Emperor

Plot synopsis:
Brigadier-General Bonner Fellers is sent to Japan as a part of the occupation force. He is tasked with arresting Japanese war criminals, including Prime Minister Hideki Tojo. Before he departs, he privately orders his Japanese interpreter, Takahashi, to locate his Japanese girlfriend, Aya Shimada. After arresting Tojo, the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, General of the Army Douglas MacArthur informs Fellers Emperor Hirohito can be tried as a war criminal. Doing so could lead to a revolt, but the American people want the Emperor to stand trial for Japan's actions. MacArthur gives Fellers ten days to investigate the Emperor. When Takahashi informs Fellers that Aya's Tokyo apartment was bombed. Fellers orders him to investigate her hometown, Shizuoka.
Fellers and his staff compile a list of people who were with Emperor Hirohito when the war started. Because none of the Japanese who are friendly to the Americans are among them, they resort to enticing Tojo to give them information. During a visit to Sugamo Prison, Fellers demands Tojo give him three names. He, instead, gives one: Fumimaro Konoe, the former prime minister. Fellers goes to Konoe's home and asks him if the Emperor was responsible for starting the war. Konoe gives no conclusive evidence, but directs Fellers to Kōichi Kido, Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal. While Fellers waits to meet with Kido, he recalls the time before the war when Aya suddenly returned to Japan. Takahashi informs Fellers Kido will not show up.
Fellers recalls his 1940 visit to Tokyo when he reunited with Aya, then an English teacher. He learns Aya returned to Japan after her father became ill and died. In a banquet at MacArthur's residence, Brigadier-General Richter informs Fellers that MacArthur will not look bad to the American public. After the banquet, Takahashi informs Fellers Shizuoka was bombed; Fellers immediately travels there. He is devastated by the damage and orders Takahashi to find a list of the dead.
Fellers recalls his visit to Aya's uncle, General Kajima, for help with a paper on the mindset of the Japanese soldier. Kajima insists if America and Japan were at war, the Japanese would win because of the Japanese soldier's sense of duty to the Emperor. When Fellers returns to Tokyo, he decides he must interview Teizaburō Sekiya, a member of the Privy Council. Sekiya, like Konoe, does not give any evidence to exonerate the Emperor.
During Fellers' interview with Kido, he discusses the time before the Japanese surrender. The Supreme Council's deadlock between those in favour of surrender and those who were not led the Emperor to address the Council. Because there were strong militarists in the army, the Emperor made an audio recording of his order to surrender. Before the recording could be broadcast, the militarists attempted a coup and attacked the Imperial Palace. The Emperor and Kido survived and broadcast the recording. Unfortunately for Fellers, the other witnesses committed suicide and all records were destroyed, leaving him only with Kido's testimony. Kido informs Fellers the Emperor's role is, in actuality, a ceremonial one and the Emperor was influential in ending the war.
Fellers decides to visit General Kajima, who was also Aya's uncle. He explains to Kajima the Japanese people are selfless and capable of great sacrifice as well as unspeakable crimes because of their devotion to a set of values. Kajima does not know if the Emperor is guilty, but he notes his role in ending the war. He gives Fellers a box of folded letters written by Aya to Fellers and learns Aya died in an Allied bombing raid.
Fellers concludes it cannot be determined whether the Emperor is guilty or innocent, but his role in ending the war was significant. He gives his conclusion to MacArthur, who is displeased because of the lack of conclusive evidence. Fellers argues the Emperor should be exonerated as the Allies agreed they would allow Japan to keep him as the head of state. MacArthur orders Fellers to arrange a meeting between him and the Emperor. Before the Emperor arrives, Fellers informs MacArthur of his role in diverting Allied bombers away from Shizuoka. MacArthur replies because no American lives were lost because of it, he will turn a blind eye. When Emperor Hirohito arrives, he offers himself to be punished rather than Japan. MacArthur states he has no intention of punishing Japan or Hirohito and wishes to discuss Japan's reconstruction.

Tags: flashback

Review:
Very interesting story about General Fellers who is given the impossible task to investigate the Emperor's role in the lead-up to war,.
This nice movie tells a fictionalized account based on the actual life story of US Army Brigadier General Bonner Frank Fellers who served under General Douglas MacArthur .
On the staff of General Douglas MacArthur (Tommy lee Jones), the de facto ruler of Japan as Supreme Commander of the occupying forces, a leading Japanese expert, General Bonner Fellers (Matthew Fox) is charged with reaching a decision of historical importance: should Emperor Hirohito be tried and hanged as a war criminal?
Interwoven is the story of Fellers' love affair with Aya (Eriko Hatsune), a Japanese exchange student he had met years previously in the U.S. Memories of Aya and his quest to find her in the ravaged post-war landscape help Fellers to discover both his wisdom and his humanity and enable him to come to the momentous decision that changed the course of history and the future of two nations.This is a good drama war with emotion , suspense , thrills , culture clashes , and historical events .
Excellent cast gives good acting as Fox who plays Bonner Fellers, a general who's sent to Japan to decide if Emperor Hirohito will be hanged for war crimes ; starring alongside him is Eriko Hatsune as Aya Shimada, a woman Fellers romanced years earlier, and Tommy Lee Jones as legendary Us military figure General Douglas MacArthur.
This true life story was one worthy of big-screen treatment .The picture is well based on true events , these are the followings : After the war, Fellers played a major role in the occupation of Japan.
Soon after occupation began, General Fellers wrote several influential memoranda concerning why it would be advantageous for the occupation, reconstruction of Japan, and U.S. long range interests to keep the Emperor in place if he was not clearly responsible for war crimes.
Emperor (2012) In his rule over Japan as Supreme Commander of the occupying forces after World War II, General Douglas MacArthur was probably as benign a dictator as history has recorded.
MacArthur's decision became the lynch-pin of his policy there: to respect the cultural differences instead of seeking to override them, and to try to bring together the best that both Japan and the western powers had to offer.The movie deliberately avoids clarifying which emperor the title refers to.
The film strongly hints that MacArthur had already made up his mind about the treatment of Hirohito, which he almost certainly had, but wanted Fellers to supply the rationale for his decision.The film has three threads that run throughout: MacArthur's occupation of Japan; Fellers' investigations leading to his written opinion; Fellers' search for his Japanese friend amidst the post-war chaos.
MacArthur is, historically, the man who made the real decisions, and, especially as played by Jones, a figure far more fascinating than Fellers.By contrast, the part of Fellers (Matthew Fox of "Lost") seems dull, unfocused, and even clumsy, particularly considering the crucial days in which it is set.
The contrast between the real beauty of Japan and the wartime devastation is particularly effective.This movie has many good things going for it, particularly Tommy Lee Jones (and MacArthur himself).
Starring Tommy Lee Jones as General Douglas MacArthur and Matthew Fox as MacArthur's subordinate officer General Fellers, it is set against the backdrop of the early occupation of Japan by U.S. forces after World War 2.
Jones' MacArthur assigns the task to Matthew Fox's character as he is an expert on Japan - now Fox's character has only 10 days to investigate the Emperor's involvement and come to a decision.
In the meantime, the viewers also see flashbacks from Fellers' past, and there is a subplot involving Feller looking for his lost lover.Tommy Lee Jones is plainly having lots of fun as the blustering larger- than-life Douglas MacArthur, and Matthew Fox delivers a good performance with moments of extreme intensity.
The film was shot in New Zealand and Japan (in fact it's the first movie to film inside the Japanese Imperial Palace) and it's gorgeous - the ruins of bombed out Tokyo are especially impressive, and of course the Imperial Palace as a backdrop is fascinating.The quibble I had with the movie is that it tries to create a sense of urgency and suspense, but since it's based on historical events it largely fails.
For that alone the film is well worth watching.The setting of the film is 1945 when General MacArthur (Tommy Lee Jones) steps onto the shores of Japan as the Supreme Commander of the occupying forces.
Assigned to rebuild Japan after the war MacArthur selects General Bonner Fellers (Matthew Fox), a man with a history with Japan before the war, including a love affair with a Japanese student Aya Shimada (Eriko Hatsune) in America before the war: Aya returned to Japan when relations with between Japan and the US began to dissolve and Fellers followed her for a futile attempt to overcome differences between cultures and impending historic changes, to investigate whether Emperor Hirohito (Takatarô Kataoka) should be tried and hanged as a war criminal.
The plot is straightforward: General Bonner Fellers (Matthew Fox) is hired by General Douglas MacArthur (Tommy Lee Jones) to investigate the role of Emperor Hirohito (Takataro Kataoka) during World War II, to investigate whether the Emperor should be tried as a war criminal.
However the film is about a lot more than just conduct during war; it is a story of cultural adaptation, as Fellers comes to know something about Japanese attitudes towards the conflict, and how they differ significantly from those embraced by the Americans.
In the fine biographical movie MacArthur which starred Gregory Peck as the controversial general only a small part was devoted to the years as Supreme Commander Allied Powers in charge of the occupation of Japan.
Matthew Fox is General Fellers and he's got another mission for himself, to find an exchange student from Japan from his youth and whom he knew up to the declaration of war between the USA and Japan.Tommy Lee Jones plays MacArthur and while he doesn't have that majestic cultured voice that MacArthur had, he still creates a good impression of the imperious general who had a dislike of civil authority.
He faced until the surrender the distinct possibility of being overthrown himself by one of his siblings.Matthew Fox and Tommy Lee Jones and the Japanese cast are perfectly cast in their roles and I recommend this film as good entertainment and for those with an interest in the Far East..
I was a little surprised with the romantic subplot, since I was not expecting that but I enjoyed it.Peter Webber's film takes place right the Japanese surrender in World War Two. General Douglas MacArthur has a tough choice here.
Matthew Fox as General Bonner Fellers also does a good job as he puts together a report stating his beliefs about Hirohito.Overall, Emperor is a great film, especially from a historical perspective.
It's a thoughtful and (for the most part) balanced view of the dilemma facing MacArthur and the American occupation of what to do about Emperor Hirohito at the end of the Pacific war.
The American public and the Justice Department want the emperor tried as a war criminal and most likely hanged, while MacArthur knows he needs the emperor and his mystical appeal to the Japanese as a veritable god to effect the enormous political and social changes that he and the occupation authorities are planning for post-war Japan.
The 10-day evaluation period comprises a search for Hirohito's associates to solicit exonerating information about the emperor's wartime culpability and constitutes the focus of the film.Tommy Lee Jones plays Gen. MacArthur and he conveys the necessary swagger and command presence (see "The Fugitive") that the imperious general wore like a second skin.
Matthew Fox makes a very conscientious Gen. Fellers, and the Japanese actors, who are obscure to us but famous in Japan, do a marvelous job of portraying dignified, protective, demure (dare I say it: inscrutable) imperial officials who cannot explicitly exonerate the emperor but neither can they point to incriminating evidence.
In the film Gen. Fellers uses Hirohito's role in overcoming Japan's August 1945 Cabinet deadlock by directly speaking to the Japanese people to "endure the unendurable" to justify maintaining the emperor's role in post-war Japan, and MacArthur agrees which allows him to meet with the emperor, have that famous photo taken with just the two of them, and then proceed to unify the Japanese under the emperor's continuing presence to effect his reforms and to make Japan a U.S. ally in the post-war world.It is interesting to note that some of the same political (cold-war) issues were confronted in Stanley Kramer's "Judgment at Nuremberg"; some of the U.S. occupation officials in Germany were advising the prosecutors to be lenient with some of the Nazi judges on trial because Germany was going to be needed as an ally against the Soviets.
Following the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, American forces lead by General Douglas MacArthur (Tommy Lee Jones) and General Bonner Fellers (Matthew Fox) are tasked with finding out if the Emperor of Japan is guilty of war crimes.
General Fellers' story is one of the least known but most compelling stories of World War Two, and while the film takes several steps away from the truth, it brings to light both what the American military power and the Japanese culture had to go through at the end of one of the most internationally volatile periods in history.
Matthew Fox and Tommy Lee Jones play polarising American WW2 army generals to a tee in Emperor, the compellingly true story of the aftermath of the war in Japan, and the concerted US effort to compile enough evidence to convict Japanese Emperor Hirohito of war crimes.
Trained on a seldom-acknowledged aspect of mankind's greatest battle, Emperor infuses a grand story with intimate relationships, making for a superb addition to the voluminous library of war on film.While Tommy Lee Jones relishes in playing every Tommy Lee Jones character ever (stealing all the best lines in the process) as the hard-nosed but cunning General MacArthur, Fox delivers a more grounded and arresting performance as Bonner Fellers, a man torn between his moral obligations and his duty to the army, and to an American public crying out for blood.
Director Peter Webber infuses a romantic subplot with Fellers' Japanese girlfriend Aya (Eriko Hatsune) neatly, filling a role but never interjecting into a story that, quite frankly, is underscored by the power of men post-war.
Its box office takings were predictably low and it was in theatres so briefly that I had to catch it on DVD which was certainly a worthwhile endeavour.In 1945, General Douglas MacArthur was made Supreme Commander in American- occupied Japan and one of his first and most momentous decisions was whether or not to execute Emperor Hirohito as a war criminal.
The acting is first-rate with Matthew Fox (best-known for the TV series "Lost") giving a sensitive performance as Fellers and Tommy Lee Jones perfectly cast as the swaggering MacArthur.
That place went to General Bonner Fellers (played by Matthew Fox.) Fellers was the American general who played a key role in investigating war crimes and making recommendations on charges to MacArthur.Ostensibly, the movie deals with the question of whether Emperor Hirohito should be tried as a war criminal.
That aside, the movie provides an interesting glimpse into the Japanese culture of the era, the reverence the Japanese held for their Emperor and the practical difficulties that would have been created by a trial.The movie weaves some of the quasi-historical narrative around the war crimes decision with a fictional story of a past romance between Fellers and a Japanese woman named Aya, that began at a college in the United States.
History buffs should have a very good time with "Emperor," an unusually interesting look at Japanese/American relations in the aftermath of World War II.Matthew Fox, of "Lost" fame, plays Brigadier General Bonner Fellers, the man whom General MacArthur (Tommy Lee Jones) has personally put in charge of determining whether or not the disgraced Emperor Hirohito should be tried as a war criminal (i.e., did he order or sign off on the attack on Pearl Harbor?).
Throughout the course of his investigation, Fellers is forced to find a way to deal with a culture and a people that, while they may appear modern on the surface, have their roots planted firmly in the ancient values of loyalty and shame.Even Feller's rather clichéd romance with a Japanese woman before the war nicely contributes to the themes the movie is exploring..
The latest Emperor brings Tommy Lee Jones playing the legendary General Douglas MacArthur along with Matthew Fox as General Bonner Fellers, but do they have the story to bring this historical story to life?
Emperor follows the end of World War II following the surrender of the Japanese as General MacArthur takes on the role of defacto ruler of Japan as General Fellers sets out on an investigation to determine if the Emperor of Japan should be tried and hanged as a war criminal.
The second involves a staff officer in MacArthur's entourage, one, General Bonner Fellers( Matthew Fox) who takes to his given assignment with great vigor, all the while recalling his past involvement with a beautiful Japanese woman named Eriko Hatsune (Aya Shimada).
It's about a lower level general investigating if the emperor is a war criminal, but most of his time is spent looking for his Japanese girlfriend.
The focus is on whether to charge Emperor Hirohito with war crimes and Japanese culture.
Emperor mixes fact with fiction and introduces a clichéd love story subplot which detracts from the film.The film follows US Army Brigadier General Bonner Frank Fellers (Matthew Fox) who spent time in Japan before the outbreak of the war and ordered by General Douglas MacArthur (Tommy Lee Jones) to decide whether Emperor Hirohito regarded as a living god by the Japanese should be tried and hung as a war criminal.
In the mean time the US Forces are rounding up the guilty men who were in power in Japan when it allied itself with the Germans.Mixed with this interesting aspect of the plot is a dull romance angle of trying to find a Japanese student he fell in love with in a messed up post war Japan which has just been nuked.The machinations and politicking regarding whether the Emperor should be tried is fascinating and helped by a broad, brash performance by Lee Jones.Matthew Fox though is rather hindered by the script which fails to make his character interesting because of the fictionalized part of the story.
Fellers, played by Mathew Fox, has been advised by MacArthur that he and the American public want to see Hirohito stand trial as a war criminal.
There are a number of flashbacks, as Fellers tries to understand their love affair in the context of the differences between western and Japanese culture, something that has been done a number of times in films.
After the Japanese surrender, General Bonner Fellers (Matthew Fox) is part of General Douglas MacArthur (Tommy Lee Jones)'s delegation.
Much of this anger was directed at Emperor Hirohito who was seen as the instigator of the war.General Douglas MacArthur was placed in charge of the occupation force in Japan and tasked with the job of finding and arresting war criminals.
MacArthur knew what the execution of Hirohito would do to the Japanese people and desperately needed an excuse to spare him.The film follows the efforts of General Bonner Fellers who, under MacArthur's orders was placed in charge of this difficult job.
Fellers though has another very personal mission: Discovering the fate of a young Japanese woman he had fallen in love with before the war and tried to protect after being placed in charge of strategic bombing missions against Japan by rerouting them away from where she lived.Several people share their stories with him of what happened during the war, including his girlfriend's uncle who had served in the military in the war.It is rare for government officials to act wisely and even more rare for film makers to produce such a fine work as Emperor!.
You might have heard that what few Scenes Tommy Lee Jones as General Douglas Macarthur has in this Lightweight Misfire can be Bonafide Theft, the other side is that Matthew Fox who's on Screen most of the Time gets Blown Away by almost Everyone He Stands Beside.That's not going to Bode Well for this Talky, Dry, and Deluded Movie that is about the Investigation into Japan's God Emperor and just how much Guilt should be Assigned to a Deity.
It is a Film that has Lost its way along the way, Insisting on making much of an Interracial Affair as a Metaphor for the Post War Coming Together of the former Enemies.The Film works just Fine when it Attempts to Understand the Emperor and His Role in Military Affairs with Interviews and Investigations, but Overlaying the Interesting Aspects of all this is a Miscast Fox and a Deadly Droll Love Story best left to Something Else.There are some High Spots, like the End when Macarthur and the Emperor Exchange Eye Contact, but getting there is so much Ridiculous Romping that does nothing but Siphon the Enormity of the Events and Render them the Stuff of Popular Romantic Fiction..
Therefore he should be hanged as a criminal.There is a telling scene where a Japanese leader tells the American investigator, General Fellers, (played by Matthew Fox) who leads the team charged with deciding on the fate of the emperor that none of the US, British, French or Dutch leaders had been tried for bombarding, terrorising and conquering Asian countries which had then become part of their empires.