I like Black Panther, but I didn't like this movie.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Unlike boilerplate propaganda films of WWII, this one has some complexity. I suspect Washington DC was smelling victory in 1943 and was correctly concerned with post-war occupation and how the American public would react. Thus, as other reviewers point out, the enemy is depicted as Japan's medieval warrior society and not the Japanese people as a people. The movie's propaganda aspects center on familiar stereotypes (cruel soldiers and inhumane policies), but more importantly, these ugly aspects are also portrayed as the result of a conditioning process (Taro), and not the result of some genetic, sub-human flaw as in typical propaganda films of the time. This distinction opens the possibility that a reformed social order with better values and socializing process can produce a more modern and democratic people better attuned to Western ideals (Tama, Reo, & the early Taro). The end result thus suggests that the Japanese people may be human after all, yet suffering from what may be termed a "social disorder"-- A disorder that a good dose of American-style democracy can remedy under an astute post- war occupation regime, such as Gen. MacArthur's turned out to be. Now, no matter how self- congratulatory these political assumptions may be, the result turns out to be shrewdly visionary in an historical sense.Of course, this is a pretty heavy load for what is essentially an RKO programmer. Nonetheless, the subtext plays out in a screenplay more shaded than most. I suspect audiences expecting something more typically simplistic were a bit put off by the ambiguities. Still and all, there are familiar American stereotypes to anchor the audience—the good-hearted Irishman (O'Hara), the competitive sportsman (Lefty), and the enterprising reporter (Sara). Revealingly, they're shown as getting along quite well with those liberally minded Japanese who will share power during the post-war period.This mixture of crude stereotype along with the more subtle humanizing aspect creates a rather awkward combination that doesn't work very well for the movie as a whole. Perhaps this is why the film remains pretty obscure in movie annals. Nonetheless, two episodes remain memorable for me. It's easy to overlook architect O'Hara's passing observation about sturdy Western construction materials. These, he points out, can withstand natural calamities that Pacific islands are prone to, such as earthquakes and floods, better than traditional, less substantial, Japanese materials. To me, this illustrates the potentials of a genuinely cooperative internationalism outside this particular one-sided context. Also, the central action scene of a gangly American boxer (Ryan) vs. a Japanese martial arts expert (Mazurki) may not be very convincing, but it certainly is eye-catching.Now, I'm in no position to judge the historical accuracy of the events depicted here and claimed as fact-based by the prologue. Nonetheless, the movie remains an interesting one for its generally humane message in a time of real war.

**Mild Spoilers** Surprisingly mild-in the propaganda department-motion picture for an American made war movie at the very hight, with the Axis winning at the time it was made, of WWII.The movie "Behind the Rising Sun" does show the Japanese as villains but only the most nationalist and fanatical as well as racist, towards the white or Caucasian race, among them. The Japanese people for the most part are shown being brutalized and exploited by Japan's Fascist military junta, headed by Gen. Tojo, as much as the Chinese people-who are under Japan's thumb-shown in the film. The film incredibly also shows that the Japanese Emperor Hirohito, descendant of the Sun God, as an innocent stooge being manipulate by Tojo's Military Junta and in no way involved in the crimes that he was at the time, in both US newspapers and heavily propagandized war films, accused of committing. This is exactly what happened two years later in the United State, under the urging of Gen MacArthur, and its allies refusing to indite Hirohito for war crimes! Which turned out to be one of the most brilliant decisions that Gen MacArthur ever made in peace as well as wartime!In "Behind the Rising Sun" we see the lives of father and son Reo & Toro Seki, J. Carrol Nash and Tom Neal, change directions because of the upheaval in their native Japan. Toro who was educated in America is anything like his father Reo in respecting or upholding Japanese tradition. Reo at first is as fanatical a Japanese nationalist as you can get but it's his son who in the end, after being brainwashed by the Japanese military, turns the corner and outdoes even his, who by then finally saw the light, gong-ho and kamikaze like pop! In fact as the movie starts we already see that Toro made the ultimate sacrifice for his country and wait to see, by watching the film, what exactly lead him to do it!Sent to fight in China as an officer in the Japaneses Army's Communication & Engineer Corps Toro became insensitive towards the horrors that his fellow Japanese soldiers inflicted on the helpless Chinese population. Back in Tokyo Toro's father Reo soon realized that his beloved country Japan was descending into barbarism, in its plans to conquer the entire world, and wanted no part of it. I wondered watching the movie if those behind it were somehow trying to put a wedge between Japan and its ally in WWII Nazi Germany! In its hinting that Germany being as white and Caucasian as any nation on earth would be on Japan's hit-list after it, together Germany & Italy, won the war!It becomes very apparent to Reo that his son Toro had gone off the deep end when he came back home on leave from China and even worse he, in his pushing Japanese nationalism on Toro, together with him being indoctrinated by the Japaneses military was a major cause of it! With his son now gone forever, killed during the 1942 Doolittle raid on Tokyo, Reo could no longer face what he did and did the only thing left for him to do by doing-via Hiri Kiri- himself in Japanese style.Together with the very deep and thought-provoking political menu in the movie we also have Toro's love interest the exotically beautiful Margo as Tama Shimamuka as well as a secondary love affair with American businessman Clancy O'Hara, Donald Douglas, and American newspaper woman Sara Braden, Gloria Holden, which was more or less padding or fillers, to stretch the film to it's eventual 88 minutes, then anything else.P.S By far the best part of the movie had nothing at all to do with the war but a knock down drag out "Battle of the Century" between American prizefighter Lefty O'Doyle, Robert Ryan, and Japanese martial arts expert, even though he's about as Japanese as I'm inner Mongolian, Mike Mazurki. That incredible slug fest between the two giants of pugilism was more then worth the price of admission!

Well, where do I start? I would like to point out some erroneous statements by the first viewer commenting. He states that the introductory statement says it is "100% true" and "authentic". Actually, its says "true-to-life", which I would construe to be similar to today's films saying that the movie is "based on...". It states that the film is not biographical, but the incidents depicted did occur. We know from historical works that the Japanese were responsible for many atrocities in China, especially Manchuria...the giving of opium to the starving villagers, the bayoneting of infants and toddlers, the raping of Chinese women and the setting up of houses of prostitution to "service" the Japanese Army & so on. So as Hollywood has always done, they take real facts and fictionalized & personalized them to give them more impact. A statement by the previous commenter, about how all the major roles were played by white actors, while actors of Japanese heritage played lesser/support roles. Well, as far as I can tell by cast listing, there were no Japanese actors in the movie. Philip Ahn (Korean descent), Benson Fong and the other Asian actors are Chinese ancestry. J. Carroll Naish had played other Asian characters throughout his career. Tama was played by Mexican-American actress, Margo (married to Eddie Albert).Tom Neal makes a very strange Japanese, even for the time...For a propaganda film, it is more even handed in its portrayal of the Japanese characters and the upheaval in Japanese society then many war films of its day. There are two story strands, the brutalization of Taro, from a americanized frat boy to a murdering martinet and the humanizing of his father, Reo Seki, who comes to see the loss of son and his son's happiness in marriage to Tama, a farmer's daughter and the destruction of the rigid social order of his beloved country... The Russian is portrayed positively; the German a bit dismissively; and the three Americans (woman reporter, the male engineer, the baseball coach), are all different faces of American society: the brave American (the woman reporter); the status-quo American (the engineer) and the "ugly" American (the baseball coach).

Today (even in 1943) this film is very racist dealing with Japanese son educated in US goes back to Japan and takes part in atrocities there and in China. The whole China sequences are very grisly and actually disturbing, such as nailing the baby to the door by his/her pigtail along with the usual raping and pillaging of the Chinese countryside. They even keep the Chinese drugged up with free heroin handouts from trucks that pull into the villages. There is just one "good" Japanese character in the movie, the female secretary who works for an American architect caught in Japan with some Western reporters when WW2 finally erupts. But then these characters get tortured and sentenced to death. On the whole film it is NEVER boring...never. It has very good production and fine actors (even though Japanese are all played by white Europeans a la Charlie Chan). Now get this! RKO was asked by US government to make a picture that would portray Japanese in a real and fair way instead of the crop of anti-Japanese pictures that were made already so to stave off racial hatred toward this group. It was rampant in US (not so, for Germans though, interestingly films about Nazi's always had numerous "good" Germans, never in propaganda Japanese films who were usually portrayed as sub human hordes.)Anyway this was Hollywood's answer to the problem. Unbelievable! Film though is considered an excellent yet hysterical example of WW2 propaganda at the time.