What was General Douglas MacArthur a despot, a dangerous, possibly disloyal renegade, a brilliant general or a self serving self promoter, all of the above, none of the above? Emporer won't exacly answer that question but it will tell you the story of General Bonner Fellers, who had previous experience in Japan, was an aide to MacArthur on the best way to occupy and pacify Japan in the wake of The Bomb. I was not familiar with Fellers, but, according to a family-posted web site, the movie was quite accurate.
Sometimes, that's death to a history movie since audiences like lots of action rather than lots of talk. Nevertheless, as a history geek, I liked this. Fellers was assigned the task of finding justification for NOT hanging The Emperor in the wake of the war. He managed to give MacArthur, who agreed with him but didn't have a written rationale that he could sell to politicians in the US, a reason to preserve Hirohito and encourage a non-punitive reconstruction of Japan. History shows that the strategy was a roaring success since Japan is now peaceful, productive and the US's most faithful ally.
The movie had excellent cinematography, with beautiful shots of the non-bombed parts of Japan as well as horrifying scenarios of the fire-bombed Tokyo (more deaths than the nukes), excellent, low key acting by the Japanese actors and Matthew Fox (Fellers) and appropriately cocky, over-the-top macho acting by Tommy Lee Jones as MacArthur who, suprisingly is a supporting character and not the lead.
Not everybody will like this. It's slow, talky and has NO action. The movie is about the larger issues, how a guy with knowledge of the culture prevented a horror that could have drawn Japan into a suicidal insurrection and the US into an endless war.
