Behind the Rising Sun (1943)

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:

Alma Mater

Interesting To Say The Least

Today (even in 1943) this film is very racist dealing with Japanese son educated in US goes back to Japan and takes part in atrocities there and in China. The whole China sequences are very grisly and actually disturbing, such as nailing the baby to the door by his/her pigtail along with the usual raping and pillaging of the Chinese countryside. They even keep the Chinese drugged up with free heroin handouts from trucks that pull into the villages. There is just one "good" Japanese character in the movie, the female secretary who works for an American architect caught in Japan with some Western reporters when WW2 finally erupts. But then these characters get tortured and sentenced to death. On the whole film it is NEVER boring...never. It has very good production and fine actors (even though Japanese are all played by white Europeans a la Charlie Chan). Now get this! RKO was asked by US government to make a picture that would portray Japanese in a real and fair way instead of the crop of anti-Japanese pictures that were made already so to stave off racial hatred toward this group. It was rampant in US (not so, for Germans though, interestingly films about Nazi's always had numerous "good" Germans, never in propaganda Japanese films who were usually portrayed as sub human hordes.)Anyway this was Hollywood's answer to the problem. Unbelievable! Film though is considered an excellent yet hysterical example of WW2 propaganda at the time.