Behind the Rising Sun (1943)

User Rating:

5.0/10   

Director:

Edward Dmytryk

Writers:

James R. Young (book)
Emmet Lavery (original screenplay)

Release Date:

25 January 1946 (Finland)

Genre:

Drama | War

Tagline:

The year's most timely story.

Plot:

In Japan, foreigners and their Japanese friends are caught up in the rising tide of militarism.

Plot Keywords:

Japan | Engineer | Beautiful Woman | Poker Game | Marriage Proposal

Cast

Margo	...	Tama Shimamura
Tom Neal	...	Taro Seki
J. Carrol Naish	...	Reo Seki
Robert Ryan	...	Lefty O'Doyle
Gloria Holden	...	Sara Braden
Donald Douglas	...	Clancy O'Hara (as Don Douglas)
George Givot	...	Boris
Adeline De Walt Reynolds	...	Grandmother
Leonard Strong	...	Tama's Father

Runtime:

88 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Japanese

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | Spain:7 | USA:Approved (PCA #9350) | Sweden:(Banned) (1944)

Company:

RKO Radio Pictures

Trivia:

Film debut of Benson Fong.

Soundtrack:

Three Little Words

Loopy, intriguing WWII propaganda

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.