The Emperor in August

Having seen the original Japans Longest Day, this modern colour update was welcome viewing.

The older movie was more melodramatic, with for example the junior rebels practically exploding in what we in the West would say was overacting, but perhaps this is a tradition of Japanese filmmaking. The latest film follows the same path in a less excited way. Depicting an ancient culture full of ceremony yet capable of producing army officers like Tojo, and th eon guy who suggested millions of kamikaze, it added to my sparse knowledge of the other side previously seen inToraTora Tora and The Emperor..As one who previously had an opinion of Japan only from the book The knights of Bushido by Lord Russell of Liverpool read at age 14, with depictions of horrors, it took Tora Tora Tora and these films to slightly change my opinion. Were the Americans right to drop two bombs. Absolutely! They were also right not to execute the Emperor.