If you think movies based on historical events should be less tedious than a lecture about the same events, "Emperor" is not for you.
The movie opens a little-known chapter of World War II, right after the Japanese surrender, when Gen. Douglas MacArthur (Tommy Lee Jones) must decide whether to prosecute Emperor Hirohito for war crimes. Such a move would rile the Japanese populace, who consider the emperor a living god. MacArthur assigns Brig. Gen. Bonner Fellers (Matthew Fox) to investigate whether the emperor was involved in the decision to attack Pearl Harbor or whether he was merely a figurehead at the mercy of Prime Minister Tojo and other militarists.
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‘Emperor’
Opens Friday, March 8, at area theaters; rated PG-13 for violent content, brief strong language and smoking (historical); 102 minutes.
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Fellers, an expert on Japan, must navigate imperial bureaucracy, U.S. Army suspicion and cultural differences in his investigation. Meanwhile, Fellers also searches war-torn Tokyo to locate Aya (Eriko Hatsune), a Japanese schoolteacher he loved in college.
Director Peter Webber ("The Girl With the Pearl Earring") stages dull scenes of Fellers sitting across tables with various Japanese officials — intercut with soft-focus flashbacks of Fellers and Aya’s pre-war romance. Webber also fails to get much out of the charisma-challenged Fox or handle Jones’ phoned-in MacArthur.
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