Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970) USA
Tora! Tora! Tora! Image Cover
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Director:Kinji Fukasaku, Toshio Masuda, Richard Fleischer
Studio:20th Century Fox
Producer:Richard Fleischer, Elmo Williams
Writer:Ladislas Farago, Larry Forrester
Rating:4.5
Rated:G
Date Added:2006-03-27
ASIN:B000059HAI
UPC:0024543013174
Price:$14.98
Awards:Won Oscar. Another 7 nominations
Genre:Action & Combat
Release:2006-05-22
IMDb:0066473
Duration:149
Picture Format:Widescreen
Aspect Ratio:2.35:1
Sound:Dolby
Languages:English, Dolby Digital 4.1, English, Dolby Digital 2.1 Surround, French, Dolby Digital 1.0
Subtitles:English, Spanish
Features:Anamorphic
Kinji Fukasaku, Toshio Masuda, Richard Fleischer  ...  (Director)
Ladislas Farago, Larry Forrester  ...  (Writer)
 
Martin Balsam  ...  Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet
Sô Yamamura  ...  Vice-Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto
Joseph Cotten  ...  Henry L. Stimson, U.S. Secretary of War
Tatsuya Mihashi  ...  Commander Minoru Genda, Air Staff Officer, Japanese First Fleet
E.G. Marshall  ...  Colonel Rufus S. Bratton
James Whitmore  ...  Admiral William F. Halsey
Takahiro Tamura  ...  Lt. Cmdr. Fuchida
Eijirô Tono  ...  Admiral Nagumo (as Eijiro Tono)
Jason Robards  ...  Lt. General Walter C. Short, Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Army Hawaii
Wesley Addy  ...  Lt. Cmdr. Alvin D. Kramer
Shogo Shimada  ...  Ambassador Nomura
Frank Aletter  ...  Lt. Commander Thomas
Koreya Senda  ...  Prince Funimaro Konoye, Prime Minister of Japan
Leon Ames  ...  Frank Knox, U.S. Secretary of the Navy
Junya Usami  ...  Vice-Admiral Zengo Yoshida
Eijirô Tôno  ...  Vice Adm. Chuichi Nagumo (as Eijiro Tono)
Shôgo Shimada  ...  Japanese Ambassador Kichisaburo Nomura
Richard Anderson  ...  Captain John Earle
Comments: The incredible attack on Pearl Harbor.

Summary: "Sir, there's a large formation of planes coming in from the north, 140 miles, 3 degrees east.""Yeah? Don't worry about it." This is just one of the many mishaps chronicled in Tora! Tora! Tora! The epic film shows the bombing of Pearl Harbor from both sides in the historic first American-Japanese coproduction: American director Richard Fleischer oversaw the complicated production (the Japanese sequences were directed by Toshio Masuda and Kinji Fukasaku, after Akira Kurosawa withdrew from the film), wrestling a sprawling story with dozens of characters into a manageable, fairly easy-to-follow film. The first half maps out the collapse of diplomacy between the nations and the military blunders that left naval and air forces sitting ducks for the impending attack, while the second half is an amazing re-creation of the devastating battle. While Tora! Tora! Tora! lacks the strong central characters that anchor the best war movies, the real star of the film is the climactic 30-minute battle, a massive feat of cinematic engineering that expertly conveys the surprise, the chaos, and the immense destruction of the only attack by a foreign power on American soil since the Revolutionary War. The special effects won a well-deserved Oscar, but the film was shut out of every other category by, ironically, the other epic war picture of the year, Patton. --Sean Axmaker