Pearl Horror 2001: "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly...."

By Burt Takeuchi
Nihonmachi Outreach Committee

Review based on a prescreening of the film made in Santa Clara CA. May 22nd, 2001 at the Mercado 20 Theaters. This was for the press and not a live audience.

The Good:
Pearl Harbor has fantastic special effects. Maybe the best aerial sequences ever created by Hollywood. It captures a young mans dreams on film ....the love of adventure and flying. The special effects are really dizzying so dont go if you get air sick.

Mako does a solid job portraying Admiral Yamamoto (Japan's greatest Naval Leader). Seaman Dorie Miller played by Cuba Gooding Jr was excellent. ( he was in the film for a short period of time)

Fortunately there is no overt stereotyping in the film. There is a scene of a Japanese American doctor (actor Vic Chao) trying to save a wounded soldier..but he gets pushed away "get away from me you Jap" (the scene is really really brief) Another is a really quick glimpse of a women fire crew who look to be Asian Pacific Islanders. (again a really quick shot)

The scene with the JA dentist "spy" was not as bad as what I had previously thought. The dentist character was called by an Imperial Japanese naval intelligence unit asking Hawai'ian locals about the weather conditions and ship movements. The signal was intercepted by MIS (Military Intelligence Service) which included a JA soldier as the interpreter. The dentist hung up the phone saying "what a strange call"..(Still feel that scene should have been edited to avoid any confusion about JA's spying for Imperial Japan. According to FBI statements by J Edgar Hoover there was no reason to suspect JA's at that time of being disloyal to the US).

The Bad:
The film starts of pretty well but drags in the middle, roars with the aerial sequences and ends with a thud. This movie is way too long! The Doolittle raid seems like it was tacked on at the end. The love story is really dull and lacks the romantic dialogue to make the scenes memorable. So most of the story is best experienced in the air not on the ground.

The Japanese spy character is more worrisome since he converses in the English in one of the scenes. The scene takes place in a crowded room probably in Hawai'i. Another Asian man is in the room and appears to be sorting photos. The thing is no other Japanese character in the film speaks English so is the spy speaking to a JA contact? (again this scene is really brief and blurs into the Dentist scene)

The Pearl Harbor battle scene is in about the middle of the film. Very graphic with lots of gore and human carnage during the air attack. Sort of like the Omaha Beach scene in Saving Private Ryan. The funny part was that there was so many Japanese planes in each shot that they seemed to be almost ready to collide with each other. (Reminds me of the flying saucers in Independence Day. (Japanese Naval pilots at that time were probably among the best in the world and would fly better formations than that)

The carnage scenes were very moving but I couldnt help feeling in the back of my mind that somebody out there will have trouble distinguishing between those guys buzzing around on the screen and Asian Americans?

The end of the film showcased the Doolittle Raid with Col. Jimmy Doolittle played by Alec Baldwin. This part of the film was the most disturbing and jingoistic. Sort of like saying "this is the part we get those guys back" kind of thing. The Doolittle character stated in a flight meeting: "I am not the type to be taken prisoner.....So I would just drive my plane into as many of those bastards (Japanese) and kill as many of them as I could" (ekkkkk I thought to myself cringing in my seat....can you imagine the crowd getting pumped on that line) To me that is the worst part of the film.

If the director (Michael Bay) included longer scenes containing Asian Americans, not only would it be a friendlier film to watch but a more accurate film. (Many Hawai'ian locals donated blood to help save hundred of wounded soldiers. Over 50 were killed mostly by friendly fire and many wounded) I could only remember seeing about 10 Asian American extras on screen. Considering the Island population was about 70% Asian Pacific Islander that is not much of a representation.

And The Ugly:
The ugly part of this film is that it is being released when China and the US are still simmering over the recent spying incident. A poll conducted last month stated that some feel that Chinese Americans (Asian Americans in general) are under suspicion for spying and are not trustworthy. With hate crimes rising against Asian Americans, this film could not have been released at a worse time. Fears of a possible backlash are legitimate.
WW2 was always racialized especially when America was not developing into a multi cultural society (like Hawai'i). The media (newspaper, radio, and film) had a huge part in creating these images depicting all Japanese as sub human fiends. This stereotype was so intense during WW2 that 110,000 JA were sent into concentration camps on the Mainland (Executive Order 9006). These media images not only pumped Americans up for war but left a lingering racist attitude against anything Japanese for generations. Pearl Harbor is a modern version of the WW2 story with magnificent special effects. There still leaves the possibility of re kindling some of the anger that many Americans experienced on the Dec 7th 1941...