Strictly average movie

Expected more

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

A quietly beautiful film by Sokurov. As usual, the colors amaze, but not in the director's signature close-ups. (There are hardly any until the last scene.) This implies a lack of conventional humanism, and indeed it is so. Instead, we are asked to identify with a parasitic aristocrat- Emperor Hirohito- who wishes to renounce being worshiped as a god, if only to preserve his privileges, in the face of the American occupation of Japan. At first he seems the victim of a sick, heretical culture until you realize how much he understands the rules of the game. Finally, he seems all the more human for understanding those rules. Where does that leave the audience who identifies with him?

Make sure that you don't have any sharp objects near you when you watch this garbage because you will probably want to cut your wrist! Let me explain.My wife and I read the great reviews before we rented this so called movie. So after the first thirty minutes of unbelievable boredom, we both knew that it would probably crank up and take off. Not only didn't it take off, the battery was too weak for it to even crank up!In our desperate attempt to rationalize why this waste of time got such high reviews, we even started to try and pretend that it was some kind of dark comedy. It wasn't. Don't buy this movie or even rent the DVD. Let me see if I can explain it any clearer. If you have NetFlix, this movie is basically free because you only pay a small monthly fee, DON'T even waste having it mailed to your home. For that matter, don't even watch the instant stream!The only thing that we think this movie would be good for is to tell someone that you don't like how great it is!Don't believe us? Then rent it. . . Apology accepted:)

Sokurov's evocative account of Hirohito's fall from Heaven is mesmerizing in terms of narrative structure, photography and Ogata's performance. Ogata quite literally puts his life on the line by taking this role; he clearly feeds off that tension to provide a quite stunning portrayal of one of the 20th century's leading figures, one whose absence from artistic portrayal stands in juxtaposition to the pivotal role he played in leading his country through world war, nuclear destruction, to revival as an economic superpower. Think about Hitler, Mussolini, Churchill, Eisenhower, Stalin and Hirohito. Which one do you feel least able to describe? Sokurov and Ogata play on that enigmatic image. Ogata chooses to take the physical aspects of Hirohito that we know - the twitches, stiffness, child-like expressions - and amplify them to heighten the unreality of the situation, complementing Sokurov's other- worldly sepia tinted grainy photography. The film does not strive for historical accuracy. It is unlikely that Macarthur's interpreter would have been a nationalist zealot. The casting of Robert Dawson as Macarthur is the film's biggest failing - the man is more wooden than Sherwood forest. And the American photographers look like American students studying in Russia trying to earn a few rubles as extras - which is probably what they are. It is a shame that budget limitations and casting errors detract from what could have been a sublime artistic achievement. Ogata, in particular, should have been served better for the riveting performance he gives here. The Sun polemically considers what might have happened when God became man. No future attempt to portray the life of Hirohito on celluloid can avoid referring to this film. Few will emulate it. The genius here is in exploring Hirohito the man and his inadequate attempts to comprehend the momentous events that engulf him at the end of the war. By staying with him, and not pausing to bow one's head before Hiroshima, Nagasaki, or the fire-bombing of Tokyo, Sokurov provides a glimpse of a man who remains, even after his death in the late eighties, a complete enigma. The transition from deity to man happens briefly, but palpably, at the end, when Hirohtio the figurehead is shown to also be husband and father. The Sun is food for thought on a much neglected man.

Robert Dawson as MacArthur was a poor choice. He looks nothing like the real General, neither in height nor stature. In a famous photo of the period, MacArthur towers over Hirohito, even in His top hat, this framing suited the General's ego, and was not re-created in this film. Noticeably absent also, was the Generals favorite corncob pipe in this film, something the General was never without throughout World War 2.Other than that, the movie was a fascinating look at the Emperor's life, albeit from a very short time span. I thought this movie would have been much more interesting had it covered the start of the World War 2 with the Emperor receiving His Banzai's on His White Horse and seeming invincibility, to His ultimate fall from from a living God to That of a mortal being and a broken ruler.