Reptileenbu Did you people see the same film I saw?

Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

blanche-2 Carroll Baker stars with James Shigeta in "Bridge to the Sun," based on the book by Gwen Terasaki. Though I believe dramatic license was taken regarding the love story between Gwen and her husband, certainly there are many fascinating aspects of her experiences that were included.Gwen meets diplomat Hidenari Terasaki when he was in Washington, and they fall in love and marry in 1931, though I'm not sure that was the year the film gave. Terasaki was First Secretary at the Japanese Embassy and also a pacifist who wanted to avoid war. Didn't happen. When the war starts, he has to return to Japan, and though he doesn't want his wife put into danger, Gwen insists on going too and brings their daughter, Mako. In her book, they are repatriated via neutral Angola.Once in Japan, they face many hardships and Terasaki much criticism because his wife is an American. There is no food, and there is a lot of bombing. They receive an offer to stay somewhere in the country, and they go; they face betrayal and danger there too.If you have read or seen Dragon Seed, you have an idea of what the Japanese did to the Chinese. Absolutely horrible. They are no better to the Americans, who were used for slave labor when captured - they are seen working on the railroad tracks as Gwen heads out to the country. One can feel sympathy for the people, but not their leaders, who lied to them about how the war was going.Both Baker and Shigeta are very good. Shigeta's role is more difficult as he has to show the ravages of his stress and exhaustion, and he does a beautiful job. It's funny what your impressions are when you are growing up. I was raised Catholic and I seem to recall Carroll Baker was considered some sort of sex kitten. She really evokes sympathy here and gives a lovely, sincere performance. This is a poignant film, a tearjerker, about two people from two different cultures caught in an impossible situation. It's all the more poignant because the emotions are true.

dbdumonteil Etienne Périer is a Belgian director who has made most of his films in France .His favourite genre was the thriller:"Meurtre En 45 tours" which was made just before "bridge" was a Boileau-Narcejac ("Diaboliques" "Vertigo" ) novel and set a pattern for the seventies works "La Main A Couper" "Un Meurtre ESt Un Meurtre " "La Part Du Feu" ;the best was inspired by a true story "Un Si Joli Village"(1978) but it was not a commercial success and it was 1989 before Périer made another movie :another thriller in eighteenth century Venice where Vivaldi met Goldoni.Still with me? "Bridge to the sun" has nothing to do with Périer's French films .When I read his name in the credits ,I could not believe my eyes.Although completely impersonal,it's a valuable pacifist work ,a kind of movie we are desperately in need of in our trouble times.Based on true facts-like the 1978 effort,which would tend to prove that Périer is at his best with them-,it depicts the life of an Japanese ambassador and his American wife.As WW2 was breaking out and Pearl Harbour was around the corner ,the couple and their daughter were going to have a bad time.The best moments,however ,are in the first part of the movie,when Gwenn discovers the Japanese way of life and .....its very macho side!Carroll Baker is gorgeous but as the story stretches over more than ten years it's extraordinary she 's stayed fresh as a rose after all those years,even in the bombing scenes !Ditto for her husband who does not look terminally-ill at all in the final sequences.This is minor quibble :"bridge to the sun" is a heartfelt movie,which proves one more time the absurdity of war.There were Germans who fought against the Nazis,there were French resistant fighters who refused collaboration,there were Japanese men who risked their lives for peace ,even in the most desperate situations. Like this? try these....."Empire of the sun" Spielberg 1987"Sayonara" Joshua Logan 1957

georgegauthier I saw this movie in theaters during its theatrical release. I was a teenager and usually went to action movies, but this movie really caught my attention. I was of the generation that grew up on Victory at Sea and war movies, but here was a story of a biracial couple in wartime Japan. I found it unusually moving. I particularly remember the line that James Shigeta's friend delivers when he admits that Carol Baker's husband has only a few weeks or maybe a few months to live. That is why he is sending his wife and child away, so they will not have to watch him during his final decline. "Death may be beautiful; dying is not." Words to live by.

Smalling-2 Just before the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, an American girl from the South marries to a Japanese diplomat and moves with him to Tokyo.Mainly melodramatic treatment of a fact-based autobiographical novel, notable for its heartfelt leading performances, strikingly accurate detail of Japanese life, some convincingly documentary-style shots, and its brave change of perspective by showing the Japanese point of view against the American.