Review of Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970) by Chris B — 17 Jan 2014

Tora! Tora! Tora! was at the time, a big budget (25 million dollars) historical account of the Pearl Harbor attack that did well in Japan but was considered a boring and critical failure in the U.S. I watched the slightly longer Japanese Extended version of the film and running just shy of 2 and a half hours, the film does take a long time to get to the actual attack, which is an exciting and devastating attack sequence.

The majority of the film, that a lot of critics find boring, is a focused look at the politics involved at the time between The United States and Japan as well as the military on both sides and their methodology that lead to the attack and subsequent bombing of Japan.

There is a lot of frustrating moments in the film due to the historically accurate account of how and why the men in Pearl Harbor were not the wiser of the incoming attack. There was not one letter or telegram that caused the surprise attack, but a host of potential forewarning that were either ignored, looked over, or just plan taken casually by the officers involved.

The ending battle sequence, after the long-winded build up, is explosive and filled with action and battle between the shocked men on the ground and the Japanese bombers above and chaos abounds everywhere and with everyone involved.

While not the greatest of war films, it is a soid and historically accurate look at the incident and takes an outside approach to the situation and doesn't mix in love stories or other side stories and instead focuses on the attack and does better for doing so!