EAGLE OF THE PACIFIC

 

This is a 1953 Japanese film, a World War II epic made by Toho Studios which focuses on Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, a man who is to Western eyes the most famous officer of the Imperial Navy. This movie is mentioned in the GODZILLA--THE FIRST 70 YEARS book, due to the fact that it was directed by Ishiro Honda, the filmmaker most associated with Japanese Giant Monster cinema. I discovered an uncut print of EAGLE OF THE PACIFIC, containing English subtitles, on the Internet Archive. 

The movie starts in the late 1930s, as Japan goes through numerous changes of political leadership. The departments of the Navy and Army are at odds with whether the country should enter into the Tripartite Pact, a treaty that would officially bind Japan with Germany and Italy. Admiral Yamamoto believes that if Japan signs onto the Pact, the country will soon be at war with the United States, a war he is sure will eventually ruin the Empire. Yamamoto does all he can to convince as many government and military officials as possible to avoid a major war, but he also feels that as a soldier, his duty is to fight for his country as hard and as long as he can. Yamamoto spearheads the plans behind the Pearl Harbor and Midway operations, but as the war goes on he doubts Japan will achieve any lasting success from it. The story ends with a disconsolate Yamamoto being shot down and killed while being transported in a plane over the Bougainville Islands in 1943. 

If you are an English-speaking WWII buff, watching EAGLE OF THE PACIFIC will be a fascinating experience. This is a movie with the viewpoint of the "other side", so to speak, and it shows how mainstream post-war Japan felt about famous battles such as Pearl Harbor, Midway, and the air war over Rabaul. EAGLE OF THE PACIFIC isn't a rousing war adventure, it is a somber, down-to-earth examination of a dignified military officer who does his duty to the fullest, even though he believes that his country is going down the wrong path. 

Denjiro Okochi plays Yamamoto. In this film the Admiral is portrayed as a thoughtful man of honor and intelligence, a man whose quiet stature makes him stand above and beyond his colleagues. We don't get to find out much about the Admiral himself--he doesn't seem to have any sort of personal life--and much of the time Yamamoto is shown sitting by himself in a darkened room, or strolling alone on a ship's deck at night, while ruminating upon the fate of his country. At times Yamamoto seems too good to be true (as is usual the real person was much more complicated). It seems that this film is using Yamamoto as a symbol for all those Japanese veterans and citizens who had great regret for the war and its aftermath. (Director Ishiro Honda himself served in WWII, and his experiences had a profound effect on his beliefs and the films he would make.) 

EAGLE OF THE PACIFIC uses plenty of actual military footage from WWII, and this is augmented by FX footage created by master technician Eiji Tsuburaya, who would work several times with Ishiro Honda on numerous Kaiju and science fiction films. Much of the FX seen here was actually created for other war features, but the editing between the various models and historical images is very well done. Ironically this movie has no footage whatsoever of American military personnel, and there are no major female roles. 

The supporting cast has two major names more associated with the films of Akira Kurosawa--Toshiro Mifune plays a fighter pilot, and Takashi Shimura has a cameo as a military official. During the Midway sequence one can spot Haruo Nakajima, the original Godzilla suit actor--he's the pilot with the back of his flight suit in flames as he climbs out of his plane. 

EAGLE OF THE PACIFIC is a well made war drama that is more reflective than grandiose. The movie doesn't try to blame any one person or group for how the War in the Pacific came about, and it also doesn't try to demonize the enemy. (It also doesn't mention the many war crimes committed by Japanese forces upon thousands of POWs and civilians.) It also shows how Ishiro Honda did much more than direct Godzilla--he was a fine filmmaker who worked on several types of stories.