Storm Over the Pacific (1960)
I Bombed Pearl Harbour (1960)
DVD9 | VIDEO_TS | NTSC 16:9 | 01:58:09 | 8,06 Gb
Audio: Japanese AC3 5.1/1.0 @ 448/192 Kbps + Music track only | Subs: English
Genre: Drama, War
DVD9 | VIDEO_TS | NTSC 16:9 | 01:58:09 | 8,06 Gb
Audio: Japanese AC3 5.1/1.0 @ 448/192 Kbps + Music track only | Subs: English
Genre: Drama, War
The attack on Pearl Harbor is presented from the Japanese point of view in this war drama. The story centers upon Natsuki, the flight navigator for Admiral Isoroku Yamaguchi, the task force commander in charge of the fateful attack. After the bombing, Natsuki returns to Japan where his fiance waits. Though they are childhood sweethearts, he, fearing that marriage will affect his competence as an officer, refuses to marry her. The war continues, and Natsuki begins to wonder if the Japanese fleet is truly invincible after they suffer a series of crushing defeats. His own carrier is sunk by American bombers at Midway. As they sink, the crewman stand at attention and salute.
IMDB
The film from the Ampo era was Japan’s more obscure 1960 Japanese film Hawai Middouei Daikaikūsen: Taiheiyo no Arashi (lit., The Sea and Air Battles of Hawaii and Midway: Storm on the Pacific), released in the U.S. in 1962 under several titles (Attack Squadron, Kamikazi, Storm Over the Pacific), most commonly I Bombed Pearl Harbor.27 Even if somewhat difficult to find, I Bombed Pearl Harbor is one of the only Japanese war films known in the United States among war history buffs (as distinct from art house audiences to whom the more coherently pacifist films such as the Burmese Harp and Black Rain are well known). Its marketing across both nations warrants some critical comparison with Tora! I Bombed Pearl Harbor was directed by Matsubayashi Shuei, whose fame was eclipsed by the Special Effects Technician, Godzilla's peerless creator Tsubaraya Eiji. Given their experience with monster movies, including Godzilla, as well as other war movies, it is unsurprising that they favored technological inscriptions in the cinematography. Matsubayashi was also a Navy veteran. This film is also notable for its mega-star, Mifune Toshiro, who acted the part of Admiral Yamamoto.
Storm Over the Pacific (1960)
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I Bombed’s three-act drama starts with the Pearl Harbor attack, cuts back to what is happening to the characters’ home lives in Japan, and ends with an extended treatment of the defeat of the Japanese invasion fleet at Midway, widely regarded as the turning point in the war. The extended treatment of the Midway battle—a military and national debacle that sealed Japan’s fate, even if it would take over three years of catastrophe to finalize it–sets up a tragic narrative that frames the film’s multiple parts. Within this framework more personal stories can be told, depicting humanized individuals caught in the machinations of geopolitics. The film concludes with a coda that has been a dominant theme in Japanese reflections on the Pacific War, questioning the militarism and patriotism that took citizens into war- an entirely different ending from the prototypic American moral imperative for Pearl Harbor (“be prepared,” fight back, and overcome).
Storm Over the Pacific (1960)
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Yet as in other films, there are enough layers and ambiguities that I Bombed yields multiple interpretations. As some critics have noted, this narrative of inevitable defeat also creates a context for accentuating the actions of Japan’s loyal young men as noble self sacrifice, an impulse that has received full expression in recent cinematic depictions of the sacrifice of young kamikaze pilots such as Firefly (Hotaru), directed by Furuhata Yasuo (2001) or For Those we Love (Ore wa, kimi no tame ni koso shini ni iku) scripted by Ishihara Shintarō (dir. Shinjo Taku, 2007).
Storm Over the Pacific (1960)
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Despite its blockbuster special effects and all-star cast, I Bombed Pearl Harbor is barely known, even in Japan. Kinema Junpō reported that the film was popular when it first opened in the year of Ampo, 1960. High-profile film critic Yodogawa Nagaharu 's critique for that publication may have been responsible for the film's evaporation from the war genre pantheon, as we failed to find any other reviews beyond his. While praising Tsubaraya's skills, he was profoundly skeptical of the Hollywood-ization of the narrative: the need to make everything big, violent and expensive. (Ironically, Yodogawa subsequently became known for his infatuation with Hollywood and promotion of American blockbusters on television.) Yodogawa's main concern lay with the unintended consequences of the narrative, how young people with no experience in war would react to it, if they might put on uniforms and go off to war as if it were “the most interesting big game” humanly possible. Just to tell the story of the battles of Pearl Harbor and Midway would be a reasonable thing in itself, he acknowledges, but in Japan that story might easily become a template for a Pacific War Chushingura – the classical story of botched vengeance told thousands of times in theatre, narrative and film. I Bombed Pearl Harbor however, is not even worthy of such a dubious prospect, he lamented, since it is nothing but a "spineless umbrella," a spectacle of special effects and fireworks.
Storm Over the Pacific (1960)
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Yodogawa hoped for a stronger human component, arguing that if the film had better dramatized the war's effects on more ordinary people on the home front, such as the scene where the protagonist returns to see his mother and get married, then more violent war scenes could have been spared. He was skeptical about the miniaturized special effects and found the ending sloppy as well; the whole film was just “playing around”.
Storm Over the Pacific (1960)
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Even the low level of response to I Bombed Pearl Harbor in Japan seems substantial in comparison with the near invisibility of the film in the United States. When distributed in the United States, the film was always billed as a story of the bombing of Pearl Harbor “from the Japanese perspective.” The promotional notes proclaim, “. . . . these are the events of the war seen through the eyes of the Japanese.” At the time of release in the U.S., one of the film’s posters depicted a large image of the attack pilot’s face and asks, “Where were you on December 7, 1941? This man was in a Japanese Zero over Pearl Harbor.” While this strategy of promoting the film as a glimpse into the perspective of former enemies might intrigue those interested in war history and technology, it did not engage mainstream American audiences.
Storm Over the Pacific (1960)
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A cover blurb for the video of I Bombed concludes with a note that the film’s realistic recreations of battle scenes make the film “especially interesting for history buffs.” As is also the case for Tora! the film clearly has a high techno appeal for audiences interested in war history and the fine details of special effects productions. The promotional liner touts the film as a “Technicolor epic that holds the record for most ships destroyed per minute of film.” There is, then, likely to be little overlap between the audience for this film and those interested in antiwar dramatic films such as Kobayashi Masaki 's trilogy The Human Condition, Burmese Harp, or Fire on the Plains.
Storm Over the Pacific (1960)
This film, in Japanese, can be watched even without knowing a word of Japanese. It is pretty old now, but well put together.
Personally, I have seen many films about Pearl Harbor, but the ones that are quite interesting are from the other sides perspective. Most war movies I have seen have been saying that the Allies were the 'goodies' and the Axis powers were the 'baddies'. That is why this film is an excellent way to show how the Japanese felt about the Pearl Harbor bombing!IMDB Reviewer
Storm Over the Pacific (1960)
Special Features:
- Audio commentary (in Japanese)
- Trailer
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