Japan, United States · 1970
Rated G · 2h 24m
Director Richard Fleischer, Kinji Fukasaku, Toshio Masuda
Starring Martin Balsam, Sō Yamamura, Jason Robards, Joseph Cotten
Genre Drama, History, War
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In the summer of 1941, the United States and Japan seem on the brink of war after constant embargos and failed diplomacy come to no end. "Tora! Tora! Tora!", named after the code words use by the lead Japanese pilot to indicate they had surprised the Americans, covers the days leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor, which plunged America into the Second World War.
Both overall director Richard Fleischer and his Japanese counterparts do a dull job, and the monotonously low-key tone of scene after scene almost suggests that each was filmed without a sense of ultimate slotting in the finished form.
ReelViews by James Berardinelli
It's rare for a feature film to attain the trifecta of entertaining, informing, and educating.
The careful balancing of the two sides produces its own interesting effect, however, showing how war goes from possible to inevitable, whatever the wishes on either side. Had Tora! Tora! Tora! taken the notion a bit further, it might have created a portrait of escalating tension chilling enough to rival its carefully orchestrated climactic bombing raid.
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
Tora! Tora! Tora! is one of the deadest, dullest blockbusters ever made.
The New York Times by Vincent Canby
From the moment you read the ads for Tora! Tora! Tora! ("The Most Spectacular Film Ever Made!”), you are aware that you're in the presence of a film possessed by a lack of imagination so singular that it amounts to a death wish.
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