Tora! Tora! Tora! [DVD] [1970]

I would full heatedly agree with the other very favourable reviews of both content and picture quality. No one seems to have mentioned that on the Blu-ray there is an excellent collection of ten short Fox Movietonews Items. The documentary 'A day of Infamy' which was on the DVD is also included. Also 'History vs Hollywood Tora Tora Tora A giant Awakes' and 'AMC Backstory' which tell of the making of and that for once how the American Studio tried to truthfully recreate what had actually happened rather than pervert the path of truth to show how heroic and single handed Americans had won the last war. You have to remember that this film was made before the days of CGI and real planes were built specially for the film. The next evening after watching Tora Tora Tora I watched 'Pearl Harbour',it's too much love story /relationships and though the attack on Pearl Harbour is more dramatic, is does rather look like an arcade game! Highly recommended to those who like the film and worth the upgrade from DVD especially for the very interesting extras.

20th Century Fox's genuinely spectacular account of the attack on Pearl Harbor told from both the American and Japanese viewpoints was in real terms an even bigger financial disaster for the studio than Cleopatra: even by latter-period roadshow standards, reminding American audiences of the incredible catalogue of blunders and incompetence that led to the Day of Infamy at a time when they were in the midst of another war in Asia (and one that was not going well) seems like business decision making at its most kamikaze. The film has probably made more money out of being carved up for stock footage than it ever did in the cinema, featuring prominently in Midway, Pearl and both The Winds of War and War and Remembrance among others.

Like Cleopatra, it was a troubled production: Akira Kurosawa worked on the Japanese side of the film for months but delivered only one brief scene in the finished film before being replaced by two more special effects friendly directors (Toshio Masuda and Kinji Fukasaku) while on the American side Richard Fleischer relied on Ray Kellog and Robert Enrietto to shoot much of the spectacular finale.

From the last days when films were consciously visually designed for the Scope screen, it is mounted on a scale that would be inconceivable today - what Pearl Harbor did with CGi it did with real ships and aircraft - with a tight, focused script that dispenses with fictional sub-plots (no Ben Affleck winning the Battle of Britain single-handed here) in favour of absolute historical accuracy. Seen entirely from the military and political mindset, it has the edge on most cinematic exercises in battlefield history through the conviction of its direction, particularly the visually impressive Japanese sequences, and of its playing. With the exception of Soh Yamamura and E.G. Marshall, most of the top-liners are barely in the film, but the large ensemble cast copes surprisingly well with the task of having to embody attitudes and impart information rather than working on clearly defined characters, adding the colour as they find it in the gaps. Perhaps most surprising is the incredible degree of tension the film manages to achieve in the run-up to the attack despite the inevitability of the outcome. When it finally comes, the special effects are among the best ever seen on the screen. Jerry Goldsmith's score is also a major plus, relentlessly building menace and tension as the film races toward the inevitable.

While the previous DVD issue was pretty threadbare, this Cinema Reserve edition has a number of features covering both the making of the film and the real attack itself, although a 20-minute featurette from the first US DVD release but dropped from the original PAL release, Day of Infamy, has still not been included (it can be found on the US two-disc version, however).

Now that all the hoopla is over as to which is the best Pearl Harbor film we can concentrate on "Tora! Tora! Tora!" (1970) this recreation of the Day of Infamy.
Naturally there will always be those people that are not satisfied with the accuracy of this recreation. And there is the compromise of having both sides of the story in one film.
Other than a will paced film that keeps your attention, the real surprise is all the DVD goodies. The most important is the running narrative. It does some of the explaining of the differences between this film and reality without making excuses. After watching first with out the narrative, then with the narrative, it is time to watch it again and notice the points made on how the scenes were shot, the people picked and how they attempted to make the bulk of the film comply with history as we remember.
It does not make sense to repeat the narrative or the story in this review. Let's just say you will not be disappointed with the movie