MovieChat Forums > Objective, Burma! (1945) Discussion > 'Japanese' actor/soldiers and dialogue i...

'Japanese' actor/soldiers and dialogue in the film? Think not.

posted 15 years ago by cribyn44
16 replies | jump to latest

Whilst I am far from being a Far Eastern linguistic expert, even I know the difference in sound between the Chinese and Japanese languages. For me, there was no way that the actors who were supposedly acting as "Japanese" soldiers were either speaking, or having their words dubbed as, Japanese. Likewise the actors concerned: they didn't strike me as Japanese men. Anyone out there to confirm this? Given the year it was made and that the Pacific war was still continuing (see the final comments on the screen at the end of the film), and given the fiercely racist anti-Japanese pronouncements made by the American "soldiers" in the film (reflecting even the acknowledged racist anti-Japanese nature of the American side of the Pacific war), it is probably "understandable" why the American film makers would have been most reluctant then to have used genuine Japanese actors in the film.

[–] tuba_man_58 15 years ago

During the war it was common US practice to cast any available Asian actors (usually Chinese) as "Japs". Actual Japanese dialog and was unheard for a variety of reasons..... one being that fluent Japanese speakers were busy with Military intelligence, or locked up in camps.

[–] leforcat 14 years ago

Actually, the first US-film to portray the Japanese seriously, rather than hostile, strange or half-witted, was Sydney Pollack's 'The Yakuza', no sooner than 1974 - and, mind you, by then Kurosawa's films has been widely known and admired for more than a decade! However, around 1974, Japanese products, most notably cars, has begun to seriously challenge the American home-made goods - I think that's what did it.

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[–] The_Khazi 14 years ago

What about "None But The Brave" from 1965?Largely sympathetic portrayal of the Japanese although the film isn`t helped by a terrible performance from Tommy Sands.

[–] leforcat 14 years ago

I didn't say there were no sympathetic portrayals of the Japanese before - I said they were either evil or half-witted, meaning they were at least shown as somehow lower standing. The well known "The Teahouse of the August Moon", 1956, is another example - they're nice but kind-of native, inferior-nice. Even the otherwise celebrated Sam Fuller didn't think much of them in "House of Bamboo" - he was much more respectful towards the Germans in "Steel Helmet" or "The Big Red One".

In The Yakuza, however, they weren't always sympathetic - but they were at last on the level.

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[–] TongueFu 14 years ago

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[–] rgcustomer 13 years ago

I have always wondered if that was possible. This is indeed a great day.

[–] dannieboy20906 9 years ago

"I didn't say there were no sympathetic portrayals of the Japanese before - I said they were either evil or half-witted,..."

I have studied logic, empiricism, and general science for most of my life. My formal education beyond high school is as an engineer. I need to ask you, what is the difference between what you wrote in your original post, "The first movie with a sympathetic view of Japanese..." and what your debate opponent wrote?

"The first" and "never before" are logically the same statement. If you do not think them to be so then I need an explanation as to how your school of logic operates.

[–] salmoni 13 years ago

An earlier film was "Go for Broke!" made (I think) in 1951 (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043590/). The portrayal of the Japanese soldiers (here fighting in the US Army) was certainly not as hostile, strange or half-witted. However, you could argue that it wasn't a portrayal of Japanese people as such but rather Americans with Japanese ancestry.

The movie's available (or was) from archive.org and it's not a bad picture. It concerns the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and their exploits in Italy and France during WW2.

[–] bcamphome 8 years ago

You need to see THREE STRIPES IN THE SUN (1955), ESCAPADE IN JAPAN (1957) and MY GEISHA (1962) before you make a broad generalization like that. These are just three Hollywood films off the top of my head that treated Japan and the Japanese with respect and sympathy.

[–] liscarkat (16522) a year ago

"Sayonara" (1967) is another U.S. film that sympathetically portrays Japanese people as intelligent, normal humans.

[–] blckb5364 13 years ago

The reason why they used Chinese actors in place of Japanese actors is because this movie was made while WWII was still in progress. And anyone with any American history knowledge would know that all Japanese Americans were being held in internment camps during the war. There is no war movie (or any movie for that matter) made during the war that have actual Japanese actors in it. Read your damn history books!

[–] will7370 12 years ago

Speaking from a position of total ignorance, and NOT wanting to sound racist in any way (because I honestly want to know)----Is there a physical way to distinguish a person of Japanese descent from one of Chinese just from facial features alone? Short of hearing them speak a language? Don't they all descend from the same line if you go back far enough in Asian past?

[–] anghmho 12 years ago

I wouldn't accuse you of total ignorance, just healthy curiosity. If you stand a garden-variety Englishman next to a Norwegian, say, how would you tell who was who? Not a chance. When I was in Thailand, I could usually tell a Thai from a Laotian, but ONLY by dress and language, and that wasn't easy if you were within a few hundred miles of the border. And the closer I moved to Burma, the more Thais looked Burmese.

People tend to look look slightly different from each other over many geographical miles, unless separated by great physical barriers. Even then, the differences are not always noticeable.

Physical differences between Japanese and Chinese? There are other differences, but physical? Good luck.

Maybe some day in the future, we may think our differences are even less noticeable.

[–] whisperhog 11 years ago

There are subtle differences, but it takes a while for the average Caucasian to recognize them. Most of the subtle differences are in the facial features.

[–] bcamphome 8 years ago

I was startled by the spoken dialogue by the Japanese characters. It sure didn't sound Japanese to me. And there are plenty of movies made during the war where Japanese is clearly spoken by the Japanese characters (e.g. DESTINATION TOKYO). I'm guessing that those scenes were shot without sound and dubbed in later and by the time of the dubbing session, they didn't have anyone on hand who could dub in Japanese dialogue, so they had the dubbing actors speak these made-up lines.

The actors playing the Japanese in OBJECTIVE, BURMA! are Asian, but clearly not Japanese. (And they don't move like soldiers, either.) I kept thinking as I watched it, "These guys don't look Japanese at all." I imagine that every Asian extra was employed in Hollywood making war films and that by the time OBJECTIVE, BURMA! was made, all the professionals were busy working on other films, so they had to search far and wide for Asians to play the Japanese and must have used Filipinos, Thai, Indonesian, etc., whoever they could find. And I found it odd that when they reached the Burmese village, the Burmese were played by Indians.

[–] liscarkat (16522) a year ago

Documentary accuracy wasn't possible, especially during wartime. Nevertheless, the movie succeeded as entertainment.