Wonderful character development!

Better than most people think

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

If you want to get a really good feel for what took place in regards to Pearl Harbor this movie will suit you well. In addition, it is a also well done for entertainment purposes too. All my favorite movie stars and familiar faces are in this and the movie moves at a brisk pace which helps if you have a weak attention span. Notice that most the people on screen are overweight or have pot bellies and they are in the military too. There are also dated scenes but effective for their time. Landlines, old typewriters, and routines all stand-out but do not detract. I had the pleasure of seeing this in Hawaii in a huge movie theater with a large screen that was packed for the showing. I mean the movie is about Pearl and Oahu and we are there. People watched in silence and cheered in the right moments. It was a great experience. One visits with their feelings in regards to the Japanese doing what they did. To kill people without warning is similar to what terrorists do. In the movie, the Japanese Military realize the surprise attack while successful will also be used to bring people together for revenge sort of making a motivation to do so. Boy were they right about that. If you study history, you also see how the Japanese versions of war are strict and without mercy making the United States even more determined to end the war thus setting up the dropping of Atomic bombs. War is cruel. No one benefits. Innocents get hurt unjustly but when you consider who starts these aggressive acts, it puts into perspective what it takes to end these acts at all costs. Same goes for all tyrannical leaders and their beliefs. They can dish it out against the weak and the unprepared but they cannot take it when it comes back around to them. The bible comments about "calculating the costs" of anything before beginning truly wise words to this day. If men who govern and who share a planet in common cannot come to terms on how to live and share then it accuses everyone of failure in general. War is failure in the least basic terms and convicts all. Atrocities of war takes it to the lowest levels. What makes it all have a touch of insanity is that who we fought yesterday is today's friend and today's friend can be tomorrows enemy in this crazy imperfect world. Good movie to eat while watching with a tasty drink and a snack to follow. Tora Tora Tora means attack attack attack. I say it means to watch and enjoy this slice of history

Forget the junk movie Pearl Harbor by Jerry Bruckheimer that everyone keeps comparing to this one. This movie is better in every way, historically speaking and cinematic. Its acting is better, its accuracy is better and it's attack scenes are better. Unlike Pearl Harbor, this needed no computer animation whatsoever. No second is wasted.Tora! Tora! Tora! is an enjoyable movie even though the Americans seem helpless in the attack. The Japanese just keep bombing and bombing. The explosions in the attack are greatly constructed as are the death scenes of characters. One thing that I like the most about this movie is how it is shown from both point of views.

It is doubtless a good thing that Michael Bay was not around in 1970. If he had been, "Tora! Tora! Tora!" might have ended up as a bloated three- hour epic about a love-triangle involving Admiral Yamamoto, Admiral Kimmel and Tokyo Rose, with the attack on Pearl Harbor tacked on as an afterthought.Fortunately, he wasn't. The film we actually have takes a very different approach to that taken in Bay's "Pearl Harbor". There are no fictional love stories, indeed virtually no fictional characters at all. Rather, the film documents the Japanese preparations for the attack and the efforts of the Americans to understand what the Japanese were planning. The title (meaning Tiger! Tiger! Tiger!) is the Japanese code-word used to indicate a successful attack.Although some well-known Hollywood names took part, including Martin Balsam, Joseph Cotten and Jason Robards, there are no real star parts; this is very much an ensemble cast. One thing that struck me was how little James Whitmore, who plays Admiral William F. Halsey, resembled Robert Mitchum, who played the same role in "Midway" from a few years later; neither actor, in fact, looked much like the real Halsey. Any actor playing a major wartime army commander such as Patton or Montgomery would no doubt be carefully made up to resemble the man he was playing, but naval commanders seem to have been much less well-known to the public than their military counterparts, so such realism was presumably thought unnecessary. In many ways the film does not address the most interesting question about the attack, namely the question of why the Japanese leadership decided to take such a reckless gamble in the first place. Emperor Hirohito never appears, and General Tojo only appears briefly. The Japanese part of the film concentrates upon Admiral Yamamoto and his predecessor Admiral Yoshida, both of whom opposed war with the United States. It is implied that some Japanese leaders considered the Americans to be a spiritually corrupt, cowardly nation who would be unwilling to carry on fighting once their Pacific Fleet had been destroyed. It is also implied that the Japanese suspected the Americans of plotting an aggressive war against their country, especially after the Pacific Fleet was moved to Pearl Harbor from its normal base in San Diego, and therefore began planning a pre-emptive strike of their own. The film, however, never comes down definitively in favour of either explanation, possibly because it was an American–Japanese co-production and the Japanese film-makers might have been unwilling to explore their country's responsibility for the war in too much detail.The film is more interesting when considering events from the American viewpoint. Contrary to popular opinion, the attack did not come as a complete surprise. The Americans suspected the possibility of a Japanese attack, having deciphered a key Japanese code which allowed them to read diplomatic communications. Remarkably, the Americans actually fired the first shots of the day when a U.S. destroyer sank a Japanese submarine trying to enter Pearl Harbor, but reports of this incident were not passed to senior commanders while more junior officers awaited official confirmation.The film, in fact, tries to rehabilitate the reputations of Admiral Husband Kimmel (I wonder if Mrs Kimmel ever used to refer to "my husband Husband") and General Walter Short, the two officers who were made scapegoats for the disaster. The Americans certainly had enough information to anticipate the attack, but owing to a combination of incompetence and mischance this information was not passed to the two commanders on the ground until it was too late. Producer Darryl F. Zanuck" described the film as taking a "revisionist approach" which showed "what really happened on December 7, 1941".None of the many individuals depicted here emerge as really interesting characters; I suspect that this is more a film for the military or history buff than for the general viewer. As such, however, it works very well, and the action scenes showing the attack are extremely realistic; the aerial dogfight sequences will bear comparison with those in "The Battle of Britain" from the previous year. I greatly prefer the sober, documentary approach taken by Zanuck and director Richard Fleischer to Bay's overblown, turgid love-story. 7/10

Great Movie. All facts and 0 fiction. If someone wants to see a real ww2 movie, this is the one.Happy viewing. I had real interest in ww2 and this movie gave insight to many new things that were otherwise in my 'ignore' list. I wonder why this movie is having just 7.5 rating as I feel it should be 10/10. The only thing i didn't understand is as per movie they attack at 8AM on Sunday, however they are supposed to attack after 1PM(as per their instructions , they ask the ambassador to give the 14 page report at 1PM) . Either I didn't follow it fully or this is the sole mistake in the movie Anyway, a great movie. These kind of movies should be re-released so that newer generation can appreciate the movies taken during 70s