Rising Sun (1993)

At the offices of a Japanese corporation, during a party, a woman, who's evidently a professional mistress, is found dead, apparently after some rough sex. A police detective, Web Smith is ... See full summary »

Director:

Philip Kaufman

Writers:

Michael Crichton (novel), Philip Kaufman (screenplay),

Stars:

Sean Connery, Wesley Snipes, Harvey Keitel

1 win & 1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Sean Connery	...	Capt. John Connor
Wesley Snipes	...	Lt. Webster Smith
Harvey Keitel	...	Lt. Tom Graham
Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa	...	Eddie Sakamura
Kevin Anderson	...	Bob Richmond
Mako	...	Yoshida-san
Ray Wise	...	Senator John Morton
Stan Egi	...	Ishihara
Stan Shaw	...	Phillips
Tia Carrere	...	Jingo Asakuma
Steve Buscemi	...	Willy 'the Weasel' Wilhelm
Tatjana Patitz	...	Cheryl Lynn Austin
Peter Crombie	...	Greg
Sam Lloyd	...	Rick
Alexandra Powers	...	Julia

Storyline

At the offices of a Japanese corporation, during a party, a woman, who's evidently a professional mistress, is found dead, apparently after some rough sex. A police detective, Web Smith is called in to investigate but before getting there, he gets a call from someone who instructs him to pick up John Connor, a former police Captain and expert on Japanese affairs. When they arrive there Web thinks that everything is obvious but Connor tells him that there's a lot more going on.

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Plot Keywords:

Japanese | Police | Party | Detective | Hara Kiri | 

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Genres:

Crime | Drama | Mystery | Thriller | Action

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for strong sexuality, language and some violence

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

30 July 1993 (USA)

Also Known As:

Sol naciente

Filming Locations:

Japanese Garden, Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant - 6100 Woodley Avenue, Van Nuys, Los Angeles, California, USA

Box Office

Opening Weekend:

£648,293 (UK) (15 October 1993)

Gross:

£2,391,211 (UK) (12 November 1993)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Walrus & Associates

Technical Specs

Runtime:

125 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The murderer's identity was changed from the book for reasons not explained by the director.

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Goofs

Senator Morton receives a color fax on a machine far too simple a model to accept one.

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Quotes

Cop: Hey Graham, you want some sushi?
Tom Graham: No thanks. If I get a craving for mercury, I'll eat a thermometer.

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Crazy Credits

There is a credit in Rising Sun thanking "The MIT Leg Lab" and "Marc Raibert and his Running Team." This refers to a short scene where the two detectives go out to a fancy-looking research lab (really a water treatment plant; also used as the set for Starfleet Academy on the TV series "Star Trek - The Next Generation). In the background of some of the shots there are two legged robots: one hopping in a circle in a tea-house; the other bouncing up a garden path. These robots are actually academic research projects from the MIT AI Lab's Legged Locomotion Lab. They really do hop about and maintain their balance. Power comes from off-board hydraulic pumps (hence the guy in the background (me!) pulling hoses for the robot), and body attitude is sensed with gyroscopes. A human with a joystick tells the robot what direction to go, and the control algorithms (which are the real subject of Leg Lab research) maintain speed, direction, and balance. However, the robots aren't designed for special effects. They're always being modified, and they tend to break down frequently. This made shooting in the hot july sun of the San Fernando Valley a real nightmare, with transputers crashing in the heat, stuck gyros, and hydraulic leaks. Three grad students and a professor worked steadily for about a month before Hollywood, and then five days on the set and on location to get the robots in about 15 seconds of film. The credits are: Marc Raibert (our prof), and Charles Francois, Rob Playter and Lee Campbell (me) who are students. We three students appear in the film in white lab coats acting like Robot Scientists!!

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Connections

Referenced in Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy (2010)
Photograph on a magazine cover is shown.

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Soundtracks

"CHATTANOOGA CHOO CHOO"
Written by Harry Warren and Mack Gordon

User Reviews

Fear of Other Cultures, Learning to Understand Them and the Seemingly Obvious

Michael Crichton's Rising Sun is an extensive, dense, unpredictable mess. The actors have a lot of fun and the story is a splurge of entertainment, but it's not paying enough attention to a couple of things. One of them is what its focus is. Is the film about the murder, the two men solving the murder, the clash of American and Japanese cultures, or what? The other thing the film forgets could be a drawback of the first thing. It's that it doesn't tie up all its loose ends. At the end, there are strands left with no ending, even a mysterious ambiguous one. It just ends because it feels the pace of the film requires it to fade out at that particular point.

The film is not bad, mostly because it's far from boring. In fact, there are many scenes of dialogue, despite a few corny scenes of dialogue, that are subtly interesting. We don't quite understand why the exchanges are interesting until later, when we realize that the characters are so deeply contemplated that the scene felt as real as the room you're sitting in. But maybe I'm giving the film too much credit for simply being a load of fun for Michael Crichton to write. After all, he wrote and directed one of the greatest heist films ever made, The Great Train Robbery, also with Sean Connery.

Sean Connery, of course, is the highlight of the film, because there's hardly a way he cannot be. Despite his irrepressible suavity, he does not play himself. He plays a resentful, inflexible, self-indulgent veteran cop, and we are supposed to like Wesley Snipes more because the film centers, well, seems to want to center around his character and also we're given more backstory and information on him. However, we don't like Snipes more than him. Connery may play a stubborn old jerk, but I'd rather one of those than a pompous, intolerant, overpround young jerk like Snipes can hardly help but play.

I cannot reach a verdict on this film. How can I? There are so many things to enjoy at the same time they are hazardous to the film's health.