Ponte verso il sole (1961) Online

I just saw this at the SF Asian American Film Festival. Apparently, there is only one print in existence and no VHS or DVD releases. I hope that you are as lucky as I was and get an opportunity to see it.

The lead, Shigeta, was at the screening and spoke a few words to the audience and answered some questions. He got a standing ovation. I was glad that he is still sharp and articulate.

The good:

1) James Shigeta is outstanding. He's handsome and skilled. He plays Terasaki with passion and sophistication.

2) It's a view of WW2 from the Japanese side, which is all too rare.

3)It's based on a true story, which makes the film resonate even more.

4) The dialogue is wonderful. The opening scene is written and acted with a lot of wit which had the audience laughing.

5) It was produced in 1961. Unlike many Hollywood films of the time, Asians have a reasonably accurate portrayal and not just crude caricature (e.g. "Breakfast at Tiffany's").

The bad:

1) The film is set in the 1930s and 40s but the costuming and furnishings are straight out of 1960. I'm a bit of a vintage clothing geek so this was jarring.

In 1965 I watched this movie one night while my husband and newborn baby slept. This movie was the best I have ever seen and has haunted me for more than 40 years. I never realized the plight of the Japanese in the United States and this movie and the wonderful acting made everything so believable. I had never even been interested in any war movies prior to this and still don't but this one made a lifelong lasting impression on me. I have never cried so hard in my life at the end and have constantly checked out old movies to try and find it again. I would very much like to find this movie and keep it forever. I would recommend this movie to everyone from teenagers to seniors. At my tender age of 19, I realized after watching this movie that I had no idea of what real love was between two people. I even had to wake up my husband that night and just have him hold me while I sobbed. If anyone knows how to find this movie please advise.

I saw this movie over 40 years ago on television, and it made such an impression on me that I am now trying to find this movie again. The book was written in 1957 by Gwen Terasaki and was also called Bridge to the Sun. The movie came out in 1961.

This was a true story about an American girl who came to Washington, DC, and there she met a Japanese diplomat. They fell in love and got married very quickly. Then WWII broke out, and all Japanese were deported back to their country. Gwen Teresaki went with her husband to Japan. It shows all the differences between the two cultures, and how Hidenari Terasaki became a teacher to his wife, Gwen, about the customs of the Japanese. It's truly a beautiful love story as well as a realistic account of the difficulties of this interracial marriage.

I really believe more should see this movie as it can open up your eyes as to the fact that all of us should live together in peace and get along. I will never forget this movie/life story! I wish the movie would come out again or be re-made as I believe it would help us all !

This 1961 picture seems somewhat forgotten today despite the fact that it is quite a good movie. An American girl played by Carroll Baker falls in love with a Japanese diplomat and marries him. After the attack on Pearl Harbor she finds herself in Japan with her husband and quickly learns the problems of being in a strange country with much different customs and ideals than she is used to. Then to make matters worse her husband's nation is of course at war with her native homeland.

James Shigeta puts in an outstanding performance as Bakers Japanese husband who while in America acts very westernized. Once back in his homeland he acts much different and Shigetas job at this adds much to the film. The struggles of an interracial marriage are part of the story along with the horrors and hardships of being in a land that is becoming ravaged by total war being waged against it. In viewing this film you'll find yourself asking "How would I feel if I were in a foreign land with a wife or husband who was a native of that country and the nation of my birth was waging war on it". Who is the enemy? My spouses people or mine?

This film took me by surprise with the great acting by Carroll Baker as Gwen Terasaki who is a Southern gal from the United States who meets up with a Japanese young man named Hedenari Terasaki, (James Shigeta) in the late 1930's and this couple fall deeply in love which I would call one Soul Mate meeting another. After awhile this couple have a baby girl which they love very much and she grows very close with her mom and dad. Everything is going just fine until the Japanese Government declares war on America, Dec. 7, 1941 when they bombed Pearl Harbor. The American Government immediately investigated all men who were Japanese and deported them back to Japan. Gwen Terasaki was allowed to stay in America with her daughter, however, Gwen decided to go back to Japan which they both knew would become a horrible experience for all of their family. This is a true story and it is a heart breaker, but it clearly shows that when you find your Soul Mate in life, you will do whatever is possible to stay with your loved one and sacrifice everything for each other. Don't miss this great film Classic, Enjoy.

This is the true story of Gwen Terasaki who married a Japanese diplomat before World War Two and then returned with him to Japan after Pearl Harbor. It tells the story of the war from an entirely new perspective, and is the first film to depict the racial nature of the Pacific war, and to depict the suffering of the common Japanese people.

Bridge to the Sun is a wonderful love story but it is also much more than just a love story. This film shows a unique and different perspective of World War 2 without doing a disservice to the American Servicemen who gave up their lives. It is one of the most unknown stories of WW2 and one worthy of viewing and reading (the book) If you can find it watch it.

Actress Carroll Baker never really carved out a niche for herself in Hollywood; a devout Method player, the roles she chose didn't always showcase a woman with any particular range. She's quite good here however, playing real-life American Gwen Terasaki who, while visiting Washington, D.C. from Tennessee, met and fell in love with a Japanese politician. Before you can say 'Sayonara!', Gwen is married and living in Japan, where the customs are confusing and the second World War looms ahead. Opens with a sweet, believable romance, becomes compelling drama of emotional choices. James Shigeta is terrific as Gwen's husband and the production is handsome. *** from ****

It is on Turner Classic Movies June 19, 2008. It is not available on VHS or DVD.

This movie had a profound effect on my wife, who saw it right after its release in 1961 with her sister. They were 11 and 8 at the time. The woman in the movie is from from East Tennessee and we are from West Tennessee. I do not understand why it was never copied and sold. It is a great movie. The historical context is meaningful for anyone interested in Pearl Harbor, World War 2, MacArthur, or the Japanese interment during WW2. It is a classic love story, on the order of Romeo and Juliet, but with world wide implications. This will be the first time my wife has seen it in 45 years !!!

Just before the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, an American girl from the South marries to a Japanese diplomat and moves with him to Tokyo.

Mainly melodramatic treatment of a fact-based autobiographical novel, notable for its heartfelt leading performances, strikingly accurate detail of Japanese life, some convincingly documentary-style shots, and its brave change of perspective by showing the Japanese point of view against the American.

Carol Baker and James Shigata are good highly capable performers, but they tended to peak early in the 1950s and 1960s. However, they both did very well in telling this true story about Gwen, an American from Tennessee, met, fell in love with, and married "Teri" a Japanese diplomat in Washington, and how the events of 1935 to 1945 made their lives together extremely difficult if not dangerous. For the events leading to the Great Pacific War between Japan and the U.S. made Gwen's insistence on staying with Teri and their daughter Mako (two young girls play Mako as she grows to be nine years old) lead to one problem after another.

This film was produced in 1961, and it was made just at the moment when American audiences began being willing to make some extended effort at burying the hatchet with Japan. In the 1950s, thanks to Douglas MacArthur's work as our "proconsul" rebuilding Japan, the country retained it's imperial family (even Hirohito) and yet became a fairly reliable ally and democracy. It helped that in this period China (formerly the tragic victim of Japanese militarism) was now (except for Formosa) a bastion of Communism. The films of this period did show negatives in part (Sessue Hayakawa's Col. Saito in "The Bridge On The River Kwai" at first), but also showed the pressures on our old enemies. Hayakawa's Saito loses face to his prisoner Nicholson who is better organized in engineering the bridge than the Japanese Colonel is. Other films dealt with re-understanding Japan. There was "Sayonara", where Marlon Brando, Red Buttons, and Myoshi Umeki try to sexually bridge the divide of East and West, with tragic results. There was the kids travelogue - adventure film "Escapade In Japan", wherein American and Japanese kids pal around the country. There was also the film "A Majority Of One", wherein middle aged Roselind Russell and Japanese industrialist Alec Guiness find a romance despite her children's opposition. Also despite some past history (her son died at Pearl Harbor, his wife and children at Hiroshima). There was also the French film "Hiroshima Mon Amour" which was about an inter-racial love affair, but looked at the long range effects of the radiation in the bombed city. It was a good moment to reevaluate the past. The period probably lasted until 1970 when "Tora, Tora, Tora" properly and somberly presented the story of the attack of December 1941 from both sides.

To me "Bridge To The Sun" is a natural follow-up of Jimmy Cagney's "Blood On The Sun". Although the Japanese were mostly villains and sneaks in Cagney's film (especially the politician Baron Tanaka - John Emory) Cagney was willing to show there were good Japanese, in particular an elderly Japanese aristocrat seeking to prevent the success of the militarists (and who is murdered by them). That happened to be true regarding the politics of Japan in the 1930s. Several leading politicians who seemed too peaceful or not patriotic were killed off by assassins (most of whom got slap on the wrist punishments). Shigata's Teri happens to be of the peace party, and as the film continues one sees he is fighting an impossibly well organized foe. The best moment that shows this is in a portion of the film dealing with November - December 1941. Shigata tries to get a missionary friend to speak to FDR to send a personal message to the Emperor to keep Japan and the U.S. at peace. Instead, we see that despite all attempts to be careful, Shigata and his fellow peace lovers are being observed by the militarists.

The story of the mixed marriage is fascinating because both Americans and Japanese stigmatize the couple. While going to the train with Mako to be reunited with Teri, Gwen sees American racism and hatred at it's worse ("how dare she marry one of those people!"). Similarly Teri is bothered in Japan by military bullyboys, and Mako is crying when she is teased and hit by Japanese children and even her teacher. Yet by the time the film ends, Mako has become so identified with her father's people she hates the Americans as invaders.

"Bridge To The Sun" may be the best Hollywood film to show the home front in Japan in the war. It is disheartening. While America and Britain went into rationing in the war, they never went as far as Japan did where a little rice was given to the Japanese people for most of their stamps. Actually even Germany was being less hard for awhile. According to Albert Speer, luxury items were being produced in Hitler's Reich up to late 1944. Not Japan - every available crumb went into the military's stomachs.

The film follows Teri's continued attempts to rebuild the peace party, which only gets him into serious trouble with his oldest friend Hara (James Yagi, who gives a good performance of a committed militarist who won't let old friendships keep him from his work). But Teri won't give up, despite Hara and the Kamentai. And Gwen remains loyal to her husband, up to the film's end...which is quite unexpectedly poignant.

I saw this movie in theaters during its theatrical release. I was a teenager and usually went to action movies, but this movie really caught my attention. I was of the generation that grew up on Victory at Sea and war movies, but here was a story of a biracial couple in wartime Japan. I found it unusually moving.

I particularly remember the line that James Shigeta's friend delivers when he admits that Carol Baker's husband has only a few weeks or maybe a few months to live. That is why he is sending his wife and child away, so they will not have to watch him during his final decline.

"Death may be beautiful; dying is not." Words to live by.

If I hadn't been laid up at home today, I suspect I never would have watched this movie when it popped up on TCM today, especially after seeing the highly unlikely beginning: tourist from Tennessee and sophisticated Japanese diplomat meet and fall in love at a reception at Japanese Embassy in DC.

I'm so glad I stayed with it, a very good examination of cross cultural marriages and, as others have mentioned, a look at daily life in Japan in WW II.

As a retired diplomat, who lived outside USA for most of my adult life, now back in USA, I'm so grateful to TCM for a review of film history and especially American cultural history.

Saw this by chance last night on TCM. It was very good, although melodramatic at times. My husband and I cried at the end. Highly recommended. This was a very interesting portrayal of Japan during WWII and interracial marriage. The depiction of Japanese life was well done. For example, the young woman who betrays Teri does it for food. She's shown a couple of times stuffing handouts from people in her mouth. I did not know that the Japanese people were starving during WWII, but this made it clear. Carroll Baker did a good job of showing the transformation of her character from a young sheltered woman from the South to an older woman who endured hardships that most of us never will and grew to understand her husband at the end. A real weeper.

This movie focused on the different customs and habits between east and west upon the relationship of love between American woman and Japanese diplomat in spite of the terrible relations between America and Japan before the misery of Pearl Harbbor in 1941 which was the great cause of firing more and more the drama of WWII and caused after that the Bomb exp loser of Herochima and Nakazaki in 1945 by turning America from second class to super class by playing with the fates of countries in different continents.

This love story was Amerasian as a great field to see the varietal cultures as a preparing for globalization in the future by love and feelings before politics and economics to be the world in one place and field.

This movie as (Love is a many splendor-ed thing) but the one difference between both That the first one took their accidents from politics and social subjects but the second one depended on humanity and feelings as the great gap between east and west forever.

The best scene in this film the final scene by a great symbol at the ship when the American woman left Japan with her daughter and saying goodbye for her husband by taking the brilliant souvenir as an evidence of great love between them in spite of wars and political differences.

Carroll Baker stars with James Shigeta in "Bridge to the Sun," based on the book by Gwen Terasaki. Though I believe dramatic license was taken regarding the love story between Gwen and her husband, certainly there are many fascinating aspects of her experiences that were included.

Gwen meets diplomat Hidenari Terasaki when he was in Washington, and they fall in love and marry in 1931, though I'm not sure that was the year the film gave. Terasaki was First Secretary at the Japanese Embassy and also a pacifist who wanted to avoid war. Didn't happen.

When the war starts, he has to return to Japan, and though he doesn't want his wife put into danger, Gwen insists on going too and brings their daughter, Mako. In her book, they are repatriated via neutral Angola.

Once in Japan, they face many hardships and Terasaki much criticism because his wife is an American. There is no food, and there is a lot of bombing. They receive an offer to stay somewhere in the country, and they go; they face betrayal and danger there too.

If you have read or seen Dragon Seed, you have an idea of what the Japanese did to the Chinese. Absolutely horrible. They are no better to the Americans, who were used for slave labor when captured - they are seen working on the railroad tracks as Gwen heads out to the country. One can feel sympathy for the people, but not their leaders, who lied to them about how the war was going.

Both Baker and Shigeta are very good. Shigeta's role is more difficult as he has to show the ravages of his stress and exhaustion, and he does a beautiful job.

It's funny what your impressions are when you are growing up. I was raised Catholic and I seem to recall Carroll Baker was considered some sort of sex kitten. She really evokes sympathy here and gives a lovely, sincere performance.

This is a poignant film, a tearjerker, about two people from two different cultures caught in an impossible situation. It's all the more poignant because the emotions are true.

I never saw this movie before. I am an avid TCM fan and war movie fan. I think this was the first time it was shown on TCM. Before this film I did not realize there was a peace movement in Japan. The Japanese people also suffered because of their leaders and the average person could only do what they were told. However, after reading some of the other reviews where the reviewer told how much their heart bled for the Japanese, I am not so sorry. Like shown in the movie, when Baker was on the train going to the small village, she saw US servicemen working along side the track. It seems many people don't know how POWs were brought to Japan and used as slaves in the mines and other places. People also don't remember the Bataan Death March and the Rape of Nanking. They also don't remember the medical experiments done on live victims. People also forget that the Japanese started the wars in China, the US, and other countries. The Japanese only cry about what the atom bomb did to them. There is a scene in the movie with Robert Taylor where he is playing the part of Col. Tibbets who dropped the first atom bomb on Japan. This scene is where Taylor's superior gave him a push button and he was asked that if pushing that button would save thousands of American lives, he pushes that button. I would push that button. Like the death penalty in the US, people remember the criminal but they never remember the victims.

The memoirs of the real Gwen Terasaki serve as the basis for Bridge To The Sun. Carroll Baker and James Shigeta would have troubles enough in an interracial marriage in the Thirties in America, especially Baker who was from Johnson City, Tennessee. But as America and Japan edge closer and finally go to war, this star-crossed couple has to make some choices that not too many others have to face.

But Baker and Shigeta are soul-mates and that fact is what keeps them together despite the upbringings of both. For Baker she's a southern girl born and bred. She has an easier time of overcoming that than Ensign Nellie Forbush in South Pacific, but it's there.

As for Shigeta he's a Japanese diplomat who thinks the militarists are leading his country down the wrong path. But he's also traditional Japanese who believes that the woman is most inferior. There's a great scene of dinner at their house in Japan where the women eat separately at their own table. Some political remarks are made and she commits the ultimate social sin of speaking up. That leads to a nasty quarrel. It reminds of the scene in Giant where Elizabeth Taylor speaks up in a political discussion to Rock Hudson's chauvinistic chagrin. Texans and Japanese have chauvinism much in common.

Of course when war is finally declared Shigeta is shipped home and Baker takes their daughter and accompanies him. Her insights into the Japanese home front are the best part of the film and her life story.

It's not true that Gwen Teresaki took their daughter back to America much less Tennessee. She would know better than to take a mixed racial child anywhere in Dixie. 'Terry' Teresaki did die young and Gwen enjoyed a long widowhood in life not dying until 1990. But not within a year of their departure. The real Teresaki became part of the Japanese new government under the occupation and he died in 1951 just before the occupation ended.

Bridge To The Sun should have been done in color, but I'm supposing that was to allow that black and white newsreel footage to be integrated into the story. Baker and Shigeta are fine in the leads and the story is an eternal that while love can be on a rocky road, it finds a way if it's real.

Etienne Périer is a Belgian director who has made most of his films in France .His favourite genre was the thriller:"Meurtre En 45 tours" which was made just before "bridge" was a Boileau-Narcejac ("Diaboliques" "Vertigo" ) novel and set a pattern for the seventies works "La Main A Couper" "Un Meurtre ESt Un Meurtre " "La Part Du Feu" ;the best was inspired by a true story "Un Si Joli Village"(1978) but it was not a commercial success and it was 1989 before Périer made another movie :another thriller in eighteenth century Venice where Vivaldi met Goldoni.

Still with me? "Bridge to the sun" has nothing to do with Périer's French films .When I read his name in the credits ,I could not believe my eyes.Although completely impersonal,it's a valuable pacifist work ,a kind of movie we are desperately in need of in our trouble times.Based on true facts-like the 1978 effort,which would tend to prove that Périer is at his best with them-,it depicts the life of an Japanese ambassador and his American wife.As WW2 was breaking out and Pearl Harbour was around the corner ,the couple and their daughter were going to have a bad time.

The best moments,however ,are in the first part of the movie,when Gwenn discovers the Japanese way of life and .....its very macho side!Carroll Baker is gorgeous but as the story stretches over more than ten years it's extraordinary she 's stayed fresh as a rose after all those years,even in the bombing scenes !Ditto for her husband who does not look terminally-ill at all in the final sequences.

This is minor quibble :"bridge to the sun" is a heartfelt movie,which proves one more time the absurdity of war.There were Germans who fought against the Nazis,there were French resistant fighters who refused collaboration,there were Japanese men who risked their lives for peace ,even in the most desperate situations.

Like this? try these.....

"Empire of the sun" Spielberg 1987

"Sayonara" Joshua Logan 1957

The story opens in 1935, as an unsophisticated Southern gal(Caroll Baker) meets a suave Japanese diplomat (James Shigeta) at a Washington party. They fall in love and spend the war years in Japan, where he works for peace as she adjusts to a new culture.

This movie is based on a wonderful, sensitive memoir and could have been great but, for me, the miscasting of Carroll Baker almost ruins it. She's gauche and unlikable with a shrill, twangy voice and limited acting skills. James Shigeta, on the other hand, is perfect as the handsome and charming diplomat and gives an excellent performance. It is a pleasure to watch him.

The movie feels rushed and shallow, never taking the time to explore the couple's feelings in depth. I recommend the book by Gwen Terasaki instead.

"Bridge to the sun" (1961) directed by Etienne Périer is a strange story well narrated and constructed with a fine taste for the Japanese atmosphere before, during and just after the end of WWII, about one mixed couple and a child, where the ship across the Pacific ocean substitutes the commercial plane, because Pearl Harbor attack and its symbolic attachment for both sides.

There is a scene when both are seeing moving pictures with a typical demonstration of love and kissing, suggested by a close-up from maybe one of the last movies of the time, with Greta Garbo as protagonist from nineteenth Century feminine role and her posture on the screen warming the viewers, as though the mingled couple of another story of romantic destiny.

The introduction of a young woman in a Oriental way of life, with the nationalism as forced background in the middle of traditions, it is very well explained namely with several small events from the daily rhythm of this rare love story - as such was two years before this one from another movie of the same kind - and the sensibleness for them from a Occidental young loving and blonde shell woman, also with delicate principles such as one Texan royalty, since she was young miss and missing from her country to another without relationship as worst than iron curtain, it is evidently a good surprise from the well controlled melodramatic story lines. A brief scene with the child and a paper-kite in a tableland landscape reducing in between with short shots the three years and a half of war in the Pacific ocean as an improvised newsreel with general MacArthur in one of them, till another paper-kite in the same place with the child now growing and his mother waiting for somebody, her husband.

I just saw Bridge To The Sun a few moments ago on TMC for the first time. Man, am I impressed! The acting was superb and completely believable, and the direction and overall production was first rate. About a Japanese man who marries a small town southern girl shortly before the outbreak of the second world war. What happens to them and their fight to stay alive and together is nothing short of heartbreakingly sad, all the more so because it is based on a true story. The love of these two is to me the strongest anti-war statement that one could make. A reminder that in the insanity of war, the civilized, the gentle and loving are always the first to die. A great, great film - not to be missed, but be prepared to weep and to curse war.

I saw a movie named Bridge To The Sun late in 1963 when I was a high school senior. In the movie I remember, the Japanese diplomat was honorable. At the end, he was so ashamed of Japan, he put on a ceremonial robe, walked out into a deserted countryside, sat down, and waited to die. Like a kamikaze, but less destructive of others. I was so enthralled by the character that when a Japanese-American friend invited me to her Judo Club at the nearby Buddhist Church, I immediately fell in love with a boy on the mats who looked like the character. He knew it and played me for a fool. We were married a year after high school. I turned out to be honorable, and he didn't. His mother, a Nisei, had been born on a truck farm near Sacramento, California. Her parents, like many Japanese-American Isei, sent their children back to Japan to be raised Japanese-style. When she returned to the US in her teens, it was her job to deliver produce to the kitchen of the mansion of a wealthy family in Sacramento. She told me that the family's daughter became her good friend, and she was the girl who married the honorable Japanese diplomat. I believed her because I remembered the diplomatic party where the couple met as being in San Francisco or Sacramento.

Is there another movie by the same name? Where did my memory go wrong? It was a very fresh memory when I made a bad marriage.

Carroll Baker and James Shigeta star as "Terry" and Gwen Terasaki in this true story (based on Gwen's memoir) of an inter-racial marriage between a Japanese diplomat and a young American woman during the period from the mid-1930's to the post-World War II era. It was a very interesting movie that deals with the concepts of foreign races and cultures from two perspectives - which is somewhat unique. I would think that in 1961, when this film was made, it may have been a bit controversial. Inter-racial marriage was still a very controversial subject in America, and the story of an American woman who chose to go to Japan with her husband at the outbreak of the war probably would have been somewhat shocking to audiences who could easily still remember Pearl Harbor and the war with Japan.

The movie can basically be divided into two halves. The first deals with Gwen and Terry's life in America. Meeting at a reception at the Japanese Embassy, they quickly fall in love. Gwen is from Tennessee; her family is none to happy at the prospect of her marrying a Japanese man, although to be honest the reaction seems to be a subdued one. More is made of the difficulty of Gwen being accepted by the Japanese - including her being summoned to the Embassy to meet the Ambassador, who asks her not to marry Terry. But they do marry, and Terry returns with her to Japan afterward. The culture chock for Gwen is more profound, as she suddenly has to deal with the subordinate place of women in the society, and with Terry's change in behaviour - as he seems desperate to fit back into Japanese society. After being re-posted to the Embassy in Washington, Terry is sent back to Japan with the outbreak of the war, and Gwen (and their new daughter Mariko) go with him, with both having to face suspicion and downright anti-Americanism as the war continues and as Japan is increasingly subjected to American bombing.

This struck me as a courageous film. Even to this day there aren't a lot of films that really try to give a Japanese perspective on the war and on the Japanese attitude to America and Americans during the war. In fact, the most interesting thing about this movie is that it's set in Japan during World War II and presents what comes across as an accurate portrayal of what life must have been like in that environment, especially for an American woman who would have been looked on with suspicion for that very reason. In fact, one mechanism that director Etienne Perier used well were the sideways glances of the Japanese people at Gwen - a mixture of curiosity and contempt. They were usually in the background and not that noticeable, but if you did notice them they made a powerful point. This was a good performance from Baker. She had been known mostly for glamorous, sexy roles to this point (and would continue mostly in that vein afterward) but she did a good job in this dramatic role. Shigeta (known mostly for guest starring roles on TV) was also very effective in his role. It was a very early role for him, and it represented a very serious role at a time when serious roles (without stereotypes) for Asian actors were relatively scarce. I thought Baker and Shigeta worked well together and were very convincing in portraying the Terasaki's love story.

It's a well made movie, combining politics, racism, war and a love story all in one. (8/10)

A fantastic film, with so much to love about it. The story itself, which is true, is a little mind-boggling. An American woman from Tennessee (Carroll Baker) marries a Japanese diplomat (James Shigeta) and goes back to Japan with him after Pearl Harbor, when officials from both sides are deported. The pair have a daughter and live their lives in rural Japan while the war rages on.

The film is highly sensitive culturally, and well ahead of its time. The Japanese characters are shown to be regular human beings, and there are no stereotypes. At the same time, aspects of the culture are on display, e.g. sacrificing one's desires for honor, filial piety, not displaying one's emotions, etc. This is for good and bad - in one fantastic scene, Baker rips into Shigeta for his culture's expectation that women be silent, and keep their opinions to themselves, which was probably her best scene. I also loved how the dialogue is often in untranslated Japanese.

Though the war is a bit in the background, we see it from the perspective of Japan, which is fascinating. Seeing the community huddle around a radio and listen to Emperor Hirohito's voice for the first time, when he announces surrender to his country, is a powerful scene. Seeing American planes bomb the village is as well. It may be a touchy subject to those who suffered at the hands of Japanese aggression, or to those who (correctly) point out that Japan "started it", but I found the film balanced and truthful, relaying the events of this couple's life. We know that the people are suffering because of the actions of their own government, despite people like Shigeta (Terasaki-san) who advocated peace, but we can still feel for the tragedy of it all. And while the film humanizes the 'other side' in the war which is too often dehumanized, the main story is about this trials and tribulations of this interracial relationship set against the backdrop of their countries at war.

There are very nice love scenes between Shigeta and Baker, and they play just as if it were two white characters, with romance, tenderness, and passionate kissing, which was incredibly refreshing. Shigeta is not demasculated in the slightest, and makes a strong leading man. Just compare his suave, thoughtful, and human portrayal to the racist, shameful, and disgusting 'Japanese-American' that Mickey Rooney gives us in 'Breakfast at Tiffany's', which was also made in 1961. Baker's performance is good but probably not great, feeling at times a little forced, though it's always heartfelt. The film really makes you ponder what you might do in some of the difficult situations these two find themselves in. It's a powerful story of the depths of love, and the need for world peace. There are a couple of scenes that gave me goosebumps, and the ending is just fantastic. Highly recommended.