What with the 1943 "Gung Ho", "Guadalcanal Diary," "Purple Heart,"
and other made-during-World War II films I saw as a kid on television,
I had thought I had seen every racist anti-"Jap" propaganda movie ever
made by Hollywood. But "First Yank Into Tokyo" is one I do not
remember seeing as a kid. It is not only the most racist movie I have
ever seen, it is probably simply the worst film I have ever seen in any
category of motion picture. To me as an American who has lived in
Japan for 30 years, the Asian-Americans playing Japanese soldiers are
as obviously not racially Japanese as if someone had made a movie about
William the Conqueror fighting the Battle of Hastings in 1066 with a
cast of Europeans recruited entirely from Athens, Greece and Instanbul,
Turkey. Everything, from the physical characteristics to the
mannerisms, is wrong. On the one hand, the film presents the Japanese as bespeckled, buck
toothed, arrogant goofs. On the other hand, when portraying a
Japanese prisoner of war camp during World War II, the film makes the
place a country club compared to the real horrors encountered by anyone
who was held in a Japanese POW camp during the war.
Overall, the film radiates an overwhelming ignorance and apathy by
the film makers towards any authenticity whatsoever.
and other made-during-World War II films I saw as a kid on television,
I had thought I had seen every racist anti-"Jap" propaganda movie ever
made by Hollywood. But "First Yank Into Tokyo" is one I do not
remember seeing as a kid. It is not only the most racist movie I have
ever seen, it is probably simply the worst film I have ever seen in any
category of motion picture. To me as an American who has lived in
Japan for 30 years, the Asian-Americans playing Japanese soldiers are
as obviously not racially Japanese as if someone had made a movie about
William the Conqueror fighting the Battle of Hastings in 1066 with a
cast of Europeans recruited entirely from Athens, Greece and Instanbul,
Turkey. Everything, from the physical characteristics to the
mannerisms, is wrong. On the one hand, the film presents the Japanese as bespeckled, buck
toothed, arrogant goofs. On the other hand, when portraying a
Japanese prisoner of war camp during World War II, the film makes the
place a country club compared to the real horrors encountered by anyone
who was held in a Japanese POW camp during the war.
Overall, the film radiates an overwhelming ignorance and apathy by
the film makers towards any authenticity whatsoever.