MovieChat Forums > Kaze tachinu (2014) Discussion > Is This A Pro Nazi Movie

Is This A Pro Nazi Movie


Obviously the Japanese we're not Nazis during WWII but does the director portray them as the good guys even though they were allied with Germany? I haven't seen it, and while I like the directors work I'm a bit hesitant due to the questionable subject matter.

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Have you even watched this movie? If so, please point out with parts of it is pro Nazi.

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Did you even read his post? He clearly states that he has not seen the film, and he is not stating that this is pro Nazi film, but ASKING. Learn to read.

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Hardly, hell at one point one of the characters even goes as far as to say "The Nazi's are a gang of hoodlums". Certainly doesn't seem to me that its Pro Nazi

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by superfly2008 » 2 days ago (Mon Dec 1 2014 23:13:21)
IMDb member since September 2010
Obviously the Japanese we're not Nazis during WWII but does the director portray them as the good guys even though they were allied with Germany? I haven't seen it, and while I like the directors work I'm a bit hesitant due to the questionable subject matter.

It might make some people uncomfortable because for some people the Second World War is a taboo subject. Not for me. It happened. We, the US, fought in it with our allies, and we beat the Axis powers hands down. It's history.

There is a thinking in Hollywood that people need to be reminded of the horrors of the second world war because there is a large Jewish population that escaped the horrors of that era.

I don't dismiss it, but at some time you have to put things in perspective, and examine other tales that event has to offer. This is one of them. It's not a pro Imperialist film, and even though there are Germans in it, it is not a pro Nationalist Socialist film.

It's a tale about a man who happens to have designed one of the most infamous airplanes of that time; the Japanese Zero.

They briefly talk about who they might fight, including bombing America, but they don't advocate it. There's no real political message in the film. It's just a personal tale of an aeronautical engineer.

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Um, who would portray the Nazis as good guys in this day and age?

Can't stop the signal.

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No, not all Japanese held the view of their government any more than all Germans were Nazis. Characters state repeatedly throughout the film that their designs are not meant to be used for war.

Passion is just insanity in a cashmere sweater!

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There is no other use for a carrier-based fighter than offensive warfare. The designers knew it.

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Not at all. Quite the opposite in fact.

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It isn't fair to assume that just because Japan was Germany's ally 70 years ago that a Japanese movie might portray the Nazis as good guys. Today, only a few racist individuals think of the Nazis as correct or just. Not even the German people of today think that Nazis were good. Of course The Wind Rises does not depict the Nazis in a positive light.

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But aren't those same planes the dude in this movie made the same ones that were used to bomb us at Pearl Harbor? Hmm....

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Regarding the Zero and Pearl Harbor:
The Zero was not a dive bomber, torpedo bomber, or ground support attack fighter. It was an air superiority fighter and could carry only two very small bombs max (if they even armed it with the bombs as they added weight). Its primary role was engaging enemy air superiority fighters and intercepting enemy bombers. At Pearl Harbor, they would have been used for air cover to protect the dive bombers and torpedo planes, and at most, for strafing using their machine guns. The damage at Pearl Harbor was done by the dive bombers and torpedo bombers, not the Zero.

I'm wondering what Pearl Harbor has to do with the German Nazis? The Japanese may have been in mutual support treaties with Germany and Italy, but they were definitely not fascist, not like the Western fascism in Spain, Germany or Italy. In addition, why should we fault a Japanese aeronautical engineer for working for Mitsubishi and designing military naval aircraft? If we find that appalling then we should just as equally indict the designers of the Supermarine Spitfire, the Avro Lancaster bomber, the P-47 Thunderbolt, P-51 Mustang, and the Boeing B-17, B-24 and B-29 bombers, and all the other military aircraft used in WII. The bombers in particular slaughtered hundreds of thousands of civilians, especially late in the war with the incendiary carpet bombing of entire cities in raids designed to exterminate entire populations in one or two nights.

Regarding their visit to the Junkers works in Germany:
Dr. Junkers was ousted from his company, which was nationalized with all his patents and intellectual properties also seized by the German government, shortly after the Nazi Party took power in 1933. Junkers was viewed as a Socialist Pacifist that would not cooperate as fully or quickly with German rearmament as Hermann Goering and Adolf Hitler desired. Dr. Junkers died while under house arrest in 1934.

Regarding the odd German at the Japanese alpine retreat:
This is the fictional character, Hans Castorp, from Thomas Mann's 1924 novel, The Magic Mountain, the title of which refers to the Berghotel Sanatorium Schatzalp, a German alpine sanitarium for tuberculosis patients. If you note carefully, Hans warns that the Nazis are thugs and will blow up Germany. Thomas Mann was very anti-Nazi. He fled from Germany to Switzerland in 1933, was stripped of his German citizenship with his honorary doctorate from Bonn University revoked and all his books banned and burned by the Nazi government. He fled from there to the USA in 1939 after war broke out in Europe. Whether the Swiss could maintain neutrality was questionable for a while, and there was some thought within the Nazi Party for a while about annexing Switzerland as they had Austria. Had he been captured by the Gestapo, Mann would have undoubtedly become yet another of the many political adversaries beheaded by guillotine at the Plotzensee Prison for High Treason (after the appropriate show trial). While in the USA throughout WWII, Mann recorded short German language anti-Nazi broadcasts that were recorded, shipped to Britain and broadcast to continental Europe by England. For Mann's Castorp character to be included in the film in the manner he is portrayed should be an indication that it's decidedly not sympathetic to the Nazis. Unfortunately, those not familiar with Thomas Mann or his famous 1924 novel, The Magic Mountain, will not fully understand fully who Hans Castorp is or the vehemently anti-Nazi position he represents.

I hope this gives some perspective about the political stance of this movie which has clear anti-Nazi sentiments.

John

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This movie is totally Pro Nazi. All we were missing is the characters breaking into dance to FLOW covering Springtime For Hitler.

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[badly misguided content deleted]

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Even if you didn't get the references I was making I thought it would have been clear I was making a joke 

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That's what I get for reading it late at night . . .
Didn't miss the Charles Chaplin reference but it didn't take either. Edited my earlier reply.

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