Tora! Tora! Tora!

Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970)

Timing: 2:24 (144 min)

7.1/10
581

7.444/10
3610

7.5/10
40000

All about film

Video 4

Photo 59

Actors and characters

Release date

1970-01-26

Country

Japan, United States

Production

20th Century Fox, Toei Company, Williams-Fleischer Productions

Genre

Drama, History, War

Budget

$25 000 000

Revenue

$29 548 291

Website

Director

Richard Fleischer, Kinji Fukasaku, Toshio Masuda

Actors

Martin Balsam, Sō Yamamura, Jason Robards, Joseph Cotten, Tatsuya Mihashi, E.G. Marshall, Takahiro Tamura, James Whitmore, Eijirō Tōno, Wesley Addy
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Producer

Elmo Williams, Richard Fleischer, Darryl F. Zanuck

Operator

Charles F. Wheeler

Composer

Jerry Goldsmith

Artist

Jack Senter

Audition

Editing

Pembroke J. Herring, Shinya Inoue, James E. Newcom
All team (139)

• The film was shot on two sets – separately in the USA (directed by Richard Fleischer) and in Japan.
• Initially, Akira Kurosawa directed the Japanese portion of the film, but after two years of unproductive work, he was replaced by Kinji Fukasaku (only one minute of Kurosawa's footage made it into the final film).
• War veterans from both sides consulted on the filming, including Minoru Genda, the direct author of the Japanese attack plan, whose name does not appear in the credits.
• A U.S. anti-submarine aircraft carrier Yorktown (CV-10) stood in for the Japanese aircraft carrier. American T-6 Texan trainer aircraft, fitted with false fairings, were used as Japanese combat aircraft.
• The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress crash landing was genuine footage of a real plane and a real, un-staged accident.
• The Curtiss P-40 fighters taking off in the film were real, while dozens of others, destroyed on the ground, were fiberglass mock-ups.
• One of the alternative titles for the computer game "Fire Shark" was "Tora! Tora! Tora!".
• The film's title is a code signal transmitted at the start of the attack, indicating that the complete surprise on which the Japanese were counting had been achieved. Translated from Japanese, the phrase means "Tiger! Tiger! Tiger!"; however, it can also be interpreted as a code phrase formed from "totsugeki (突撃) – raigeki (雷撃)” (“attack-torpedo attack”).
• Akira Kurosawa initially directed the Japanese part of the film, but after two years of unproductive work, he was replaced by Kinji Fukasaku. Only one minute of Kurosawa's footage made it into the final cut.
• One of the alternative titles for the computer game "Fire Shark" is "Tora! Tora! Tora!".
• The film's title is a code phrase that was transmitted at the start of the attack and indicated that the complete surprise of the attack, which the Japanese had hoped for, had been achieved. Translated from Japanese, the phrase means "Tiger! Tiger! Tiger!"; however, it can also be interpreted as a code phrase derived from "totsugeki (突撃) – raigeki (雷撃)" ("torpedo attack").