As the Japanese surrender at the end of WWII, Gen. Fellers is tasked with deciding if Emperor Hirohito will be hanged as a war criminal. Influencing his ruling is his quest to find Aya, an exchange student he met years earlier in the U.S.
Offers a labored treatise on the Japanese national character, with endless speeches about honor, devotion, loyalty, and the people's reverence for their emperor as a human deity.
Emperor falls prey to the temptations endemic to historical docudrama: the desire to pack a miniseries' worth of events into one feature-length film, with romance tossed in for added appeal.
– Peter Howell,
Toronto Star,
28 Mar 2013
rotten:
A stodgy movie that mixes dubious history with a cliched, Madame Butterfly romance story, set in the period immediately following Japan's surrender in 1945.
– Liam Lacey,
Globe and Mail,
29 Mar 2013
fresh:
It's all done with care and authentic Japanese locations ... But there's scant drama.