Among the Axis Powers, Japan was the sole Asian nation, and despite its alliance with primary partners Germany and Italy, it acted alone in the Pacific and Southeast Asia during World War Two. And in terms of time elapsed and distance covered, Japan engineered a rapid advance through those areas from December 1941 to February 1942 that was the most dramatic and impressive of all the Axis Powers.
Similarly, in a single one-hour episode, "Banzai!: Japan (1931-1942)," the sixth installment of the superlative, twenty-six part British documentary series "The World at War," covers the rise of Japan as an imperial power from its invasions of Manchuria and China prior to World War Two to its early successes once the war began including attacks on American and British territories that brought the United States into the war.
A tall order, but writer-producer Peter Batty demonstrates his impressive scope combined with key insights into Japan's embrace of martial aggression that permeated Japanese society along with an increasingly hostile rejection of Western influences. As is by-now typical, the wealth of black-and-white archival film footage is its own reward, offering candid glimpses of Japanese society before going abroad to document Japan's imperial ambitions in the Far East.
Hit especially hard during the Great Depression, Japan, in thrall to its godlike Emperor Hirohito, embraced by 1930 militarism and ultranationalism tacitly condoned by the emperor, entering into what interviewee Marquis Koichi Kido, Hirohito's chief adviser, wryly terms a "convulsive period of history" as British expatriate writer Lewis Bush notes the Imperial Japanese Army's redemption and rise through "patriotic societies" and newsman Ian Mutsu describes how the Kempeitai military police enforced increasing repression in a more martial, anti-Western society.
Lacking mineral resources, Japan looked to the Asian mainland and Manchuria, already occupied militarily by Japan following the 1904-05 Russo-Japanese War, for its coal and iron ore reserves. Staging a provocation, Japan seized control of Manchuria in 1931; condemnation by the League of Nations prompts Japan's delegation leader Yosuke Matsuoka to announce Japan's withdrawal from that world body.
In 1937, Japan invaded China, bombing Beijing and Shanghai before seizing the then-capital Nanjing, committing atrocities, exemplified by the graphic footage of a public execution, that horrified even the Nazis. However, border skirmishes with the Soviet Union left Japan uneasy; as Matsuoka's private secretary Toshikazu Kase relates, the navy wished to avoid conflict with Russia. Matsuoka, by now foreign minister, negotiated the April 1941 neutrality pact with the Soviets as well as the landmark September 1940 Tripartite Pact that solidified Japan's alliance with Germany and Italy as the primary Axis Powers.
After Japan seized Indochina, the United States levied an oil embargo on Japan, spurring the burgeoning Asian superpower to train its sights on the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) as "Banzai!" shifts toward Japan's fateful attacks on British and American territories. Already editor David Taylor has assembled an impressive montage of footage seldom seen by Western eyes while Batty's economical narrative, delivered by Laurence Olivier, neatly summarizes the rise of Japan and its imperial ambitions.
But Japan's seizure of the Dutch East Indies required neutralizing intervention by Britain and by the United States. Japan achieved that through a lightning assault on Southeast Asia and across the Pacific that, thanks to aviation and naval advances since the last major war, had never been seen in history as Japan attacked the British territories of Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore and the American territories of Hawaii, the Philippines, and Wake Island. Pearl Harbor veterans Minoru Genda and Mitsuo Fuchida describe their assault on the American fleet while Japanese spy Takeo Yoshikawa recounts his surveillance techniques.
Unidentified American Pearl Harbor survivors describe vividly the deadly sneak attack, which crippled the American battleship fleet and killed more than 2400 military personnel, while, in a segment that could have been made clearer, American radar plotter George Elliot relates how he and his companion reported the first Japanese wave of aircraft but were told it was nothing to worry about as Japan's formal declaration of war was delivered after the first assault.
As Olivier narrates how, in relatively short succession, Japan triumphed over the various far-flung locations in stunning fashion, Batty chooses to punctuate Olivier's pronouncements with a repeated film clip of Japanese soldiers cheering in unison, repetition that now smacks of racist humor, tainting an otherwise-absorbing narrative.
As "Banzai!" winds toward its conclusion, Batty overlooks Japan's brutal invasion of the Philippines in favor of the remarkable if underrepresented Japanese conquest of Malaya (now known as Malaysia) and Singapore, not surprising given that "The World at War" is a British production.
British Brigadier J. G. Smyth recounts a number of disastrous assumptions Britain made about fighting in the jungle against the Japanese, who subdued Malaya in a matter of weeks before invading Singapore from across the Johor Strait separating the two countries--a direction from which the British never expected an attack and didn't even have fortified. The fall of Singapore remains the largest capitulation in British history; rubbing salt into the wound is Ichiji Sugita of the Japanese General Staff, who admits Japan had contempt for the British surrender.
Despite its own moments of contempt for Japan, "Banzai!" remains a bracing overview of segments of World War Two that have often been overlooked or underappreciated while emphasizing just how formidable a foe Japan had been in "The World at War."
REVIEWER'S NOTE: What makes a review "helpful"? Every reader of course decides that for themselves. For me, a review is helpful if it explains why the reviewer liked or disliked the work or why they thought it was good or not good. Whether I agree with the reviewer's conclusion is irrelevant. "Helpful" reviews tell me how and why the reviewer came to their conclusion, not what that conclusion may be. Differences of opinion are inevitable. I don't need "confirmation bias" for my own conclusions. Do you?
Similarly, in a single one-hour episode, "Banzai!: Japan (1931-1942)," the sixth installment of the superlative, twenty-six part British documentary series "The World at War," covers the rise of Japan as an imperial power from its invasions of Manchuria and China prior to World War Two to its early successes once the war began including attacks on American and British territories that brought the United States into the war.
A tall order, but writer-producer Peter Batty demonstrates his impressive scope combined with key insights into Japan's embrace of martial aggression that permeated Japanese society along with an increasingly hostile rejection of Western influences. As is by-now typical, the wealth of black-and-white archival film footage is its own reward, offering candid glimpses of Japanese society before going abroad to document Japan's imperial ambitions in the Far East.
Hit especially hard during the Great Depression, Japan, in thrall to its godlike Emperor Hirohito, embraced by 1930 militarism and ultranationalism tacitly condoned by the emperor, entering into what interviewee Marquis Koichi Kido, Hirohito's chief adviser, wryly terms a "convulsive period of history" as British expatriate writer Lewis Bush notes the Imperial Japanese Army's redemption and rise through "patriotic societies" and newsman Ian Mutsu describes how the Kempeitai military police enforced increasing repression in a more martial, anti-Western society.
Lacking mineral resources, Japan looked to the Asian mainland and Manchuria, already occupied militarily by Japan following the 1904-05 Russo-Japanese War, for its coal and iron ore reserves. Staging a provocation, Japan seized control of Manchuria in 1931; condemnation by the League of Nations prompts Japan's delegation leader Yosuke Matsuoka to announce Japan's withdrawal from that world body.
In 1937, Japan invaded China, bombing Beijing and Shanghai before seizing the then-capital Nanjing, committing atrocities, exemplified by the graphic footage of a public execution, that horrified even the Nazis. However, border skirmishes with the Soviet Union left Japan uneasy; as Matsuoka's private secretary Toshikazu Kase relates, the navy wished to avoid conflict with Russia. Matsuoka, by now foreign minister, negotiated the April 1941 neutrality pact with the Soviets as well as the landmark September 1940 Tripartite Pact that solidified Japan's alliance with Germany and Italy as the primary Axis Powers.
After Japan seized Indochina, the United States levied an oil embargo on Japan, spurring the burgeoning Asian superpower to train its sights on the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) as "Banzai!" shifts toward Japan's fateful attacks on British and American territories. Already editor David Taylor has assembled an impressive montage of footage seldom seen by Western eyes while Batty's economical narrative, delivered by Laurence Olivier, neatly summarizes the rise of Japan and its imperial ambitions.
But Japan's seizure of the Dutch East Indies required neutralizing intervention by Britain and by the United States. Japan achieved that through a lightning assault on Southeast Asia and across the Pacific that, thanks to aviation and naval advances since the last major war, had never been seen in history as Japan attacked the British territories of Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore and the American territories of Hawaii, the Philippines, and Wake Island. Pearl Harbor veterans Minoru Genda and Mitsuo Fuchida describe their assault on the American fleet while Japanese spy Takeo Yoshikawa recounts his surveillance techniques.
Unidentified American Pearl Harbor survivors describe vividly the deadly sneak attack, which crippled the American battleship fleet and killed more than 2400 military personnel, while, in a segment that could have been made clearer, American radar plotter George Elliot relates how he and his companion reported the first Japanese wave of aircraft but were told it was nothing to worry about as Japan's formal declaration of war was delivered after the first assault.
As Olivier narrates how, in relatively short succession, Japan triumphed over the various far-flung locations in stunning fashion, Batty chooses to punctuate Olivier's pronouncements with a repeated film clip of Japanese soldiers cheering in unison, repetition that now smacks of racist humor, tainting an otherwise-absorbing narrative.
As "Banzai!" winds toward its conclusion, Batty overlooks Japan's brutal invasion of the Philippines in favor of the remarkable if underrepresented Japanese conquest of Malaya (now known as Malaysia) and Singapore, not surprising given that "The World at War" is a British production.
British Brigadier J. G. Smyth recounts a number of disastrous assumptions Britain made about fighting in the jungle against the Japanese, who subdued Malaya in a matter of weeks before invading Singapore from across the Johor Strait separating the two countries--a direction from which the British never expected an attack and didn't even have fortified. The fall of Singapore remains the largest capitulation in British history; rubbing salt into the wound is Ichiji Sugita of the Japanese General Staff, who admits Japan had contempt for the British surrender.
Despite its own moments of contempt for Japan, "Banzai!" remains a bracing overview of segments of World War Two that have often been overlooked or underappreciated while emphasizing just how formidable a foe Japan had been in "The World at War."
REVIEWER'S NOTE: What makes a review "helpful"? Every reader of course decides that for themselves. For me, a review is helpful if it explains why the reviewer liked or disliked the work or why they thought it was good or not good. Whether I agree with the reviewer's conclusion is irrelevant. "Helpful" reviews tell me how and why the reviewer came to their conclusion, not what that conclusion may be. Differences of opinion are inevitable. I don't need "confirmation bias" for my own conclusions. Do you?
