BY Izumi OKUHARA
On December 7, 1941, Japanese naval planes attacked and greatly damaged the American pacific fleet by surprise in Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii. This was the dawn of the war in the Pacific. The memory of the attack on Pearl Harbor is so strong that Americans have the saying, ﾒRemember Pearl Harbor!ﾓ In July of 2001, the movie ﾒPearl Harborﾓ was screened and there were arguments about some parts of the story and those were cut before it was released in Japan.
The story centers around Rafe, a pilot in the American army, Evelyn, a navy nurse, and Danny, who is a good friend of Rafe. Rafe and Danny are close friends whose favorite pastime was playing in an old, unflyable airplane when they were small boys, and their dream was to become pilots. Twelve years later, Rafe and Danny are flying in the sky as pilots at the army base in New Jersey. Thereafter, Rafe meets Evelyn by chance and their story develops. Thus, this movie is a love story against the backdrop of the war, and the battle scene in which Japanese airplanes attack America by surprise are terrible. In that scene, thousands of soldiers die, and the devastation of Pearl Harbor after the air raid looked like it was real and not a movie set. The story as a whole has a unity and it is a very interesting love story.
When we look at the of box-office top ten profits, "Pearl Harbor" held its rank for more than six months in Japan. On the other hand, when "Pearl Harbor" was released in the US, it was ranked in the top ten at first, but after that it was not ranked at all. It seems that American people felt unsatisfied with this movie because they expected a war film. This is an obvious deference between Japan and America, but it deserves to be looked at more closely.
As for advertising, the battle scenes were emphasized in America. In Japan, however, the love story was emphasized. The movie was a great box-office success in Japan and in many countries all over the world.
Many that Japanese women in their twenties and thirties enjoyed this movie as a love story. Most young people donﾕt know of Pearl Harbor's historical meaning or even the fact that Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. A lot of young people learned about it for the first time when they saw the movie. This means Japanese history education has weak points. It is important for young people like us to know Japan killed many people in World War II and left deep scars among many Asian people, as well as Japanese.
When I saw the movie I got angry about what Japan did, and I think Japan shouldnﾕt repeat the same thing again. I also feel that Japanese are ignorant of our own history. In addition, I think this movie shows Japan in a bad light. However, this is the true history of Japan under militarism, and the atrocities depicted in the movie should not be permissible. It is necessary that young people should face good and accurate history in order not to repeat the same thing in the future. American people keep the words ﾒRemember Pearl Harborﾓ in their minds so that they donﾕt forget the attack on Pearl Harbor. Equally, Japanese people should keep ﾒRemember Pearl Harborﾓ as watchwords so as not to repeat this contemptible attack. I hope that many Japanese consider the lessons of the Pearl Harbor attack even though they watched the movie "Pearl Harbor" as a love story.