Review of Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983) by Miles K — 20 Sep 2010

First time I had seen this film and I have to say that in the end it was the sort of awkward mess that I expected it to be. This could have been a good, if possibly less fascinating, movie, if they had taken out the Sakamoto and Bowie characters and just developed a story round Tom Conti and Takeshi.

Their relationship is the most enduring and authentic and there is real screen chemistry and emotion in the times when they are on screen together. Conti also makes a surprisingly good stab at speaking Japanese (apparently he learnt his lines phonetically).

But I was totally unconvinced by Bowie as the enigmatic but ludicrous Celliers, whose behaviour and flashbacks to his school days are just cringe-inducing. And Sakamoto's Yonoi seems like a caricature of Mishima.

Some of the other characters also seem like stereotypes out of war films of the past. There is undeniably some good and interesting stuff in the movie, the soundtrack is unforgettable, and it is a brave attempt to portray a different side of life in a POW camp, but it is undermined by overwrought confrontations and wooden acting.