Tora! Tora! Tora!

...see this film.

Whether you want to waste time seeing Brucheimer and Bay's self-indulgently long PEARL HARBOR with its totally extraneous fictional romance -- that's up to you. But whether you see it or not, the real history of the human stupidity on both sides of the Pacific that created the attack is clearly portrayed in TORA! TORA! TORA!

The new DVD edition has insightful commentary by the director plus a documentary about the attack. This film is tensely paced and displays and excellent cast. The Jerry Goldsmith score is kept to a minimum but is very effective. The special FX for the attack are all the more impressive considering they were done before the advent of computer generated FX such as those in PEARL HARBOR -- and they equal those of PEARL HARBOR.

If you want to know the real story, see this film and then also check out the companion stories in FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, DESTINATION TOKYO, and THIRTY SECONDS OVER TOKYO.