Karry Best movie of this year hands down!

Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

Keeley Coleman The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Chase_Witherspoon Tepid account of Japanese-Americans fighting alongside their colleague allies against the Germans in WWII. Van Johnson is a military liaison lieutenant responsible for merging the unpopular, yet patriotic soldiers with the regular divisions. Predictably, they succeed in taking an important military post from the Germans in a bloody battle in the Ardennes.While there's glimpses of a routine war flick, it's frequently punctuated by long discourses on racial prejudice and otherwise political jingoism of the most shameless kind. Johnson is typically likable as the by-the-book uniform who marches his ragtag bunch of cultural misfits into GI Joe exemplars. His rapport with his men leads him to defend them in the face of racial and cultural discrimination, even to the extent he'll beat one of his own mates black & blue for uttering the slur "Jap". He plays the congenial moralist well, but the contrasts are so blatant, that the film comes off looking like a defence recruitment promotion (the largely unknown cast doesn't add anything in quality either).Some of the battle scenes are hardy and well staged (the Irish-Japanese-American O'Hara eats a flying pine tree in one of the more imaginative battle deaths) and the title expression "Go For Broke" is given a run as such you won't soon forget the name of the film. But that's not the same as memorable content, and this, in my opinion, has little to recommend.

Robert J. Maxwell Perversely, the thing reminds me of "Glory," without the taken-for-granteds. I mean, now we take for granted that African-Americans are as good in the military as anyone else. (God knows, they were the tidiest sailors on my ship.) But at the time this film was released the accomplishments of the 442nd were still news to most people. Japanese? Fighting on OUR side? Gosh.Alas, the performances leave a lot to be desire. Van Johnson does no more than a workmanlike job, and the Japanese soldiers are hard to distinguish. It isn't that they all look alike so much as that so many are given similar motivations. Only two of the enlisted men are really outstanding -- the bitter guy (the equivalent of the Denzel Washington figure in "Glory") and the educated guy (the Andre Braugher character in "Glory").It's a good move though, and the action scenes are right up there among the better ones. Particularly good is the wounded guy wielding the mortar all by himself. Mortars don't ordinarily loom large in combat movies, although read Sledge's "With the Old Breed." Weaknesses? Not too many. One outstanding is that Van Johnson's racism is not made more explicit. Throughout, he objects to his assignment because, mainly, he wants to stay with his Texas division. His racism is sort of, well, masked.Good movie though.Stay way from the only available DVD, which is junk.

edwagreen Japanese-Americans serving in the U.S. army during World War 11 is the central theme of this film. How ironic that this occurred while we were placing other Japanese-Americans in internment camps during this period.Van Johnson harbors prejudice as he chosen to shape these recruits up. While he runs into difficulty with top brass, he does his job well.He comes to understand and appreciate his men. When he meets up with his old Texas regiment, he fights someone for passing an anti-Japanese remark.The Japanese players do a good job of showing that their true spirits were with the U.S.A totally satisfying film depicting the human spirit.

akiume Being a third generation Japanese-American (Sansei), and having my parents interned in the camps, this movie has a special place in my heart. Robert Pirosh did an incredible job in getting so much information about the Japanese- American situation: the camps, the differences between the Hawaiian and State- side Japanese (Kotonks and Kanakas), the different views of the war and even using a Japanese curse word as a password! I was so impressed and pleased with the results.The movie follows the exploits of the 442, the first all-Nisei (Japanese- American) Regimental combat team in WWII. In early 1942, all the Japanese- Americans in California, Seattle, Oregon and Hawaii were uprooted from their homes and put into camps. All the volunteers were from the 10 internment camps throughout the western states. They felt that this was the only way to prove to the U. S. that they were as patriotic as anybody else, in fact most of them were American Citizens! Since they had nothing to lose, but their lives, their motto was "GO FOR BROKE!" and that's what they did. They are today the most decorated battalion in the history of the U.S. military and proved something that they shouldn't have to be proved, that they were Americans!Van Johnson is used as the "white man" foil, to show how the rest of the country looked at the Japanese-American, and he does a great job. He starts off as a bigot, but as he begins to understand and respect his troops, he becomes one of them. There's a funny scene where one of his men call him "BAKATARE",which is a curse word close to "Damn, stupid...." and tells him that the soldier is being very polite, he's bowing as he says this. This film has everything: humor, action, great characters and... truth!