Word: tora
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Since Red Beard, Kurosawa has occupied himself by preparing his first American film, a dramatization of the events leading up to Pearl Harbor called Tora! Tora! Tora! Twentieth Century-Fox gave him absolute freedom, and Kurosawa revised the script 27 separate times before he felt that he was ready to proceed. Then late last month after only nine days of shooting, the director, 58, was overcome with exhaustion and forced to withdraw from the film. Said Kurosawa's wife, "My husband is no longer young." Unable to replace the irreplaceable, Fox has announced that it will halt production...
...unique. Kokichi Obata, 57, managing director of Japan's Nagano radio and television network, wanted to take a leave of absence. And for what reason, director-san? Why, to be a movie star-to play the role of Admiral Nomura, Japan's prewar ambassador in Washington in Tora! Toraf, Tora!, Darryl Zanuck's multimillion-dollar spectacular about the attack on Pearl Harbor. The board members were dumfounded. Eventually, says Obata, they agreed because "they were convinced that if I could help tell Japan's story in the great tragedy correctly, then I should...
Like Old Times. Zanuck and 20th Century-Fox may spend twice as much on Tora! Tora! Tora!* as on The Longest Day, which cost about $9,000,000. But the Japanese businessmen-actors will cost little, if anything. Several volunteered their services without pay; others plan to turn their salaries over to charities. A key participant in the Pearl Harbor events, former Staff Officer Minoru Genda, now a member of Japan's Upper House, looked the businessmen over and was filled with nostalgia. "It was fantastic," he said, "like a reunion with all my bosses and colleagues...
...Japanese, who are among the world's politest people when sober, are notoriously violent when drunk. One word for a drunk in Japanese is tora-tiger. The police have been prohibited by the law from taming a tora unless he becomes overtly violent. Even then they could only politely take him into protective custody, put him in a paddy wagon whose walls were padded with foam rubber for his own protection, lock him up overnight, release him with a lecture in the morning. One remedial variation: tape-recording his drunken expostulations, then playing the tape back to his glowering...