Emperor
Now playing at Fifth Avenue
Those who only know Japan as a high-tech mecca and centre of business need reminding that the country was starving and in rubble after the Second World War.
Like Lincoln, Emperor focuses on a very narrow slice of wartime history, a period of 10 days after the Japanese have surrendered and suspected war criminals are being rounded up for trial.
Army General Douglas MacArthurs (Tommy Lee Jones) task was to rebuild Japan. He gives his men one hour to arrest 30 suspects, including Prime Minister Tojo (Shohei Hino), who attempts suicide just as troops are arriving. Do not let that SOB die before we can hang him, are the Generals orders.
But Emperor Hirohito (Takataro Kataoka) presents a unique problem, as he is considered a living god among the people. To try him in a court of law or to hang him could result in mass suicides, revolt, and could leave a door open for the Soviets.
MacArthur calls on Brigadier Gen. Bonner Fellers (Matthew Fox) for advice, based on Fellers previous tours of Japan and his intimate knowledge of the country. Pre-war Fellers had written a thesis called The Mind of a Japanese Soldier that shed light into the fierce loyalty of Japanese fighters, including future kamikaze behaviour.
But Fellers didnt write that paper alone, at least according to the screenwriters: he meets Aya (Eriko Hatsune) stateside at college in 1932. They meet later in Japan, then are separated again as war looms. When Fellers gets his orders in Japan, the first thing he does is task his driver Takahashi (Masayoshi Haneda) with finding her.
While MacArthur poses for photographs and contemplates a presidential bid, Fellers has a 10-day deadline to find his lost love while he hunts for evidence that the Emperor could or should be tried as a war criminal. Its no wonder hes hitting the bottle so hard.
Revenge is not the same thing as justice, Fellers says. Persistent voiceover by Fox reiterates the point several times.
Fellers starts by interrogating as many of the Emperors advisers and military officials as he can find, no sure feat when addresses and entire neighbourhoods have been wiped off the map. Discussions with defeated men ensue, as does much philosophizing about how the east and the west arent really so different.
You incinerated two of our cities, turning our children into shadows on the walls, accuses former Prime Minister Konoe (Masatoshi Nakamura), a grim reminder of the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
We all have blood on our hands, we get it. You may even feel a tear coming on during the climax of the film, a meeting between MacArthur and Hirohito, apparently the first time an emperor had called on a foreigner. But director Peter Webber (Girl With A Pearl Earring) offers a sanitized version of Japanese involvement, to be sure. (Look up the Nanking Massacre for the other side of the war crimes story, for example.)
Sets and locations are authentic, even when New Zealand stands in for Japan, and the destruction and hopelessness of the people is evident in outdoor city scenes. Its the repetitive chat within HQ that gets tiring. And though Fox makes for a credible romantic hero, the love story (fictional) is blander than tofu. The end result is a film with a well-known outcome that plays with the facts (see Argo), but offers little suspense along the way.
