2.0 out of 5 stars
Revisionist nonsense, October 17, 2011
This review is from: Pride (aka Unmei No Toki) (DVD)
The film opens with scenes from India's independence, set to a Vangelis-type musical score. The script has an actor playing a soldier who fought in the failed Japanese attack at Imphal assert, "I spent my youth dreaming of the independence of India ". This is absolutely absurd - The Japanese didnt give*** for any Asian, particularly in those days. Moreover, very few Japanese soldiers survived the trek back to Burma from the failed Imphal attack.
Pride's main theme is that the victors had no right to judge those who had lost the war. Indeed, the film seeks to persuade that the Americans, having dropped atomic bombs, were themselves guilty of war crimes. Depositions related to the Rape of Nanking are dismissed as "mostly hearsay", and the film's script has Tokyo Trial chief prosecutor Keenan state, "most of the testimonies about Nanking would be useless in a regular trial". The Tojo character claims that Japan committed, "no legal wrong and no moral wrong". While he is shown to be a caring father, intelligent and having a sense of humour, the foreigners are portrayed as cold, calculating and lacking feeling . The film even contains the hackneyed cliché of many a post-occupation movie, American soldiers tramping their boots over tatami mats, filmed from ground level perspective.
This review is a slightly edited paragraph from my book Bubble to Quake, which can be read on the Authonomy site run by Harper/Collins. Lots more about the Japanese Army's behaviour, and revisionism in modern Japan.
Pride -Unmei no Toki is beautifully filmed, great opening scene, but was funded by a rich out and out right winger, and is propaganda for very selective ultra-nationalist version of the facts.
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3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Gripping masterpiece, September 25, 2007
This review is from: Pride (aka Unmei No Toki) (DVD)
This movie was released a few years ago in the US and quickly went out of print because of high public demand. For anyone interested in war and Japanese culture, this DVD is a must-see!
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