Watch Blood on the Sun For Free

Sick Product of a Sick System

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

There have been quite a few and commendable American efforts to understand Japan and its mentality since the war, and this was one of the first and best. The development of the intrigue takes on very unexpected complications, and not only James Cagney is in for quite a few surprises. Sylvia Sidney makes a very credible Chinese ingredient, but the most impressing characters are John Emery as the stately baron Tanaka and the old prince, who foresees the destiny of Japan at the mercy of the baron's ambitions. This is a Japanese tragedy masked behind the American smokescreens of love, action and drinking, although the journalist's story is an interesting example indeed of spectacular and undaunted journalism at its best.

Lester Cole, arguably better known as one of the Holllywood Ten than a screenwriter, wrote this back to back with Objective Burma, which was released in the same year, 1945. Several times recently I've watched, for the first time, films produced fifty or more years ago when clearly both standards and expectations were lower than those that obtain today. For a film starring 'tough guy' James Cagney, there is surprisingly little 'action' in Blood On The Sun so that it plays more like a 'think' piece on Asian politics, a more or less pseudo-Idiot's Delight written by Robert Riskin rather than Robert E. Sherwood. Cagney set it up himself so the 'message' was presumably one he felt both important and worth the telling. By 1945 Sylvia Sydney wasn't working all that much so it's good to get a glimpse of her, whilst Rosemary de Camp is disposed of far too soon. Curio value.

*Spoiler/plot- 1945, An independent and famous American newspaper reporter and investigative journalist stationed in Tokyo Japan gets mixed up in a spy ring and the Imperial secret police. A beautiful spy becomes his friend.*Special Stars- James Cagney, Sylvia Sidney, John Halloran *Theme- Americans are always on the side of truth and fair play.*Trivia/location/goofs- Vintage Warner Brothers studio movie supporting the war effort. Bette Davis was instrumental in influencing Jack Warner to become more active in the studio War effort. Plot loosely based on a real event in the 20's called the Tanaka Memorandum.*Emotion- An enjoyable but rather 'dated' war film with raucous, irreverent all American tough-guy newspaper reporter and investigative journalist played by Jimmy Cagney. There is plenty of action, intrigue and colorful clichés' about the Japanese culture.

James Cagney (as Nick Condon) is a reporter in Tokyo; a dutiful, precognizant American, he confronts the increasing grip of Fascism on the Japanese people, during the reign of Tanaka Giichi. Sylvia Sidney (as Iris Hilliard), is a mysterious part-Chinese woman, who provides Mr. Cagney with intrigue and romance. While Ms. Sydney is somewhat successful in her portrayal, the other Japanese impersonations are embarrassing. The movie bases much of its storyline on the existence of the "Tanaka Document", a Hitler-type blueprint for evil, which was more likely a propagandist's creation. Under these circumstances, Cagney and company's attempt to produce convincing entertainment collapses.