Emperor (2013)
Average Rating: 5.1/10
Reviews Counted: 83
Fresh: 24 | Rotten: 59
Despite a typically strong performance from Tommy Lee Jones, Emperor does little with its fascinating historical palate, and is instead bogged down in a cliched romantic subplot.
Average Rating: 5.2/10
Critic Reviews: 28
Fresh: 6 | Rotten: 22
Despite a typically strong performance from Tommy Lee Jones, Emperor does little with its fascinating historical palate, and is instead bogged down in a cliched romantic subplot.
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Average Rating: 3.2/5
User Ratings: 5,432
Movie Info
Matthew Fox (WORLD WAR Z, I, ALEX CROSS, "Lost") joins with Academy Award (R) winner Tommy Lee Jones (LINCOLN, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, THE FUGITIVE, HOPE SPRINGS), newcomer Eriko Hatsune and award-winning Japanese star Toshiyuki Nishida (GET UP!, TSURIBAKA NISSHI 14, TSURIBAKA NISSHI 6, GAKKO, DUN-HUANG) to bring to life the American occupation of Japan in the perilous and unpredictable days just after Emperor Hirohito's World War II surrender. As General Douglas MacArthur (Jones) suddenly finds
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Cast
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Matthew Fox
General Bonner Felle... -
Tommy Lee Jones
General Douglas MacA... -
Eriko Hatsune
Aya Shimada -
Masayoshi Haneda
Takahashi -
Toshiyuki Nishida
Uncle Kajima -
Colin Moy
Major General Richte... -
Isao Natsuyagi
Sekiya -
Takataro Kataoko
Emperor Hirohito
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Emperor Trailer & Photos
All Critics (83) | Top Critics (28) | Fresh (24) | Rotten (59)
It's all done with care and authentic Japanese locations ... But there's scant drama.
Top CriticA stodgy movie that mixes dubious history with a clichéd, Madame Butterfly romance story, set in the period immediately following Japan's surrender in 1945.
Emperor falls prey to the temptations endemic to historical docudrama: the desire to pack a miniseries' worth of events into one feature-length film, with romance tossed in for added appeal.
Half crinoline romance, half crusty military-history lesson.
Just a dull procedural, with the bland Matthew Fox driving around in a jeep and asking questions and not having them answered.
The epigrams fly, but the movie never really takes off.
Hokey monologues about the finger of historical blame are interspersed with perfume-ad flashbacks to idyllic days of love; you half expect Andrew Lloyd Webber to descend from on high to provide a few touching show tunes.
The climax, when MacArthur finally meets Hirohito, is fascinating - and validated by the end-credit, picture-led round-up of what happened to the leading characters.
Undemanding, handsome and played with conviction, but sorely missing any sense of urgency.
Solidly crafted. Totally pointless.
Emperor is dutiful, patient and almost entirely without flair.
An attempt to spice up a true story with fictional characters and events leaves this film feeling artificial.
Webber brings the politics and intrigue to the fore in a gripping final act, but the overall impression is that a fascinating story from history has been lost in the telling.
Good intentions, vivid setting and TLJ on top form do not make up for a lack of anything truly compelling.
All the right elements were here for this telling, but sadly the filmmakers lost sight of what was important in the narrative, inevitably making the film suffer for it in the end.
Emperor seems to have been tailor-made for high school history classes whose teachers like to give themselves a break by popping in a DVD.
...probably the most disappointing 2013 film I've seen so far.
... contains some potentially intriguing subject matter compromised by a formulaic approach that renders the periphery characters more compelling than the central ones.
Director Peter Webber, who found a more elegant balance between history and passion in Girl With a Pearl Earring, has turned Emperor into a stagy and hollow kind of story.
Emperor missed the opportunity to become an engrossing procedural of historic minutiae, like Lincoln.
This is a movie that tries to be that great war film, as well as a star-crossed romance and a political thriller, without really succeeding on any front.
If you can't take this movie for history, what may it be taken as? As romance it's not believable. Much of the history is censored, including the rumored "Operation Blacklist" involving the pressure from above to clear the names of the royal family.
Audience Reviews for Emperor
Super Reviewer
Nate's Grade: C
Super Reviewer
Discussion Forum
| Topic | Last Post | Replies |
|---|---|---|
| Beautifully filmed and elegantly presented | 7 months ago | 0 |
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This is an interesting topic, and could have made for a great and fascinating film. However, any potential the film had is undercut by the inclusion of a cliched and unnecessary romantic subplot, as well as the fact that not a whole lot is really done with the material at hand.
It's just a routine and by the numbers dry historical drama that tries to bring an important facet of history to life, but instead just kinda limps along and presents just the bare basics of what went down.
I will say that the period details are admittedly well done, and the film has a nice look to it. It's just unfortunate that the film's occasional subtitle and title cards are done in a really small and difficult to read font.
As for the performances, Matthew Fox is passable, though unremarkable as Fellers, and then there's Tommy Lee Jones as MacArthur. He's fine, and it's a decently well cast part, but I feel like they still could have done more to give the part more weight and depth. I really don't know much about the Asian cast members, but their performances seemed okay.
All in all, this is an unfortunately half-assed historical drama that is well dressed, but fails to say anything all that meaningful.