Tommy Lee Jones masterfully portrays another figure in American history in Emperor, the story of how and why the wrongly maligned General Douglas MacArthur (Jones, superbly capturing the essence of an American hero) chose to remake postwar Japan after the mystical nation – which attacked the U.S. at Pearl Harbor – was atomic bombed into submission.
As Mr. Jones did in Lincoln, he plays a supporting role to the film’s leading actor – Matthew Fox as an American general assigned by MacArthur to investigate Japan’s Emperor Hirohito, who probably knew about Japan’s atrocities – yet seeing Jones as MacArthur is the best reason to see this small, otherwise disjointed movie. Emperor begins with the dropping of an atomic bomb on Japan by the U.S. – we had to drop two bombs since Japan refused to surrender after we first bombed Hiroshima – and the film presumes an awareness of the historical context thereafter. The movie centers upon Fox’s Bonner Fellers, who had fallen for a Japanese citizen (Eriko Hatsune).
The first hour is strained as we learn that U.S. General Fellers is in love with a woman named Aya – we never learn why or what motivates his interest in Japanese culture – but since we know that everything that’s happened since the end of World War 2, with the transformation of Japan from a war-worshipping state into an example of capitalism and freedom, we are willing to bear this movie in order to return to the question of how larger-than-life Gen. MacArthur brought Japan to respect Western civilization before rising again as a major world power in commercialism. Emperor is slow, ponderous and, with Fox looking like Roddy McDowall in need of a hamburger, too focused on someone who is not the easiest person to like. What Gen. Fellers did to save the woman he loved raises legitimate questions about his patriotism.
Getting through the first half manages to make Emperor, with its scathing indictment of Japan’s culture and philosophy of self-sacrifice for the sake of the god-state, worth one’s time and money. The scenes of MacArthur deciding what to do with Japan’s emperor – and, really, with Japan, which MacArthur infused with America’s founding ideals – are powerful, memorable and profoundly moving. Emperor looks good, too. But its unyielding repudiation of superstition – do not step on the emperor’s shadow (!) – blended with a great American general’s undeniable sense of decency, honor – real honor, not the eastern ‘honor’ of slaughtering one’s self – and love for humanity is something remarkable to see. If you love Japan and what it has become, thanks to the brilliant and innovative choices of its people, see Emperor for a unique dramatization of what makes today’s Japan superior to what it was not long ago.