This film has an IMDB rating of 6.5 where I gave it an 8.0. I thought it was informative & accurate & well produced. My only quip is that romance between Fellers & Aya (totally fictional) pulled it down slightly.
So why the hate? Reading the boards I see these mentioned most ...
1. Gratuitous/fictional/unnecessary romance
2. Michael Fox ... boring
3. Humanizes Japanese people ... our bloodthirsty enemy
What else bothered you about his film? I do not understand the hate?
It wasn't a bad movie, as it was mediocre for a this genre of historical war films, and while it wasn't a Patton (1970) or even a Saving Private Ryan (1998), of late Fury (2014) it certaintly was missing something, other than the star power of Tommy Lee Jones ...but is difficult to pinpoint just what it could be. Maybe its not for those whose tastes require a lot of whizbang & gore?
shareI liked it.
shareIt was like you could enjoy the film Pearl Harbor as long as you knew nothing about the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Battle of Britain, the Dolittle Raid, FDR, fighter aircraft, bomber aircraft or history in general.
This film could have been more interesting if it stuck to the real life stories instead of inventing a fictional version.
Aya was based upon Yuri Watanabe. Fellers and Watanabe met while students at Earlham college in 1916. They were merely close friends; both married others in the 1920's. Yuri survived WWII.