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Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Critic Consensus: No consensus yet.
All Critics (20) | Top Critics (6) | Fresh (16) | Rotten (4) | DVD (4)
The Merry Christmas catalogue of atrocities finally becomes numbing, even ludicrous.
From Oshima's later career... most notable is this bilingual, end-of-WWII tearjerker about forgiveness and understanding between cultures, which could have been dubbed The Man Who Fell to Java.
For all the praise heaped upon Oshima's admittedly ambitious film about East-West relations in the microcosm of a Japanese PoW camp during World War II, it's far less satisfactory than most of his earlier work.
Here's a movie that is even stranger than it was intended to be.
Mr. Oshima has staged the film in a spacious tropical setting and filled it with a great number of extras. Even so, Mr. Bowie always stands out from the crowd.
The context and frequent incontinence of the execution bring the film uncomfortably close to the pseudophilosophical bondage fantasies of Yukio Mishima.
If you can excuse the sight of the then 35-year-old David Bowie in a school uniform, this will prove most rewarding.
The film’s attention is split fairly evenly across the major characters, and their interactions are consistently fascinating in the way they illustrate both the cultural divide and the halting attempts to somehow bridge it.
It's relentlessly grim, constantly off-balance, occasionally moving, and often striking.
David Bowie is outstanding as the defiant British prisoner whose erotic appeal undoes the Japanese commandant, played by Sakamoto, who was at the height of his fame as a musical icon in Japan
Fine performances by Conti, Takeshi (brilliant in his first dramatic role), Sakamoto (a Japanese pop star in his film acting debut who also contributed the memorable score), and Bowie enhance this provocative film.
A compelling cross-cultural study of friendship and bravery
Oddly scripted but intriguing. It's difficult to deny the presence of homoerotic undertones here, making this a most unconventional war film.
Super Reviewer
weird film. i think bowie may have been miscast, tho he does as well as could be expected. tom conti is kind of annoying with his perfect preachy character. the synthy soundtrack is good but kind of dated. +3 for beat takeshi in his first dramatic role
An interesting and very serious subject, but the characters spend most of their time sitting around talking, which gets really boring after a while. Plus, I'm not sure Bowie was the right person for the role, not that he can't act, I just think a more experienced dramatic actor would have been better. Overall, it's okay.
Not a great movie but one of the all time lump-in-the-throat endings (cue music and roll credits). Right up there with Frosty the Snowman and Camelot.
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