Eagle of the Pacific
Eagle of the Pacific (太平洋の鷲, Taiheiyo no washi) a.k.a. Operation Kamikaze is a 1953 black-and-white Japanese film directed by Ishirō Honda. The film dramatizes the start of Japan's military action in World War II, with an emphasis on the role of Isoroku Yamamoto.[1]
Eagle of the Pacific | |
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Theatrical release poster | |
Directed by | Ishirō Honda |
Produced by | Tomoyuki Tanaka Sojiro Motoki |
Written by | Shinobu Hashimoto |
Starring | Denjirō Ōkōchi |
Music by | Yūji Koseki |
Distributed by | Toho |
Release date | October 21, 1953 (Japan) |
Running time | 119 minutes |
Country | Japan |
Language | Japanese |
Cast
- Denjirō Ōkōchi - Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto
- Hiroshi Nihonyanagi - Commander Furukawa
- Eijirô Yanagi - Admiral Mitsumasa Yonai
- Minoru Takada - Prince Fumimaro Konoe
- Ichiro Sugai - Admiral Koshirō Oikawa
- Toshiro Mifune - First Lieutenant Tomonaga
- Also starring
Production
Toho intended Eagle of the Pacific to be an ambitious, Hollywood-style film. The studio used storyboarding to plan the visual effects sequences, a technique they would repeat on Godzilla.[2]
One scene required a Zero fighter plane and its pilot to catch fire. The pilot was played by a stuntman named Haruo Nakajima, who Honda later cast as Godzilla.[1]
Reception
Eagle of the Pacific grossed 163 million yen, the third highest total for a Japanese film in 1953.[3]
Release
The film was released on DVD in Japan in 2005.[4]
References
- Brothers, Peter (2009). Mushroom Clouds and Mushroom Men: The Fantastic Cinema of Ishiro Honda. AuthorHouse. p. 42. ISBN 978-1-4490-2771-1.
- Ragone, August (2007). Eiji Tsuburaya: master of monsters : defending the earth with Ultraman, Godzilla, and friends in the golden age of Japanese science fiction film. Chronicle Books. p. 31. ISBN 978-0-8118-6078-9.
- Igarashi, Yoshikuni (2000). Bodies of memory: narratives of war in postwar Japanese culture, 1945-1970. Princeton University Press. p. 233. ISBN 978-0-691-04912-0.
- Taiheiyō no washi (DVD video, 2005) [WorldCat.org]. WorldCat.org. OCLC 317586832.
External links
- Eagle of the Pacific on IMDb
- Eagle of the Pacific at Japanesegiants.com.