A Red Buttons jag from The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and some Marlon Brando completism. Directed by Joshua Logan from a script Paul Osborn (East of Eden (1955)) derived from James A. Michener's novel.
Brando finds himself playing a pilot for the Air Force during the Korean conflagration. He is reassigned to Japan so he can marry his assigned American beauty of the correct military class (Patricia Owens). There he abandons his fate and romances the unobtainable-by-mortals Miiko Taka, trailing in the wake of Buttons who has already landed domestic goddess Miyoshi Umeki. These pairings were tasked by the producers with humanising the vanquished foe to the masses of film goers back home. Throughout this heavy-duty pap Brando mumbles in a Southern accent with a certitude that belies all doubts.
The script regularly reminds us of the American views on miscegenation of the day and also has the Japanese ladies tell us what their culture apparently said, but the only Japanese male with a speaking role (played by Ricardo Montalban!) does not get to say his piece. The plotline that has Owens taking revenge on Brando and her family by getting involved with him is left to dangle.
Some of the scenery functions as a time capsule for those parts of Japan (Kobe, Kyoto, Tokyo) but too much time is spent inside. The canal put me in mind of the early street scenes in Once Upon a Time in America (1984).
