History Buffs: Tora! Tora! Tora!

Hello and welcome

history

lovers, my name is Nick Hodges and for a long time many of you have been asking me to review Pearl Harbor and every time I read one of your comments asking me to do so, my immediate response was why? would they want? Me to review Pearl Harbor, I mean, I think we can all agree that the movie is terrible and I really don't think there's much more I can add to the conversation that hasn't been covered in other reviews, often much better than ever. . In fact, you might think that the nostalgia critics' review perfectly summed up my feelings about Pearl Harbor, motherfucker, but if you really want to know what I hate most about that movie is how it condescends and panders to its American audience by taking advantage of every cheap opportunity. to wave as many flags on the screen as possible instead of being respectful and relying on the heroic deeds of the American military to speak for themselves, they have to swallow America's ego deep down with lines like this, many people disapprove to the Yankees for not being in this war yet, I would just like to say that if there are many more at home like you, God help anyone who goes to war with the United States, on the other hand, you are a group of people for not have joined yet, oh calm down, it's a joke. a joke anyway, yes if I wanted I could dedicate this entire review to telling you how horrible Pearl Harbor is or instead I could recommend the movie Good Pearl Harbor, an underappreciated American masterpiece that deserves your attention and should be sight, and I would.

I would like to add and I don't say this lightly. This movie is so good that I put it up there with Waterloo. This is Torah Torah Torah Torah Torah Torah These were the Japanese code words announcing that they had achieved total surprise on December 7, 1941. Words were shouted over the radio as Japanese squadrons began to approach Hawaii and would mark a day that would live forever in infamy: the attack on Pearl Harbor, but how did it all begin? Why was the United States so unprepared and why was Japan even willing to do it? Risking an all-out war with them to achieve better understanding we need to go back to when the relationship between the United States and Japan began to decline.

Arguably the first step was taken when on September 18, 1931, Japan invaded the Chinese province of Manchuria, the invasion being condemned by Western powers, including the United States, for disturbing world peace. Japan regarded this condemnation as little more than hypocrisy. Much of the Far East had already been colonized by the West and Japan wanted to build an empire of its own under the West. Under the pretext that Asia should be ruled by Asians In 1933, the League of Nations, the equivalent of today's United Nations, concluded that Japan was the blatant aggressor in this conflict and demanded its immediate withdrawal from Manchuria.

Instead, Japan shocked to the world by withdrawing from the league of nations it was under the assumption that when things came to an end no other nation would interfere, they were right and manchuria became a puppet state and was renamed manchu the impotence behind the league of nations political power would soon encourage other acts of defiance italy would invade abyssinia in 1935 and germany remilitarized the rhineland in 1936 faced no profound consequences japan's thirst for expansion could not be said for long it longed to build its empire it desperately needed natural resources and China was an attractive target was in the midst of a brutal civil war waged by communist nationalists and various warlords, each fighting for a dominant power ready for conquest.

Japan invaded mainland China in 1937. Its brutal and violent occupation would lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Chinese citizens. Horrifying episodes like the King Nan massacre. Western public opinion once again tilted against Japan. The West would condemn these actions but would not interfere militarily. The United States with its isolationist policy wanted to avoid any possibility of conflict, but with Great Britain and France they provided the Republic of China with fuel for weapons and other types. Of aid these supplies would reach the Chinese along routes such as the Sino-Vietnamese railway or the Burma road in 1940 the balance of power had changed in Europe after the official start of the Second World War France had been completely defeated and the southern half was reorganized into the vichy regime, a client state of nazi germany, vichy france continued to maintain power in the overseas territories of the previous government, but that would soon be challenged in an effort to cut off supplies to china on 22 September 1940, Japan invaded French Indochina with little resistance.

Shortly after Japan signed the tripartite pact with Germany and Italy, in addition to being a defensive military alliance between the three nations, Germany and Italy recognized Japan's role as a power in Greater East Asia, Japan in turn recognized its In Europe, this agreement basically gave Japan a free hand in Southeast Asia and this greatly alarmed the United States, mainly due to its overseas territories in the Philippines, which now placed it at Japan's doorstep, so in response , the United States, Great Britain and Free Holland hit Japan with an oil embargo and froze all its assets. This hit Japan hard.

With the United States supplying them with 80 percent of the oil they consumed, Japan now faced a crucial decision without any oil resources of their own and with less than two years of supplies remaining, they had to withdraw from their conquered territories or continue the offensive. The Dutch East Indies were rich in oil and taking those abundant resources would mean war with the United States, which is the option they chose. Now American President Roosevelt was aware of this possibility and therefore ordered the Pacific Fleet to move from his base. in San Diego to the Hawaiian island of Oahu in Pearl Harbor the purpose of such a move was to tell the Japanese that we have them under surveillance but that was basically it the possibility of war coming to Hawaii was far from anyone's mind it was thought about anymore Probably, if it happened, the first target would be the Philippine pearl port.

It also had the strategic advantage that the shallow waters reached only 40 feet deep. It was generally accepted that an aerial torpedo needed at least 70 feet to hit a ship. But as fate would have it, the Japanese plans to attack Hawaii had already been set in motion. The commander and chief of the Japanese Navy, Isuroku Yamamoto, had been preparing for such an eventuality, despite opposing the war with the United States, and felt that the conflict between the two nations was inevitable and so he planned accordingly, the idea was to attack the American Pacific Fleet with squadrons of Japanese bombers at the same time, a massive eastern blitzkrieg would take effect throughout Southeast Asia and the Japanese would also attack the Indians. oriental dutch, malay, philippines, guam and hong. kong but before any of that could happen the US Pacific Fleet had to be withdrawn to compensate for the shallow waters of Pearl Harbor the Japanese designed a new type of aerial torpedo perfectly capable of working within these depths while all this was being planned the japanese still had their envoys negotiating in washington, they were trying to reach an agreement stating that they would not go beyond indochina as long as the americans reopened free trade with them, however these talks would fail as washington did not relent in his stance against Japan's aggressive expansion.

The goal of Japan's negotiations thereafter was simply to buy time. Envoys were subsequently ordered to submit a formal declaration of war 30 minutes before the attack on Pearl Harbor; It would be presented two hours after the attack due to a calculation error on November 26, 1941. Yamamoto Strikeforce set sail for the Hawaiian island of Oahu. It was composed of six aircraft carriers and more than 400 aircraft, in addition two battleships, two heavy cruisers, one cruiser. light nine destroyers and three fleet submarines provided escort during the voyage their crews maintained strict radio silence and were not picked up by the Americans in the early hours of November 7, 1941 353 planes took off from the aircraft carriers the pilots received instructions that they felt who had achieved complete surprise in the run-up to the attack to signal the radio code word

tora

h

tora

h torah an acronym for please excuse my poor Japanese attempt at totsuyaki Rajaki, meaning blitzkrieg, how foreign, so now that you have A pretty good idea of ​​what led up to the attack on Pearl Harbor, let's delve into what really makes this movie great, the battle sequences, no.

The secret is that I'm a big fan of practical effects and Torah, Torah, Torah has some of the best movies ever put on screen in the golden age of war movies, where everything had to be captured with camera, meaning there are no special effects, everything you see is real, in fact it's almost too realistic. There are some incredible stunts in this movie that will blow your mind. One scene in particular comes to mind when the Japanese are bombing an American airfield and we see a stunt that almost goes horribly wrong otherwise. It looks like those guys are running for their lives, that's because what happened is the crew lost control of an unmanned electric P-40, it was equipped with explosives and instead of exploding on the runway, it veered off and hit the parked planes.

Fortunately, no one was hurt, but this complete accident resulted in one of the most spectacular scenes in film

history

. There's also another amazing stunt where a Japanese plane crashes into a hangar, so first of all they do a little camera trickery to make it look real. the plane is about to crash and in the next cut they put explosives on a zero, they put it on a taxi and they shot it at a real hangar, not a miniature, not a model, a real hangar, these are just some of the incredible stunts that appear throughout this film.

Based on the other images you're looking at right now, you should have a real idea why I love this movie so much, which begs the question of why this movie failed. It's completely ridiculous to see how much talent and effort went into making this one of the The bad reviews this movie has are beyond astonishing, such as the late film critic Roger Ebert giving it one star and saying that Tora Toratora is one of the most boring blockbusters ever made. It offers no suspense because we know the attack on Pearl Harbor will happen. and he does it and then the movie ends.

I'm sorry to say this because I know a lot of people love Roger Ebert but that doesn't make any sense to me, if that's your thinking then why watch historical movies? look gettysburg we know the union army is going to win why look titanic we know the damn ship is going to sink but you know what's really annoying is the fact that they gave pearl harbor a higher rating than the torah, Torah, so why all the hate? this movie is described as boring and dull, I mean I'm willing to admit it has some problems but it's not as bad as Pearl Harbor, you're so beautiful, it hurts, it's your nose that hurts, ah, I think it's my heart .

Did I mention Randall Wallace wrote? I think one of the reasons some people find Tora Toratora boring is because for the first half of the movie we are simply preparing for the attack on Pearl Harbor, we follow real historical figures and the roles they played, that means a lot . of scenes where we simply see people talking and since this movie tries to be as historically accurate as possible, that means that the cast of characters has not been condensed, there are no real individual protagonists in Torah, Torah, Torah, of a way that this movie reminds me. from another WWII classic that I highly recommend you watch called A Bridge Too Far, that movie also follows the stories of several characters, but what it gets right is the casting in A Bridge Too Far.

We have James Khan, Michael Kane, Sean Connery, Gene Hackman. anthony hopkins lawrence olivier and robert redford to name a few, in tora toratora we have a relatively unknown cast, I mean they're not horrible when they stretch the imagination, but they don't possess that star quality, but I think there's another reason why this The film didn't do very well and that may be for political reasons rather than its overall quality. One of the great attractions that this film has for me is how it was shot. Half of the film was shot by an American crew and the other half by a Japanese crew.

The team presented us with an unbiased representation of the story from both the Japanese and American sides and a lot of people had problems with that, they complained that thefilm glorified Japanese aggression and made Americans appear unprepared. Get that guy's number. I will report it. security breaches, but the reason they were made to look that way is because for the most part they were The film also highlights key mistakes made by the Americans that could have prevented this horrific attack in the first place, such as the scene where the radar site at Point Opana sees Japanese planes heading for Pearl Harbor and causes headquarters, sir, to be Private Elliot, at one point there is a large formation of planes coming in from the north, 140 miles, three degrees east, yes, Well, don't worry about it guys, at one point you should. have picked up that B-17 flight coming from the mainland, that's absolutely true because of the way Lt.

Kermit Tyler didn't show up on those planes, but he was ultimately cleared of misconduct by the naval board of inquiry if he had followed the procedure, then it could have given the Americans a fighting chance. Here's another scene where Captain Earl is told about a Japanese submarine that had just been summoned at the port entrance. Okay, read it to me. They have dropped depth charges on a submarine operating in our security zone. Yes, but we. I've had a lot of these fake sightings, Kaminsky, but this is real, sir, closer than any previous sighting near the harbor influence, yes, but you know as well as I do that this captain destroying a green boy got it.

I will pass on to Admiral Block with all due respect sir, I think we should alert all commanders. Kaminsky confirmation. I want the confirmation you want.a confirmation captain take a look there is your confirmation now i have not been able to find out if kaminsky or earl are based on real people but it is true that a japanese submarine had been sighted and sunk just over an hour before The time the message reached Admiral Kimmel, the commander in chief of the US Pacific Fleet, was 7:30 a.m. m., the attack began at 7:55 a.m. m., so it is clear that torah, torah, torah is not a romantic version of American history, but the unfortunate truth mistakes were made and lives were lost, but the hard lessons learned that day changed the nation and They prepared her for a war against a formidable enemy.

When the film portrays the American military as short-sighted and careless, it is because they underestimated the Japanese and their capabilities, but the film. It also shows how much the Japanese underestimated the United States, especially with what Yamamoto references at the end of the movie, which I'll cover in the next part. Now, as amazing as Tora Toratora is, it's not a historical film, it's perfect. Inaccuracies are always bound to slip through. through the cracks, even in one as meticulously crafted as this, my problem with inaccuracies most of the time is when there's a clear lack of effort, which is usually a result of the filmmakers not really invested in the story that they're trying to tell and that's what really pisses me off because if they're not interested then why should I be fortunately torah torah torah is a movie that really cares about being historically accurate it actually cares so much which makes my job a lot harder to find things that are inaccurate and a lot of the ones I'll point out you know you'll be thinking, hey Nick, you're trying to hit it there and that in turn should tell you how brilliant this movie is, so Let's start one of the great topics.

Throughout the film it is shown how the Japanese surprise attack was even possible, seemingly isolated incidents that contributed to the United States' unpreparedness. One scene in particular we see the military debate over where to install their radar tower. General radar should work fine. What are you doing here? Why is it not configured? We were about to truck him up that mountain. General, that peak there is the ideal place to place our main radar post at that height. Be free from all interference. Now in the movie they can't get permission to do it. install it there because it is protected by the Hawaiian national park, which leaves them the less desirable option of installing the radar site at Opana Point, but even if they had permission, it probably still wouldn't be an ideal location for them, so I have seen.

I have been able to investigate those mountains that form the Kulau mountain range on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. They are very difficult to climb, let alone attempt to truck an entire radar installation. That peak you're aiming for is called "um, you know, it's probably better if not." I'm not trying to pronounce his Hawaiian name, so here it is in the text. Basically, it's one of the highest, steepest, most inaccessible peaks in Hawaii, so trying to put radar there is a bit impractical, so moving on to the next inaccuracy involves that same nail. Biting scene where those B-17 bombers are trying to land one of them fails when a wheel gets stuck forcing the pilot to make an emergency landing with only two wheels but before we continue I would just like to point out that there were a lot of websites saying this was an accident during filming and they kept it, I'm not 100 convinced it was, although I mean, if you listen to what the director has to say in the DVD commentaries, it seems more likely that all this has been a staging. and it's just another example of this movie's quality stunt work, so this scene we just saw with the plane coming down on a wheel, that's not footage that was shot for this picture, the wonderful pilot was able to do that . but he did it, he landed on a wheel and how many cameras did you have covering that landing?

Well, we had five cameras and in all these shots we used practically in all the shots, we have action like that, we covered it with five cameras so cool. As is our gimmick, while I haven't been able to find any evidence to suggest that any of the real B-17s had landing gear problems, there's also another part that confuses me a little when we see another B-17 trying to land a b- 17 there's a hit on your tail, get out of here, it's telling it to take off why I don't understand it, I mean how do you expect a B-17 to evade a Japanese zero, especially if it's damaged and low on fuel?

Like if you were already so close to the runway, wouldn't it just be much better to land and run like hell? Another part I would like to mention is where we see the Japanese squadrons begin to approach Pearl Harbor and are seen. by a flight instructor now this is all true the woman's name was cornelia fort and she was one of the first witnesses of the japanese attack in the movie we see the japanese flying behind her but in real life those planes were coming directly towards she she had to take the controls from a student and move the plane out of the way now, if they filmed it exactly how it happened I think it would have made this scene much more sinister, but since they are using real planes I'm guessing they did it this way for security reasons.

In the end, I'm glad they included this historic moment and didn't resort to the boy scouts of america and a little league team to manipulate the audience's emotions, yeah, very subtle Pearl Harbor, sorry, sorry. Sorry, I really hate that movie, so let's move on. Here's another inaccuracy that I think is forgivable, but definitely worth mentioning. It takes place a few hours before the attack on Pearl Harbor, when an American destroyer called to the United States. a japanese submarine, the uss ward sees the japanese submarine telling an american freighter, the uss ward opens fire on the submarine and then drops depth charges to finish it off.

All this is absolutely true. What you see on the screen is more or less like everything. sank except for one pretty important detail this is not what the US flag would have looked like here is the actual US flag as you can see from the funnels it is a very old ship commissioned for the first time in 1918 to be used in the First World War, now obviously. when they filmed tora torator they couldn't use this discontinued destroyer model, they had to settle for a more modern ship that existed at the time anyway, still it's really cool to see the American flag being shown in this movie, its historical importance It is without a doubt one of the first American shots of the war was fired by this ship speaking of historical importance here is an inaccuracy that you probably did not know that takes place after the attack on Pearl Harbor when the Japanese pat themselves on the back but soon they They calm down when they notice that their commander-in-chief Yamamoto does not share their enthusiasm and what follows is one of the most recognizable quotes associated with World War II.

This is a quote that I think most of us are familiar with. He's right up there with winston churchill we'll fight them on the beaches to find a date that will live in infamy but apparently yamamoto never said there's no evidence he made that statement or ever wrote it down he certainly felt that way , although the quote is definitely justified as yamamoto did not believe that Japan could win a long, drawn out war with the United States, even though he planned the attack on Pearl Harbor, he always believed that it would only buy Japan time, approximately only a few months or something like that, in any case, Elmo Williams, the producer of The Movie claimed that he found the quote in Yamamoto's diary, but this is the subject of much controversy among historians, as he could not remember what happened to the diary.

It's entirely possible that this was simply a fabrication of Hollywood fiction, but it's still gory nonetheless. good quote, although I say it so much that it even made another appearance at Pearl Harbor and to a lesser extent George Bush used it after 9/11, but he's clearly paraphrasing and for this final inaccuracy it's clearly a mistake, but only for a moment . The movie changes everything, there are those very iconic moments in which we see the Japanese planes flying over the valley preparing to attack Pearl Harbor, but right in the center of the screen you could see a giant white cross and what is important to know about that white cross.

It's just that it's a monument to the attack on Pearl Harbor, so it's almost like the Japanese have somehow traveled to the future and are attacking Pearl Harbor in modern times and if that's the case, I'd love to see how long these Japanese zeros last. . last against all the power of America, oh my god, that's amazing, splash the zeroes, I say again, splash the zeros, yes sir, oh my god, that's the coolest thing I've ever seen in my life, oh god mine, yes, America has it, you have it. Him, wait, what the hell am I doing?

I'm supposed to be reviewing the Torah Toratora. Well, I guess this is a good place to give my final thoughts. As you can see, I really couldn't find any unforgivable inaccuracies and that should tell you. You are something, this movie is amazing and I can't praise it enough. It's a shame it hasn't received the recognition it deserves and I really hope that by the end of this review you'll want to grab a copy too, I imagine. If you're watching a YouTube channel called History Buffs, then you'd appreciate a film that strives to be as historically accurate as possible while also executing some of the best action-packed battle sequences ever put together. on screen I'll say it again if you really consider yourself a history buff if historical accuracy means anything to you then watch torah torah torah you won't be disappointed and for those of you who want to see me break down the movie Pearl Harbor I hope you understand why I chose to cover this film, but if you still want to know how historically inaccurate Pearl Harbor is, I recommend you read Cynical Historian's review of Cipher.

There is a link to the video of him in The description box below sums it all up. My name is Nick Hodges and thanks for watching history

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