The cradle of the sun

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Movie
German title The cradle of the sun
Original title Rising Sun
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1993
length 124 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Philip Kaufman
script Philip Kaufman,
Michael Crichton ,
Michael Backes
production Peter Kaufman
music Toru Takemitsu
camera Michael Chapman
cut Stephen A. Rotter ,
William S. Scharf
occupation

The cradle of the sun (original title: Rising Sun ) is a thriller from 1993 with Sean Connery and Wesley Snipes in the lead roles. Directed by Philip Kaufman , who wrote the script together with Michael Backes and Michael Crichton . The basis was Michael Crichton's novel Rising Sun from 1992, which was published in Germany under the title Nippon Connection .

action

On the evening of a festive reception for the inauguration of a new high-rise office building for the Japanese Nakamoto Group in Los Angeles , the call girl Cheryl is found dead in the boardroom . Apparently she was involved in unusual sexual practices prior to her death. Traces on the neck indicate sexual asphyxia from a choking game, she is said to have been sexually aroused by a lack of oxygen while strangling.

Lieutenant Web Smith is the LAPD Police Liaison Officer responsible for contacts with foreigners. Web is said to work with Police Captain John Connor, who spent several years in Japan and knows the customs of the Japanese.

Just a few hours earlier, business negotiations between the Nakamoto group and the computer chip company MicroCon took place during the day in the same room where the dead woman was found. Numerous surveillance cameras that spied on the negotiating partners during the day also ran on the night of the crime. The images from the surveillance cameras are recorded on laser discs . In the surveillance room of the building, Connor discovers that the disc with the recordings from the 46th floor in question was the only one that was replaced 2 hours ago, but that all the others were already running for over 10 hours.

The next day they received a disc from the clerk Ishihara, on which the crime was apparently recorded beyond doubt. You can see Eddie Sakamura's face. When the police stormed Eddie's house that night to arrest him, Eddie's escaped in a sports car. On the run, the car crashed and exploded, the corpse burned in it beyond recognition.

Connor has become suspicious of the seemingly simple solution to the case and has had the images on the disc checked by experts in the meantime. Image editing expert Jingo Asakuma discovers that the video has been tampered with. Digital post-processing has replaced the strangler's face with Eddie's face and erased the actual images of Eddie witnessing the event.

Since the murder happened at 8:30 p.m. and they received the disc five hours later, they are trying to find out where such high-quality manipulation could have been possible in the short time. The trail leads to Jim Donaldson's laboratories, recently bought by the Hamaguri company. They don't want to speak officially about their customers there, and the Hamaguri company would be a competitor of the Nakamoto company. However, Connor is certain that they edited Nakamoto's disc that night.

Suddenly Eddie, who was believed dead, appears. It turns out that not he, but Tanaka, the head of security at Nakamoto, died in the sports car and Eddie also reported the murder to the police and requested Connor. Eddie also has the original disc, which he received from Tanaka. He hands them over to Connor before he is killed by an opposing yakuza gang.

The original video shows Senator Morton as a strangler who had sex with Cheryl. Morton was supposed to be blackmailed because he wanted to vote in the Senate against the sale of MicroCon to the Japanese. He then changed his mind. Eddie watched the scene. Shortly afterwards, however, you can see Cheryl moving again and the strangulation only knocked her out. Only then does another person come into the room who actually strangles Cheryl. The actual killer cannot be seen on the video. When Connor and Web show it to Nakamoto's boss, Nakamoto explains that he did not know anything about the cover-up. The employee Ishihara is said to have initiated the manipulation. He in turn says the killer was employee Bob Richmond. Richmond takes refuge on a neighboring construction site. Connor and Smith are chasing him. When they get to him, he has already been pushed from a great height by Eddie's Yakuza friends into a freshly poured concrete foundation and is drowning in it. Senator Morton commits suicide.

When Web drives image editing expert Jingo Asakuma home, he learns that she is Connor's lover. She also implies that in Japan whoever confesses to the murder does not necessarily have to be the real murderer, but rather that a subordinate sees it as an obligation to sacrifice himself for his superior.

background

  • Numerous changes have been made to the original book. So the figure of the white Peter Smith became the black Webster Smith. The actual Japanese killer Ishiguro was renamed Ishihara and is no longer the killer in the film adaptation. Instead, an American employee who worked for the Japanese is said to be the killer, which remains unclear in the film.
  • The author of the book and the scriptwriter Michael Crichton left the film project prematurely due to differences with director Philip Kaufman . In particular, he did not want to support the change from a main character to an African American.
  • The filming took place from June 22, 1992 to October 3, 1992 in California .
  • The film grossed around US $ 107 million in cinemas around the world, including around US $ 63 million in the United States.

Reviews

  • Vincent Canby of the New York Times said that the novel had conveyed the fear of strangers very directly and simply and that the film version would now try to be a bit more balanced through numerous changes. The film remains "unbearably arrogant" and "still offensive". "He does not draw attention to the internal causes of America's economic problems, but to enigmatic, generalized, unknown strangers from abroad, whose yellow skin and strange behavior herald their bad intentions and their dishonest trading methods." [...] "Americans invented Robber barons in the 19th century, but from the point of view of the film one might think that the economic success of this country was based entirely on hard work, courage and deliberate narrowness. "
  • James Berardinelli praised the performance of Sean Connery, the direction by Philip Kaufman and the soundtrack on ReelViews . He criticized some weaknesses such as "logical flaws" in the script; he described the film as "solid action".
  • The magazine Time Out London wrote: "In the effort the racist elements from Michael Crichton's novel downplay Kaufman fails awkwardly in a politically correct adaptation between the conventions of a Hollywood conspiracy thriller and something that was planned as a contrived more significant."
  • In the opinion of the Film Lexicon , director Philip Kaufman found the right mix of action, suspense and a solid little glimpse into the Japanese way of life in his film adaptation of the Michael Crichton novel, with the characters - especially the one played by Sean Connery - worked out well become.

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ shooting period. Internet Movie Database , accessed May 22, 2015 .
  2. ↑ Vincent Canby in the New York Times
  3. ^ Review by James Berardinelli
  4. ↑ Time Out London on the film ( Memento of the original from March 16, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.timeout.com
  5. ↑ THE CRADLE OF THE SUN FILM LEXICON . Retrieved December 6, 2017.