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I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

As Good As It Gets

For having a relatively low budget, the film's style and overall art direction are immensely impressive.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Overall, this movie impresses me, and in fact I think there's even more of a story that could be told in perhaps a longer television miniseries. But then we wouldn't have the really outstanding performance of James Shigeta. And, just for the record, this is a true story.Shigeta stars as the real life Japanese embassy (in Washington) personnel who marries a country girl (Carroll Baker) from the deep South. They return to his Japan where she confronts a totally different societal norm that she must adjust to. At times it's humorous, but it does a good job of portraying the obstacles to miscegenation in both cultures...although if anything, understates it. They return to Washington for his new post, and Shigeta's character attempts to prevent WWII from breaking out, but this aspect of the film is shirted to the point of being confusing...as it that general subplot through the rest of the film. He is deported after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and she insists on returning with him to Japan, where she and their daughter must endure the harsh realities of war time and cultural biases. Again, that is marginalized in the film compared to what it must have been in real life. After the war, he becomes increasingly ill and sends here back home to America before he dies alone in Japan.The main thing to complain about in the plot is that things are seen through rose-colored glasses. The realities in most aspects of the film would have been far more challenging. But, part of the problem is compressing such an expansive story into 113 minutes. As a result, we do not see the characters as courageous as they must have been.James Shigeta was actually born in the Territory of Hawaii, studied drama at New York University, and enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Korean War where he became a Staff Sergeant. Nevertheless, he is superb here...not to mention being a real "hunk". I would blame the one flaw of his performance on the director -- he's too Americanized in the early part of the film when working first time around at the embassy in Washington.Carroll Baker -- not an actress I've happened upon often -- does fine as the wife.James Yagi and Hiroshi Tomono turn in pleasing performances in the supporting cast.This is a very pleasing film...perhaps to pleasing. If it were remade today I rather think we would see more bluntness regarding the attitude toward insemination in both the United States and Japan, and more depth in terms of the hardships the characters endured during and after WWII. Nevertheless, it's a fine film for its time, and highly recommended.

The memoirs of the real Gwen Terasaki serve as the basis for Bridge To The Sun. Carroll Baker and James Shigeta would have troubles enough in an interracial marriage in the Thirties in America, especially Baker who was from Johnson City, Tennessee. But as America and Japan edge closer and finally go to war, this star-crossed couple has to make some choices that not too many others have to face.But Baker and Shigeta are soul-mates and that fact is what keeps them together despite the upbringings of both. For Baker she's a southern girl born and bred. She has an easier time of overcoming that than Ensign Nellie Forbush in South Pacific, but it's there.As for Shigeta he's a Japanese diplomat who thinks the militarists are leading his country down the wrong path. But he's also traditional Japanese who believes that the woman is most inferior. There's a great scene of dinner at their house in Japan where the women eat separately at their own table. Some political remarks are made and she commits the ultimate social sin of speaking up. That leads to a nasty quarrel. It reminds of the scene in Giant where Elizabeth Taylor speaks up in a political discussion to Rock Hudson's chauvinistic chagrin. Texans and Japanese have chauvinism much in common.Of course when war is finally declared Shigeta is shipped home and Baker takes their daughter and accompanies him. Her insights into the Japanese home front are the best part of the film and her life story.It's not true that Gwen Teresaki took their daughter back to America much less Tennessee. She would know better than to take a mixed racial child anywhere in Dixie. 'Terry' Teresaki did die young and Gwen enjoyed a long widowhood in life not dying until 1990. But not within a year of their departure. The real Teresaki became part of the Japanese new government under the occupation and he died in 1951 just before the occupation ended.Bridge To The Sun should have been done in color, but I'm supposing that was to allow that black and white newsreel footage to be integrated into the story. Baker and Shigeta are fine in the leads and the story is an eternal that while love can be on a rocky road, it finds a way if it's real.

Saw this by chance last night on TCM. It was very good, although melodramatic at times. My husband and I cried at the end. Highly recommended. This was a very interesting portrayal of Japan during WWII and interracial marriage. The depiction of Japanese life was well done. For example, the young woman who betrays Teri does it for food. She's shown a couple of times stuffing handouts from people in her mouth. I did not know that the Japanese people were starving during WWII, but this made it clear. Carroll Baker did a good job of showing the transformation of her character from a young sheltered woman from the South to an older woman who endured hardships that most of us never will and grew to understand her husband at the end. A real weeper.

I just saw this at the SF Asian American Film Festival. Apparently, there is only one print in existence and no VHS or DVD releases. I hope that you are as lucky as I was and get an opportunity to see it. The lead, Shigeta, was at the screening and spoke a few words to the audience and answered some questions. He got a standing ovation. I was glad that he is still sharp and articulate.The good: 1) James Shigeta is outstanding. He's handsome and skilled. He plays Terasaki with passion and sophistication.2) It's a view of WW2 from the Japanese side, which is all too rare. 3)It's based on a true story, which makes the film resonate even more.4) The dialogue is wonderful. The opening scene is written and acted with a lot of wit which had the audience laughing. 5) It was produced in 1961. Unlike many Hollywood films of the time, Asians have a reasonably accurate portrayal and not just crude caricature (e.g. "Breakfast at Tiffany's").The bad: 1) The film is set in the 1930s and 40s but the costuming and furnishings are straight out of 1960. I'm a bit of a vintage clothing geek so this was jarring.