Emperor - fight for peace

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Movie
German title Emperor - fight for peace
Original title Emperor
Country of production USA , Japan
original language English
Publishing year 2012
length 102 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Peter Webber
script Vera Blasi ,
David Klass
production Eugene Nomura ,
Yōko Narahashi ,
Russ Krasnoff ,
Gary Foster
music Alex Heffes
camera Stuart Dryburgh
cut Chris Plummer
occupation

Emperor - Battle for Peace (Original title: Emperor ) is an American - Japanese film by the director Peter Webber from 2012. The film is based on the book Heika o osukui nasaimashi: Kawai Michi to Bonner Fellers ( Japanese. 陛下 を お救 い な さ い ま し 河 井 道 と ボ ナ ー ・ フ ェ ラ ー ズ , dt. "Please save your majesty: Michi Kawai and Bonner Fellers") by Shirō Okamoto from 2002, which has not yet appeared outside of Japan.

The film is set in Japan shortly after its surrender during World War II and the search by the US military under General Douglas MacArthur for Japanese war criminals and the question of the war guilt or innocence of the Japanese Emperor Hirohito .

action

Shortly after the Japanese Empire surrendered in 1945 and the Second World War came to an end, the Commander in Chief of the US Armed Forces in the Pacific , General Douglas MacArthur , set up his staff as Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) in the Japanese capital of Tokyo. one and takes over the authority over Japan. Particular attention is paid to a department of the US military that is under time pressure and carries out the prosecution and imprisonment of Japanese war criminals. General Bonner Fellers, a “Japan connoisseur” who visited Japan before the war and fell in love with a Japanese woman, is given the special task of determining whether the Japanese emperor Hirohito was guilty or innocent in the outbreak and course of the war , which still enjoys a kind of divine status in Japan.

Fellers gets into an inner conflict. On the one hand, he is constantly plagued by memories of his love for a Japanese woman, with whom he lost contact a long time ago and is now looking for her, as well as his respect and fascination for Japan and its culture. On the other hand, there was also a dogged determination to pillory the Japanese emperor and his followers, of whose war guilt he initially seems to be firmly convinced. Given only 10 days by General MacArthur, and additionally put under strong pressure by the American public and politics, Fellers is also aware that an indictment and even imprisonment of the emperor would lead to extremely large problems in Japan, especially uprisings and chaos, there the emperor is regarded by the Japanese population as god-like and therefore practically inviolable. The core task of the US occupying power , however, is to rebuild Japan. Fellers is faced with an apparently unsolvable task and an insurmountable dilemma , but the closer the deadline for submitting his investigation results, the clearer he finally seems to get a picture of the whole thing and understand that Japan and its very old culture as well Tradition doesn't just consist of “black and white”.

Reviews

Peter Osteried wrote on kino-zeit.de that Peter Webber's film dispenses with the usual clichés one would expect when it comes to Japanese history. He concentrated on showing another Japan, avoiding simple black-and-white drawing, but impressively demonstrating that there are a thousand shades of gray.

Stefan Dabrock from filmstarts.de judged that in Emperor the elaboration of historical facts with strong images is only partially successful. Thanks to a well-presented Tommy Lee Jones and a love story promoting humanity, a very interesting, but overall, only average film was made.

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