Customer Reviews

Rising Sun

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Michael Crichton's RISING SUN (and that's both movie and book) is sheer brilliance. Unfortunately for the average American moviegoer, this is a flick too loaded with subtleties and hidden clues to appeal to someone who's used to more explosions, shootouts, and decisive final confrontations. You must pay close attention to every line of dialogue in order to keep up, and in this the average viewer is going to lose interest. Which is a pity, as you are kept guessing throughout --it's presented in such a way as to enable you to see the point of view of almost every character. Snipes and Connery work extremely well off each other, Harvey Keitel plods through his usual role, Cary Tagawa shines as the unfortunate fall guy stuck between East and West, Tia Carrere proves that she's MUCH more than mere 'Wayne's World' eye candy, and the film's few deviations from the novel do not detract from the suspense --they actually help to keep the plot moving.

Don't believe the reviews --this movie is most emphatically NOT racist Japan-bashing; in fact such a reaction is even anticipated within the narrative. An excellent treatise on the mindset of the Japanese corporate and how ill-equipped American culture/politics is in dealing with it. Not overly violent, but there is a considerable amount of sensuality and a disturbing murder scene that, of necessity, is replayed over and over throughout the film --definitely not for children.

Like Michael Crichton's book on which this movie is based, "Rising Sun" hasn't aged well. That has nothing to do with the artistic effort itself, but is due rather to the reality of the post-bubble stupor of Japan over the last 12+ years vs. the hegemonic, ruthless superpower depicted in both book and film. Despite this disparity, "Sun" is worth seeing if for no other reason than to appreciate director Philip Kaufman's ability to stamp his own imprint on Crichton's tale.

As noted elsewhere on this page, Crichton and Kaufman had a famous falling out over Kaufman's efforts to bring "Sun" to the screen. In the recently re-released novel of "The Manchurian Candidate," Louis Menard wrote an introduction discussing John Frankenheimer's movie adaptation of that novel. Noting the criticism that Richard Condon's book seemed to read like a movie, he pointed out that current fiction masters like Michael Crichton "all but provide camera angles" in their works.

That may be true, but I credit Kaufman for bringing a lot of creativity and vision into the translation from print to screen. And it happens right from the start - it's a brilliant beginning to the film...you think you've stumbled into a Western, then via a very measured transition and pull-back, you release you're deep into a scene of Japanese sub-culture with tortured karaoke in a small watering hole.

That's great movie-making. Philip Kaufman wrote or adapted for the screen such classics as 'Raiders of the Lost Ark,' 'The Right Stuff' and 'The Outlaw Josey Wales.' This guy knows movies and how to stage a story. Crichton's criticism makes Kaufman's work all the more intriguing. Each work stands on its own merits. Even fans of the book can appreciate a movie that surpasses a simple shot-by-shot, by-the-numbers approach.

This "Blu-ray" version is excellent. The video portion is much smoother and the audio is "far superior" to the regular DVD. One has to appreciate that this movie was initially released on VHS and the regular DVD of it was not much of an improvement. This blu-ray takes care of all the VHS flaws of the origional DVD release.

This was a very interesting movie, though I found myself liking it for reasons other than what I had expected. I have read most of Michael C.'s books, but thought I'd short cut this one and just see the movie. I found myself very pleasantly surprised, even though the movie apparently was a very loose translation.

In terms of accuracy to Japanese culture, the movie does an admirable job of capturing 1980s Japan, as well as American paranoia surrounding it. If you accept the characters bias as irony, the movie does very well - at least as solid as Lost in Translation in capturing truth amongst the stereotypes.

The plot was interesting as well. There were enough twists and turns to keep one interested, and it's hard to figure out "Whoodunit?" until the last 20 minutes of the movie. Even with that, there's still some lingering uncertainty at the end. It's a movie that actually makes you think.

In the end I enjoyed the movie, an am convinced I need to read the book as well. It's a rare movie that does that.

There's no question that the novel upon which this movie is based is infinitely more complex and subtle. That being said -- when isn't that true in a comparison between paper and film?

Moving on to the film itself... the story is ostensibly about a young woman found murdered in a Japanese corporation's hq during a major gala. This main plot intersects with the secondary plot about this same corporation's controversial impending buy-out of a major American chip manufacturing company, thus potentially putting American secrets into Japanese hands.

What the movie is really about, of course, is the buy-out of an impoverished, corrupt, lazy, disorganized, and short-sighted America by the evil, manipulative, unfeeling, unsportsmanlike, and well, un-American, Japanese. There's no question that the anti-Japanese tone of Crighton's novel is carried directly to the screen.

That being said, this is a fairly interesting murder mystery, with lots of good red herrings and complex strategy involved in solving the case. It also has some interesting predictive scenes about the easy manipulation of video technology -- cutting edge in 1993, but commonplace now.

Sean Connery is his smooth, masterful self in this movie, and Wesley Snipes, while not given much to do except react in bafflement to both the Japanese and his new mentor, does the best he can.

The film is a bit long, but a perfectly satisfactory rental, esp. if you like Connery or Snipes.

Philip Kaufman's film adaptation of Michael Crichton's novel works best when it focuses on the murder of a high priced American call girl and the subsequent investigation by detective Web Smith (Wesley Snipes) and his liaison John Connor (Sean Connery). Unfortunately the film decides to throw a lot more into the mix ruining the overall quality of the film and leaving one a little confused. Since the victim was American and her body was discovered on the boardroom table in a Japanese high rise the film is full of racial tension. At times there's a strong anti-Japanese stance regarding American companies sacrificing power and security to partner with the Japanese yet the Connor character's sole purpose is to try to educate the American detective in the ways of Japanese culture and he is constantly praising their customs. It's interesting to note that the original screenwriters, which included Michael Crichton, walked off the picture since they were displeased with Kaufman's handling of it. This resulted in David Mamet coming in as a script doctor and doing an uncredited rewrite of the script. Knowing this it's fun to watch the film and try to spot what parts are his contribution. A dead giveaway is when Web's superior officer Graham (Harvey Keitel) starts referring to him as "Baby", a favorite Mamet term of endearment. As Web and Connor try to further their investigation they're met with resistance from the Japanese who refuse to provide witnesses or evidence essential to the case. Both men are also branded dirty cops who can't be trusted. The reason for these allegations are told in elaborate and confusing flashbacks. There are major continuity gaps particularly with the Graham character. In one scene he is shown to be guilty yet he shows up in the next scene interrogating a witness along with the cops who know of his guilt. Another confusing element was that one character is believed to be dead, we see someone die, and then we find out that that person really didn't die. That doesn't mean that he won't actually die for real later on in movie. There are subplots involving technology and how the surveillance tapes have been tampered with, there is a sleazy senator (Ray Wise) who is too eager to partner with the Japanese as opposed to his Washington constituents who are hesitant. Connery and Snipes are an odd pairing and there is a lot of humor in that idea alone. They are fun to watch for most of the film but at a certain point Connery's philosophizing and "tutoring" of the Snipes character gets boring and condescending. There are some very strong performances from the supporting cast which includes Steve Buscemi, Tia Carrere, the excellent Cary Hiroyuki Tagawa, and Mako. The film is well made and very stylish and it kept me involved and entertained even past the two hour mark but if director Kaufman would have trimmed the excesses and focused more on the murder investigation Rising Sun could have been a great crime thriller rather than a decent but failed one.

This was a good movie, though it seems they were trying to explain the culture difference between the USA and Japan. That doesn't sit as well as it used to, but if you can ignore that, it's a pretty good story.

This is an older movie and you can tell that they didn't put much effort into cleaning this title up. It's much better than the dvd I had, but not up to today's standards. This was one of the earlier blu-ray releases and it seems they've learned how to clean things up with more recent catalog titles.

Buy this movie if it's a favorite of yours as it's the best version available. If you are just looking for demo material or eye candy, keep moving, this ain't it.

I have only seen the Movie,Rising Sun is great, Sean Connery is a great actor and wesley snipes(before he got weird) is really good. I remember this movie for other reasons and saw it recently, I love the plot and story.

This movie is not always easy to understand but if you give it a couple of looks - and the DVD is worth it -all the pieces finally fit and it's a good two hours of entertainment.

This modern-day crime movie may have a lack of action compared to others of its genre but it never loses your attention. Sean Connery, Wesley Snipes and Harvey Keitel star, along with Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Kevin Anderson, Mako and Tia Carrere. This is a high-tech story (at least for 1993) as two cops try to figure out who murdered a woman.

It's Japanese-big business-politics intrigue with surveillance cameras being the key to figuring out a murder. Connery and Snipes complement each other as a "buddy" cop duo with Connery being mostly responsible for making this story interesting. The suave ex-James Bond plays the cool veteran and it's fun to watch him operate.

The only complaint I might have is the ending, a stupid romance-type story with Snipes and Carrere that was very post-climactic and not needed.

This movie was nowhere as bad as people say it is. It actually is a great mystery thriller film to Michael Crichton's best selling, and controversial novel. Apparently this movie was trashed by most critics when it came out in 1993, and Crichton and Philip Kaufman had a major fight over the changing of several major key things in the script. For example, the novel had a more overly anti-japanese slant, but this was toned down in part due to the studios corporate ties with Japan. A decision that gave alot of people a reason to hate this movie for being nonfaithful to the book. One of the major things that people got on this movie was the decision to cast Wesley Snipes, and Sean Connery as the leads, because of the lack of chemistry between them. I disagree with this arguement, because I feel that they were both perfect together, and played their roles just like in the book. Conner is the smart detective who's always right, and has full knowledge of how to do business with the Japanese. Smith is the other guy who follows Conner and watches him, wondering about how he knows all of the stuff that he seems to have full knowledge of. The rest of the cast played their roles to the T, especially Harvey Keitel as the racist cop towards the Japanese, but friendly towards Smith, who is black. Overall, a nice and well done movie, that should be seen, and judged by it's own standards, not because it's based on a novel.