Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970)

The incredible attack on Pearl Harbor.

In the summer of 1941, the United States and Japan seem on the brink of war after constant embargos and failed diplomacy come to no end. "Tora! Tora! Tora!", named after the code words used by the lead Japanese pilot to indicate they had surprised the Americans, covers the days leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor, which plunged America into the Second World War.

War History Drama japan hawaii world war ii pearl harbor u.s. navy pacific war soldier japanese army imperial japan 1940s informative

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Earnest, grave, epic and classical in form.

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CinemaSerfon TMDB · Dec 20257/10
This is told a little in the style of “The Longest Day” (1962) as it shows us both sides of the preparations for the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. With the US having moved it’s Pacific fleet from the safety of San Diego to an altogether more vulnerable location on Hawai’i, Admiral Kimmel (Martin Balsam) arrives to take command amidst considerable concern from his advisors - across the services, that the Japanese could attack with relative ease. Meantime, across the ocean the last vestiges of resistance to Japan’s alliance with the Nazis are being eroded and with Admiral Yamamoto (Sô Yamamura) now in charge of the imperial Navy, the momentum to attack becomes unstoppable. What might be a game-changer for the attackers is the ability to drop torpedoes from aircraft. The harbour was hitherto deemed to be too shallow for those to be effective, but the skilful airman Genda (Tatsuya Mihashi) thinks that with practice and a certain amount of audacity he can make this method of precision bombing work. In Washington D.C. the motions of diplomacy are still being gone through, with Secretary of State Cornell Hull (George Macready) and the Ambassador (Shôgo Shimada) trading political nicetie
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Dark Jedion TMDB · Apr 20187/10
I remember viewing this film as a kid shortly after it came out in Sweden. At that time I was not impressed. I was expecting an action filled war movie and what I got was a boring movie where the good guys got beaten up at the end. I do not think I even new anything about the real events in Pearl Harbor at the time. Naturally I view this movie in a somewhat different light and now and when re-watching it yesterday evening I enjoyed it quite a lot. I cannot help but wondering at the historical accuracy though. If someone would have told me that this was nothing but a Hollywood script, and a predictable at that, I would probably not have doubted it. Did all these blunders really take place? That the Japanese where not playing with all their cards on the table is clear but there where so many screw-ups all over the place. Sightings not being reported, communications a mess everywhere, people asking for confirmations in absurdum, lining up the planes like ducks on a shooting range etc. etc. If this is really what happened then some of those movie scripts that seems so ridiculous maybe are not as ridiculous as one might think? Naturally the film has the drawback of being predictable. Wh
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lwpcolonelon TMDB · Jan 2018
First off, this is a very good historical fictionalization of an epic event. Many parts are very accurate whereas others are more or less. This is after all a Hollywood movie, NOT a documentary such as "The World At War", so we can't be too critical about perfect accuracy. Originally it was supposed to be directed by two directors, 1 for the American story line, and Akira Kurosawa, for the Japanese story. There were rumored difficulties between Mr. Kurosawa and the American studio bosses so Mr. Kurosawa left the production despite having an uncredited role in scripting the Japanese part of the screenplay. I have read recently that the version that was being shown, of the historical account in the movie, was different than the conventional history's perspective. However, I would say that is only in demonstrating, theatrically, how Admiral Kimmel and General Short, who were scapegoats and put through rigorous Congressional Hearings after the actual event, may have taken ample precautions. That their shortcomings were due to communications being delayed or intelligence reports being withheld. I saw it in the movie theater in 1970, and many times since and have found it to be a very fa
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