Handsome Dirk Bogarde is a British officer in India preparing for war against the Japanese. He falls in love with the china-doll like Yoko Tani, a Japanese girl who left her homeland with her father in order to save his life after he rebelled against Emperor Hirohito's regime. She is the bashful teacher hired to tutor Bogarde and his colleagues in Japanese, and returns his feelings. Tani is hiding a secret illness and begs Bogarde to let her go, but he refuses. They are married but soon afterwords he goes off to battle and ends up a tortured prisoner of the Japanese. Knowing something is wrong with her, he fights desperately to be freed and get back before it is too late.
This variation (and combination) of several tearjerkers seems alright when it comes to the basic storyline, but what destroys it ultimately is the painfully slow pacing and a profound disbelief over the whole situation. The innocent Tani is certainly beautiful, but is far too flower-like in her psyche, so gentle that you fear any hurt would cause all of her metaphoric peddles to fall apart. The Japanese classroom add the only humor as the British officers each ask Tani a question about Japan and she giggles very youth-like at the inquiry and some of the responses. But the pacing proves the saying that "silence is deafening" and can sometimes cause a painfully induced desperation to stay awake.
This variation (and combination) of several tearjerkers seems alright when it comes to the basic storyline, but what destroys it ultimately is the painfully slow pacing and a profound disbelief over the whole situation. The innocent Tani is certainly beautiful, but is far too flower-like in her psyche, so gentle that you fear any hurt would cause all of her metaphoric peddles to fall apart. The Japanese classroom add the only humor as the British officers each ask Tani a question about Japan and she giggles very youth-like at the inquiry and some of the responses. But the pacing proves the saying that "silence is deafening" and can sometimes cause a painfully induced desperation to stay awake.