Beat Takeshi x Hideki Tojo
On Christmas Eve Japanese television viewers got to see a rare historical drama in which internationally famous director and comedian Takeshi Kitano played Hideki Tojo, the Japanese general and former Prime Minister who is generally seen as the main force behind many of the actions Japan took during World War II, including both in China and Korea as well as Pearl Harbor. The drama, which also contained documentary portions including interviews with some still-living individuals from the era, was called "What Was That War All About Anyway? The Japan-American War and Hideki Tojo" and told the story of the general in the months leading up to Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. I was surprised to see such a touchy subject as this taken up in a mainstream media channel since the name of Hideki Tojo and the topic of the war in general is an all but taboo, and only a director of Takeshi's stature could have made the project possible. I certainly hope for more open discussion of some of these events in the future.
Takeshi *totally* looks like Hideki. The resemblance is scary!
posted by Peter in Japan at 7:40 PM
6 Comments:
Wow! I'd love to hear that story. I've often wondered how nihonjin dealt with that, in their minds. You are right, he does look like Tojo.
8:01 PM
I'll post a subtitled torrent if I ever find it. Sadly I think the Beat Takeshi version was a little kinder to Hideki than Americans would have liked. On the other hand, Tojo was the "Hitler" of Japan in the mind of Americans and it would be hard to discuss things openly. In all likelihood he was the main force behind the bad things in the war, but Hirohito was also a lot more involved than we conveniently think now.
11:29 PM
How taboo is it in Japan to talk about the world war? I've noticed that when it comes to people from japan they seem to be ignorant of actual battles or events that took place during ww2.
2:21 AM
I can't pretend to know how the Japanese feel about WW2 with the exception of seeing the protests outside of Kadena Air Base on Okinawa as a kid. However, I can say that it is human nature to eventually move beyond traumatic events and heal. Despite the absolutely destructive end to the war and the effect it had on both the physical and mental nation of Japan, eventually even they would be able to view such events from a historical perspective and analyze them as such.
3:29 AM
Noliving, it's odd, but everyone will answer any question I have about the war, but the answer will be short and the discussion will end right away. I'm sure there are people who are exceptions, who actively study the war and love to discuss it, but they're not the norm at all, whereas you could find a lot of people in the U.S. (both North and South) who could tell you all kinds of details about the Civil War battles, etc.
Theillen, you may be right. Honestly Americans of my generation (born in 1968) didn't discuss Vietnam, and it took til college before I even heard the words "Gulf of Tonkin."
11:42 AM
Well that was my question was how well do they know the war would you say. Like if I asked a question would the answer be satisfactory in terms of do they know when this battle took place and who won that battle etc. I'm sure they would answer the questions but are the answers to those questions a real answer. Like I have noticed with the japanese that when I bring up iwo jima they don' know that the US never completely took the entire island until after the surrender of japan and even then they, the US, were, from what I heard, still finding live japanese soldiers on that island in hiding several years after the war had ended.
6:02 AM
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