Tora! Tora! Tora!

The movie Tora! Tora! Tora! (トラ・トラ・トラ), released in 1970, is a dramatization of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the series of American blunders that aggravated its effectiveness. It was critically acclaimed for its vivid action scenes as well as its almost documentary accuracy. Its most famous line, however, though widely assumed to be a quotation, transpired to be fictitious.

The film was created in two separate productions, one based in the United States, directed by Richard Fleischer, and one based in Japan. The Japanese side of the production was initially directed by Akira Kurosawa, but after two years of work with no useful results, 20th Century Fox turned the project over to Kinji Fukasaku who completed it.

The screenplay was written by Ladislas Farago, Larry Forrester, Ryuzo Kikushima, and Hideo Oguni, based on the book by Gordon W. Prange. The film contains excellent second unit and miniature photography, shot by Ray Kellogg.

The film had an "all-star" cast, including

• Martin Balsam as Admiral Husband Kimmel, Commander in Chief Pacific Fleet
• Soh Yamamura as Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander Combined Japanese Fleet
• Joseph Cotten as Secretary of War Henry Stimson
• Tatsuya Mihashi as Commander Minoru Genda, Air Staff 1st Fleet
• Edward G. Marshall as Colonel Rufus Bratton, Head of Army Intelligence
• James Whitmore as Vice Admiral William Halsey, Commander Task Force 2
• Eijiro Tono as Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, Commander Carrier Force
• Jason Robards as Lt. General Walter Short, Commanding General United States Army