Wordiezett So much average

Bea Swanson This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

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.

mckniffj If I hadn't been laid up at home today, I suspect I never would have watched this movie when it popped up on TCM today, especially after seeing the highly unlikely beginning: tourist from Tennessee and sophisticated Japanese diplomat meet and fall in love at a reception at Japanese Embassy in DC.I'm so glad I stayed with it, a very good examination of cross cultural marriages and, as others have mentioned, a look at daily life in Japan in WW II.As a retired diplomat, who lived outside USA for most of my adult life, now back in USA, I'm so grateful to TCM for a review of film history and especially American cultural history.

moatazmohsen78 This movie focused on the different customs and habits between east and west upon the relationship of love between American woman and Japanese diplomat in spite of the terrible relations between America and Japan before the misery of Pearl Harbbor in 1941 which was the great cause of firing more and more the drama of WWII and caused after that the Bomb exp loser of Herochima and Nakazaki in 1945 by turning America from second class to super class by playing with the fates of countries in different continents.This love story was Amerasian as a great field to see the varietal cultures as a preparing for globalization in the future by love and feelings before politics and economics to be the world in one place and field.This movie as (Love is a many splendor-ed thing) but the one difference between both That the first one took their accidents from politics and social subjects but the second one depended on humanity and feelings as the great gap between east and west forever.The best scene in this film the final scene by a great symbol at the ship when the American woman left Japan with her daughter and saying goodbye for her husband by taking the brilliant souvenir as an evidence of great love between them in spite of wars and political differences.

klh-9 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.