air Fleet had. Left out, mostly because it had not yet become publicly available, was the information that the White House, the State Department, and the upper echelons of the military kept from Admiral Kimmel and Lieutenant General Short. Both of these men were made scapegoats for failing to protect their commands from attack, while being deprived of the information they really needed to do so. (Stinnett, Robert B. "Day of Deceit", New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000.)

Still, this is a vastly better movie than the recent farce made by Michael Bay. It was no more an accurate portrayal of Pearl Harbor than Ghostbusters was factual.

...see this film.

Whether you want to waste time seeing Brucheimer and Bay's self-indulgently long PEARL HARBOR with its totally extraneous fictional romance -- that's up to you. But whether you see it or not, the real history of the human stupidity on both sides of the Pacific that created the attack is clearly portrayed in TORA! TORA! TORA!

The new DVD edition has insightful commentary by the director plus a documentary about the attack. This film is tensely paced and displays and excellent cast. The Jerry Goldsmith score is kept to a minimum but is very effective. The special FX for the attack are all the more impressive considering they were done before the advent of computer generated FX such as those in PEARL HARBOR -- and they equal those of PEARL HARBOR.

If you want to know the real story, see this film and then also check out the companion stories in FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, DESTINATION TOKYO, and THIRTY SECONDS OVER TOKYO.