Emperor: Film Review

Brigadier General Bonner Fellers (Matthew Fox) writes a book report about Japan. No, wait, sorry, he writes two book reports—one before the outbreak of World War II and the other following the Japanese surrender. Fellers presents one of these book reports to General Douglas MacArthur (Tommy Lee Jones). MacArthur decides not to charge Japanese Emperor Hirohito with war crimes. MacArthur and Hirohito meet, they shake hands, and take a picture. Unfortunately, that is the plot of the lifeless new film, Emperor.  

The film, directed by Peter Webber, spends nearly all of its running time telling the viewer about Japan, its traditions, and the crucially important role of the emperor in Japanese society. Emperor, however, fails to show any of these things. Instead it torments the viewer with long, tedious speeches about honor, tradition, and the longevity of Japanese culture. Fellers arrives in Japan and engages in parallel investigations—one about the role of Emperor Hirohito and the other about whether his former girlfriend, Aya, survived the war. Fellers’ parallel book reports and investigations represent one of the most blatant and mind numbing examples of dramatic parallel storytelling that I’ve ever seen. Fellers’ investigation of his girlfriend involves yelling at his Japanese assistant to find him information. In examining Hirohito’s role in prosecuting the war, Fellers drives around Japan and interviews surviving members of the Japanese government. In-between he wanders the streets of Japan or flashes back to his love affair with Aya. The film’s attempt at offering meaningful dialogue or insight about the causes of war boils down to a lecture by one of the Japanese officials about the evils of Western colonialism. Fellers answers that he does not need a history lesson. Unsurprisingly, right before he must submit his final recommendation to MacArthur, Fellers discovers that Aya died during the war. Somewhere in this bore of a film lies a good idea. The process of rebuilding a nation, war crimes prosecutions, and the need for an occupying power to respect the traditions of a defeated people resonate in today’s world and offer rich palate for crafting an important and thought provoking film. Emperor, however, fails to make use of its rich historical landscape and presents a plot that alternates between trite melodrama and a plodding police procedural.

            Tommy Lee Jones is the only actor in the film giving anything resembling a performance. He luckily has the benefit of playing a well-known historical figure that gives him (and the audience) some prior sense of MacArthur.  The films’ writers fail to create characters for Fox and the rest of the cast to play. Instead they plod along from scene to scene and words pop out of their mouths, but they have little relation to the ways that human beings speak and react to each other. They are merely vehicles for rote discourses.

Reading the Wikipedia pages about Fellers, Hirohito, and the investigation of the emperor would be more insightful than watching this dreadfully dull film.