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MARCH 14 – 20, 2013
How to act in the presence of an emperor
KIRSTY GRIFFIN/ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS
FILM REVIEW:
Emperor
This is a fascinating periodcostume account, a riveting
portrayal, and a wonderful
history lesson.
BY MARK JACKSON
EPOCH TIMES STAFF
Imagine if the president of the
United States was considered by
the American citizenry to be a
living god. Such a concept boggles the mind. But so it was with
Emperor Hirohito of Japan, his
deiﬁcation reﬂecting the ancient
heritage of divine emperors.
It’s the end of World War II, and
atomic mushroom clouds hover
over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Japan breaks down. American politicians want to know if Japanese
“god” Hirohito instigated Pearl
Harbor. Someone has to get to
the bottom of it. This is the story
told by the poetically rendered
ﬁlm “Emperor.”
We meet U.S. Army Brig. Gen.
Bonner Fellers (Matthew Fox),
a Japanese expert. His boss,
supreme commander of the occupying forces Gen. Douglas MacArthur (Tommy Lee Jones)—he of
the general’s hat, aviator shades,
and ridiculously elongated corncob pipe—hands Fellers the job.
The decision that Fellers has to
make is whether or not Emperor
Hirohito should be hanged as a
war criminal. Fellers is acutely
aware of the necessity of handling
the case with kid gloves, since
one false move or hasty decision
incriminating the emperor could
spark an uprising, not to mention
a huge, lengthy, expensive occupation. He’s given just 10 days to
ﬁgure it all out.
Two not-so-minor monkey
wrenches are thrown into the
delicate mix. One is Fellers’s
KIRSTY GRIFFIN/ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS
Tommy Lee Jones and Matthew Fox in Peter Webber's "Emperor."
affair of the heart with a Japanese exchange student he had
attended college with. She had left
him suddenly, without so much
as a goodbye note. Ultimately, she
affected his military decisions
to a not entirely insigniﬁcant
degree—he steered bombing
missions away from her home.
The second is General Richter
(Colin Moy), a brown-nosing,
dog-eat-dog rival who is intent
on shanghaiing Fellers’s work.
Embodying America’s thirst for
avenging Pearl Harbor, Richter
wants Hirohito hanged.
Assisted by a Japanese interpreter and driver he initially
treats badly, Fellers sets about
questioning top-rank Japanese
war criminals and surreptitiously
trying to ﬁnd his true love.
Throughout this ticking-bomb
ordeal, Fellers’s humanity ripens
and blossoms, enabling him to
reach the staggering decision that
led to the present-day relationship that America and Japan have
with each other.
'Endure the unendurable'
This is a fascinating period-costume account, a riveting portrayal, and a wonderful history lesson.
The names of Pearl Harbor, General MacArthur, and Hiroshima
ﬂoat about in most Americans’
subconscious minds, but many
have never heard the story or witnessed the drama underlying its
resolution.
The cinematography is wonderful as it captures the atmospheres
of green bamboo, meticulous Jap-
anese gardens, and bombed-out
metropolises. It depicts sittingon-the-ﬂoor-drinking-sake Japanese culture, and sons bowing
all the way down to the ground
in greeting.
There are also conversations
concerning Japan’s complete
devotion to one set of values, and
how, when the paciﬁstic emperor
told his people they must “endure
the unendurable,” seven million
soldiers unquestioningly laid
down their weapons in accordance with his divine will.
Very moving are the scenes of
Fellers demanding, from ﬁerce
Japanese sentinels, a face-to-face
with Japanese Prime Minister
Fumimaro Konoe.
Konoe says, “Your bombs
turned our children into shadows
Matthew Fox and Eriko Hatsune in a scene from "Emperor."
on the wall.” He recites a Tanka
poem that the emperor wrote,
in all its solemn operatic grandeur. He bows. We feel the spirit
of Shinto. We learn that if one
understands devotion, loyalty,
and obedience, one understands
the ancient warrior code of Japan.
We learn of how the emperor
lived a hermetic life. How he
stood up to the militarists. How
he had only his word.
Due to the conjectural nature of
the emperor’s innocence, MacArthur wants to meet for tea, wants
to look him in the eye, and see
what kind of a man the emperor
is. As he says, “I never met an
emperor before. Let alone a god.”
There are rules of engagement
when meeting a god: “Do not
touch the emperor, do not look
him in the eye, always stand to
his left, do not take photo opportunity,” and so on.
To ﬁnd out whether the
arrogant MacArthur behaves
himself, to hear the outcome
of a simple, heartbreakingly
honest conversation between
a god and a man, and to ﬁnd
out how America and Japan
transcended their grievances,
go see this ﬁne ﬁlm.
New Oz movie good stuff for the under 8 crowd
COURTESY DISNEY ENTERPRISES, INC.
FILM REVIEW: Oz the
Great and Powerful
BY MARK JACKSON
EPOCH TIMES STAFF
When I saw the original “Wizard
of Oz” at age six, I became terriﬁed of the Wicked Witch and
hid behind the couch. “Oz the
Great and Powerful” is, by and
large, a decent enough children’s
ﬁlm, but Sam Raimi is a former
horror movie director, so certain images made me, at age 53,
feel slightly in need of the couch
again.
Of course, today’s six-year-olds
are used to seeing far worse. Still,
ideally a six-year-old should
have a behind-the-couch-free
existence.
James Franco plays Oscar
Diggs, a travelling-circus magician with dubious ethics from
Kansas, circa 1905. Being a bit
of a rake, he runs afoul of the
resident strongman, escapes a
beating by jumping in his hotair balloon, and ﬂies smack into
a tornado.
As we all know, anything
sucked up in a tornado in Kansas
will get deposited in the Land of
Oz. As in the original ﬁlm, Kansas is shot in black and white.
The vibrant Land of Oz however
is multi-coloured, with multiethnic Munchkins. It’s a new era.
Oscar (Oz) meets sister-witches
Theodora (Mila Kunis) and Evanora (Rachel Weisz) who think
he’s the coming of the prophesied wizard king who’s supposed
to descend from the heavens to
kill the Wicked Witch.
Oz wants no part of any witch
killing, but when Evanora shows
him the massive gold pile he’d
stand to gain, he decides maybe
he can hang out with them for a
little while.
The script for "Oz the great and
Powerful" just isn’t that compelling. The ﬁlm looks pretty
great, but it’s ultimately ﬂash
over substance. Which is a boredom recipe for anyone over the
age of six.
A couple of years ago, Hollywood was delighted to discover
heretofore leading-man James
Franco had serious comedic
chops. However Franco’s Oz is a
pretty close relative of the slack-
er dude he played in "Pineapple
Express." It would have been
nice to see more of a rigorous
approach to getting the character’s walk, talk, and attitude
a little closer to the dust-bowl
Kansas of 1905.
Michelle Williams as Glinda
radiates goodness, Rachel Weisz
is a good, bad witch, and Mila
Kunis—beautiful as ever even
under a foot of green makeup—
needs a bit more vocal training.
Witches scream a lot; it’s hard on
the cords. The most endearing
and compelling character in the
movie is a little girl CGI porcelain doll, voiced by Joey King.
In the Broadway show “Wicked,” Oz fans learned the backstory of the Tin Woodman,
the Scarecrow, etc. “Oz” is the
back-story of the Wizard. We
learn the origins of his sham
supernormal abilities, how he
cons his way into the kingdom
and gets what is perhaps not
rightfully his.
What loss must he pay for
such gain? Well, he loses his slick,
sleight-of-hand, lying, cheating
huckster self. He uses his pedestrian magic skill-set, such as it
is, to save the kingdom. Balance
Oscar Diggs’s (James Franco) hot air balloon sails over the landscape of the Land of Oz in the
fantasy-adventure “Oz The Great and Powerful.”
would seem to be regained.
“Oz the Great and Powerful,” in
Right Way
PLUMBING AND HEATING LTD
3D, is good stuff for the under 8
crowd—minus the bits of imag-
ery that are just too scary for a
six-year-old. Bring a couch.
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