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Excellent, Without a doubt!!

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

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

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

this is an awful film; it could have been condensed into about 30 minutes. it was long, boring, and slow, with nothing interesting or compelling about it. there was bad acting on the part of everyone other than whoever played hirohito, especially whoever played macarthur and all the other Americans. furthermore, hirohito is such an unappealing personality--ugly, awkward, mouth spasms--that it was downright painful to watch two hours of him floundering about, accurate as the portrayal may be.i believe this film is intended to be a deep meditation on power's end, but its flaws greatly outnumber its virtues. it failed to convey an interesting story or to entertain me in any way.

I like Ogata in most all he does. But I think his casting here is a mistake. He is excellent at pulling out the one or two things of a type to set up a humorous caricature. He is an excellent comedian. I think, though, that as an impressionist rather than an actor, he played his impersonation a little too broadly. (It may be because Ogata does a lot of stage work, and had trouble toning down for the camera.) Having personally met the Emperor Showa in 1985, I can say with some confidence that though the twitching lips are an attribute, it was not as pronounced as Ogata plays it, less conscious, and more a condition of advanced age. (Hence overdone for playing someone in his 40's.)Another point of contention I have is with the script. There are quite a few moments when Ogata orders his servants to do something; but with the subservient plea "--kudasai". In the first half of the 20th century, the Japanese language was still exceedingly rank conscious. Even a commoner would use a condescending verb form for a request to a subordinate, whether the subordinate was a wife, a servant or an employee. It is even more strange to imagine the fawning servants enduring a request spoken by the Emperor from a linguistic position of submission. Courtly language is quite different from colloquial Japanese, and one instance we have of this is from his first radio transmission in which the Emperor used the personal pronoun 'Chin'.

The beginning of this film is exceptionally dull, half an hour of Hirohito - in an excellent, intriguing performance by Issey Sogata - pottering around, surrounded by his overbearing courtiers. His servants appear genuinely awed by the God-like emperor and can hardly bow low enough to show their total subservience. Everything - buttoning a jacket, placing a knife and fork in his hands - is undertaken for the emperor.In a curious similarity to Hitler's last days in the chaotic bunker in the recent film Downfall (2005), Hirohito is confined to his own bunker beneath his imperial palace in Tokyo. Yet, there is little sign of the war down here, just a series of dull, ill-lit yet nicely-furnished rooms, all wooden panelling and seemingly very quiet, in the aftermath of the atomic bombs. The strange thing is the almost entirely Westernised clothes and total banality of the emperor's life. Hirohito wanders around like an Edwardian gentleman, attired in exquisite tailoring, all top hat and fine suits, like Bertie Wooster without the humour.Hirohito studies Darwin and makes a few minor reflections on his role in Japanese imperialism leading up to the war, and the nature of the beast, yet he is basically Chauncey Gardiner (Peter Selles) in the film Being There (1979), a sort of idiot-savant set free into a world of which he has little or no understanding. You just can't believe that Hirohito had any serious role in the whole affair.Continuing the Darwinist motif, there are little surrealist sequences, dream-like glimpses into Hirohito's mind, with strange flying fish bombers and so forth. In these sections, the film's like a sort of Salvador Dali/Luis Buenuel/Hirohito war and bombing comb. This reminds me of the brilliant Terence Mallick film, The Thin Red Line (1998), with several US troops under-going similar experiences in an island paradise during the terrible war in the Pacific.This is why I think the film works. The first meeting of Hirohito and MacArthur - in effect, the new emperor of Japan - is full of tension, a clash of two cultures, both incredibly nervous of each other. The two men start bonding and in one incredible moment of film, MacArthur and Hirohito have a sort of cigar kiss, the former lighting the emperor's cigar while puffing on his own, both engaged, head-to-head. It's like they're exchanging the fumes of victory and defeat. The embers. It is like an antidote to Bill Clinton's normal use of cigars.They get along just fine, like Laurel and Hardy Go to Tokyo, or something. Or Will Hay, for British readers.Did Hirohito really speak English? In one moment, Hirohito - in true Chauncey Gardiner fashion - goes into the garden for his first-ever photo-shoot. The photographers are squabbling amongst themselves over terms and conditions while, in the background, this peculiar, be-suited gentleman wanders around tending his roses. He proves to be quite a star, however, influences as he is by the American film stars he so idolises.

It's been a week that I have seen The Sun. I would say that this is one of the best movies I have seen in recent times. Initially I went to watch the film with some qualms about Sokurov's over-ambitious (so I thought) project. 5 minutes into the film and I knew that I was watching a real good movie- hat's off. The subtle interplay of characters, the thought process of the emperor, the surroundings, the Americans will seem all too real. The film is slow in terms of change of events- but you will never feel it. The emperor Hirohita ad the human Hirohita and the obscure line between them is fabulous. It is like going through a brief period of emperors life right in front of him. Mark my words, you'll like it! Vikram