Behind the Rising Sun

This film is the story of a fictional family. Their son had gone to Cornell University in the USA to study and when he returns, he's not used to the Japanese ways. However, he is anxious to be accepted and soon gravitates towards the militaristic wing of Japanese society and he rather quickly shifts from a nice and decent person to a cold monster.

This film is a real mixed bag. On the one hand, it does look pretty ludicrous, particularly today, to see American actors like J. Carrol Naish and Tom Neal done up with heavy makeup--playing Japanese people! Sure, there may not have been that many actors of Japanese descent in Hollywood at the time, but at least having an Asian of some sort play the roles would have made a lot more sense. As one reviewer put it, the film was "loopy". On the other, while much of the propaganda may seem ridiculously overzealous and ridiculous today, the truth is that in many ways what the Japanese had really been doing wasn't that much different than in the film...though it was actually worse. This film showed a few atrocities being committed in China and talked about the Japanese troops doing bayonet practice with a baby--surely this didn't happen, right?! Well, actually it did--and a whole lot worse. It's actually pretty amazing that films made since WWII have mostly ignored the many, many Japanese atrocities committed in China and this wartime propaganda film is one of the few to even mention it. Don't believe me? Read Irish Chang's book "The Rape of Nanking" or the documentary NANKING. I hesitate to go into the details, but they are considerably worse than the killing of a few babies.

Back to the film. Aside from alluding to the truth of the killing of innocents by Japanese troops, the film is amazingly silly in parts. The boxing match with the Judo expert was really silly and the dialog often stilted...and silly. But overall, it's a really interesting curiosity piece and worth seeing. Plus, it lacks the overt racism and stupidity of one of Mr. Neal's other films, FIRST YANK IN TOKYO.

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.

"Know the worst about the Japs!" screamed the original ads for this delirious WW II time capsule, a violent, rabble-rousing propaganda piece purporting to show how Japan rose to become a world terror. But with the first act of Japanese savagery, the film's true intent becomes crystal clear: to foment outrage and demonize the enemy by dishing out heaping helpings of barbaric cruelties. Atrocities on the menu include gang rape, wince-inducing torture, bayonet practice on babies, the mass slaughter of innocents, and the likes of Tom Neal, J. Carrol Naish and Abner Biberman playing sons of Nippon in heavy Asiatic makeup.

By turns, unintentionally hilarious and horrifyingly brutal, the film is never less than gripping thanks, in large part, to Edward Dmytryk's deft direction. Worth the price of admission alone is a blistering, brilliantly edited ten-minute ring fight between an American boxer played by Robert Ryan (a real-life college boxing champ) and a towering Japanese judo expert played by Mike Mazurki. It's a genuine showstopper, expressly designed to whip homefront theater audiences into a frenzy of cheers, cat-calls and general bloodlust. With Gloria Holden, Margo and Richard Loo (wonder of wonders, a genuine Asian).

Well, where do I start? I would like to point out some erroneous statements by the first viewer commenting. He states that the introductory statement says it is "100% true" and "authentic". Actually, its says "true-to-life", which I would construe to be similar to today's films saying that the movie is "based on...". It states that the film is not biographical, but the incidents depicted did occur. We know from historical works that the Japanese were responsible for many atrocities in China, especially Manchuria...the giving of opium to the starving villagers, the bayoneting of infants and toddlers, the raping of Chinese women and the setting up of houses of prostitution to "service" the Japanese Army & so on. So as Hollywood has always done, they take real facts and fictionalized & personalized them to give them more impact. A statement by the previous commenter, about how all the major roles were played by white actors, while actors of Japanese heritage played lesser/support roles. Well, as far as I can tell by cast listing, there were no Japanese actors in the movie. Philip Ahn (Korean descent), Benson Fong and the other Asian actors are Chinese ancestry. J. Carroll Naish had played other Asian characters throughout his career. Tama was played by Mexican-American actress, Margo (married to Eddie Albert).Tom Neal makes a very strange Japanese, even for the time...For a propaganda film, it is more even handed in its portrayal of the Japanese characters and the upheaval in Japanese society then many war films of its day. There are two story strands, the brutalization of Taro, from a americanized frat boy to a murdering martinet and the humanizing of his father, Reo Seki, who comes to see the loss of son and his son's happiness in marriage to Tama, a farmer's daughter and the destruction of the rigid social order of his beloved country... The Russian is portrayed positively; the German a bit dismissively; and the three Americans (woman reporter, the male engineer, the baseball coach), are all different faces of American society: the brave American (the woman reporter); the status-quo American (the engineer) and the "ugly" American (the baseball coach).

today, it is easy to criticize it. for the unrealistic Japanese characters, for the too subjective message, for the cruelty and conflicts who are perceived as strange. but the bad opinion has a fragile root. because we ignore the context. for 1943, a propaganda film, mixing few romantic and film noir slices, is the predictable tool for encouraging and answer to expectations. and this is the most useful angle for see it. because, if you ignore all the points of your superiority about it, it is a decent war film. and this, maybe, is the essential thing. because, behind the scenes, the real dramas are easy to be discovered. so, an useful lesson.