Having just left us, Sean Connery's movies are all over cable TV right now. From the over-rated and mostly execrable Bond series, through the unloved but brilliant The Hill, and on through his later-career home runs such as Red October and The Untouchables.
Rising Sun is one of these latter-day Sean Connery movies. Here he's trying to bridge the cultural gap between the Japanese and Americans in a murder mystery. And as usual, he's way better than the movie itself. Connery is smooth and natural and completely believable as a guy who understands the Japanese language and culture. Also in the plus column belong Harvey Keitel and Wesley Snipes.
But goodness the drop-off from there is enormous. The supporting cast would be hard-pressed to hold up their end of an L.A. Law episode. Ray Wise is esp terrible. As for the Asian actors, well, at least they were able to pick up a nice Hollywood paycheque. Kurosawa this isn't. More like an extra-long episode of Magnum, P.I.
The plot is a mess. It might have seemed interesting to hang a plot on a Japanese corporation's takeover of an American tech firm, but that seems laughably old-fashioned these days.
Connery and Snipes, as far as I can tell, put in about 3 weeks of detective work in one 24-hour stretch. As for the ultimate perp, phhhht, you'd have to be pretty dense not to see that coming.
The fight scene near the end was a nice touch. Pointless, but fun.
And then it keeps going. Like Kaufmann shot a million feet of film and couldn't bring himself to cut any of it.
Rising Sun is one of these latter-day Sean Connery movies. Here he's trying to bridge the cultural gap between the Japanese and Americans in a murder mystery. And as usual, he's way better than the movie itself. Connery is smooth and natural and completely believable as a guy who understands the Japanese language and culture. Also in the plus column belong Harvey Keitel and Wesley Snipes.
But goodness the drop-off from there is enormous. The supporting cast would be hard-pressed to hold up their end of an L.A. Law episode. Ray Wise is esp terrible. As for the Asian actors, well, at least they were able to pick up a nice Hollywood paycheque. Kurosawa this isn't. More like an extra-long episode of Magnum, P.I.
The plot is a mess. It might have seemed interesting to hang a plot on a Japanese corporation's takeover of an American tech firm, but that seems laughably old-fashioned these days.
Connery and Snipes, as far as I can tell, put in about 3 weeks of detective work in one 24-hour stretch. As for the ultimate perp, phhhht, you'd have to be pretty dense not to see that coming.
The fight scene near the end was a nice touch. Pointless, but fun.
And then it keeps going. Like Kaufmann shot a million feet of film and couldn't bring himself to cut any of it.