Sessue Hayakawa Movies
Best remembered by international audiences for his Oscar-nominated turn as Japanese POW camp commander Sato in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Sessue Hayakawa was one of the first Japanese actors to have a successful Hollywood career. Born Kintaro Hayakawa in the city of Chiba on the island of Honshu, he originally aspired to join the navy but was prevented by a partial hearing loss. Instead, he joined his uncle's acting troupe. At age 19, Hayakawa enrolled at the University of Chicago.Upon his return to Japan, he created the Japanese Imperial Company, an international touring troupe that came to the western U.S. in 1913. Hayakawa broke into films in 1914 after producer Thomas Ince, the father of the studio system, saw Hayakawa perform and signed him to a film contract. The first film in which he appeared was The Hateful God (1913). A young Hollywood had never seen the likes of an actor such as Hayakawa. Forgoing the tendency of other silent stars to broaden every movement, he brought an unprecedented subtlety to his exotic and initially sympathetic roles. Hayakawa became a star after appearing in The Typhoon (1914) with his wife, Tsuru Aoki. He played a villain in Cecil B. De Mille's The Cheat (1915). Again, he distinguished himself by giving a naturalistic performance. While he continued to try to play romantic roles, he was most frequently cast in villainous roles and occasionally produced films himself. In 1921, he penned a novel and a play. He also wrote a screenplay for The Swamp.
By 1923, Hayakawa's popularity in Hollywood had waned and he moved to Europe to appear in films such as J'ai Tué (I Have Killed) (1924). He appeared in his first sound appearance in the Hollywood thriller Daughter of the Dragon (1931), playing Fu Manchu. The film did poorly and Hayakawa spent the '30s working in Europe. He returned to Hollywood in the late '40s and reestablished himself as a character actor in such films as Three Came Home (1950) and Swiss Family Robinson (1960). In the mid-'60s, Hayakawa retired from acting, moved to Japan, and became a Zen priest and a drama teacher. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
Four stories from Hans Christian Andersen appear in The Daydreamer, a feature using the Animagic process that uses live action combined with stop-motion puppets. Included are "The Little Mermaid," "The Emperor's New Clothes," "Thumbelina," and "The Garden Of Paradise." Songs and dances compliment an international all-star cast of voices used for the characters. Ray Bolger, Margaret Hamilton, Burl Ives, Hayley Mills, Boris Karloff, Cyril Ritchard, Patty Duke, Terry-Thomas and Victor Borge join Ed Wynn in his second-to-last screen role. This was the last film in which fans would hear the voices of Sessue Hayakawa and Tallulah Bankhead. Director Jules Bass provided the lyrics, with Murray Law providing the music for this entertaining children's fantasy. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi
- Starring:
- Cyril Ritchard, Paul O'Keefe, (more)
- 1961
Sessue Hayakawa was the biggest name in The Big Wave, but the central story centers around the younger, lesser-known actors Juzo Itami and Mickey Curtis. Itami and Curtis play lifelong chums, happily ingoring all racial and cultural barriers imposed by Japanese and American society. All this goodwill comes to an end when both boys fall in love with the same girl (Koji Shitara). Big Wave was based on a novel by Pearl Buck, a longtime specialist in "Eastern" dramaturgy (see The Good Earth and Demon Seed). The film was one of the first Japanese/US coproductions, with the behind-the-scenes personnel fairly evenly divided between representatives of both countries. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
This standard wartime drama is divided into three chronological segments and is based on the experiences of the real Guy Gabaldon (played as an adult by Jeffrey Hunter, and as a boy by Richard Eyer). In the first segment, Guy is a homeless waif without many prospects when he is adopted by a Japanese-American family. He grows up just in time to be drafted into battle in World War II -- the bombing of Pearl Harbor has a particularly devastating effect on his family and their friends. After a wild last fling with two buddies (David Janssen and Vic Damone) and some women, Guy heads off to war where he distinguishes himself because of his fluency in Japanese. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Jeffrey Hunter, David Janssen, (more)
None of the many cinemadaptations of Johan Wyss' The Swiss Family Robinson are as relentlessly enjoyable as this 1960 Disney feature. The film wastes no time getting down to business, with the shipwreck of the Robinson family occurring as the credits flash across the screen. Fashioning a raft, the family heads to a lush tropical island. While the mother (Dorothy McGuire) isn't too happy about being a castaway, the father (John Mills) and the sons (James MacArthur, Tommy Kirk, Kevin Corcoran) are thrilled at the prospect of carving out a new life for themselves. In short order, the industrious Robinsons have constructed a treehouse with all the creature comforts and "utilities" of their home in Switzerland. Later on, the little party is joined by Janet Munro, the daughter of a sea captain who has been captured by pirate Sessue Hayakawa and his band. After a series of adventures calculated to arouse the envy of every man, woman and child in the audience, the film comes to a rousing conclusion as the Robinsons resourcefully fend off Hayakawa and his pirates with a variety of jerry-built booby traps. A box-office winner to the tune of $30 million, The Swiss Family Robinson proved beyond doubt that Disney's decision to emphasize the humor and adventure of the Wyss original, while downplaying the sociopolitical undertones, was a sound one. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- John Mills, Dorothy McGuire, (more)
- 1960
The first portion of this Walt Disney Presents episode is a behind-the-scenes preview of the upcoming Disney theatrical feature Swiss Family Robinson. Hosted by three of the film's stars, John Mills, Dorothy McGuire and Janet Munro, the segment details the difficulties encountered by the production crew while filming on location in the West Indies' island of Tobago -- an island so uninhabited that even the animals had to be shipped in from the States. The second half of the episode consists of the Oscar-winning "True Life Adventure" short subject Water Birds, previously telecast as part of the Disneyland installment "A Trip Through Adventureland and Water Birds." ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- John Mills, Dorothy McGuire, (more)
- 1959
This romantic drama set in a Venezuelan jungle is based on a novel by W.H. Hudson about Rima, a mythical "bird-woman" and her love for Abel, a man running from political assassination. In this adaptation, Rima (Audrey Hepburn) is a real woman living in the jungle with her adopted grandfather Nuflo (Lee J. Cobb). Abel (Anthony Perkins) escapes his pursuers and meets Rima after a local tribe has taken him under their wing. The unlikely couple fall in love but Abel is haunted by his desire to go back into his world to avenge his father's murder at the hand of his political rivals. While he is struggling with his own dilemma, the local tribe is beginning to believe that Rima is an evil spirit they must destroy. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Audrey Hepburn, Anthony Perkins, (more)
- 1958
Jerry Lewis, plays a third-rate USO magician named Gilbert Woolley, working the Far East circuit with his pet rabbit Harry. Nearly fired for accidentally humiliating haughty movie star Marie McDonald, Gilbert's career is salvaged by kindly Japanese aristocrat Sessue Hayakawa; it seems that Gilbert is the only person who is able to make Sessue's lonely, orphaned nephew Robert Hirano laugh. An international incident nearly develops when hero-worshipping Hirano tries to follow Gilbert back to the US, whereupon the poor prestidigitator is accused of being a kidnaper. Like most of the Jerry Lewis/Frank Tashlin collaborations, The Geisha Boy is highlighted by several eye-popping sight-gag sequences. The best bits include a ballpark scene featuring several members of the 1958 Los Angeles Dodgers (notably Gil Hodges) and a sledgehammer-subtle "throwaway" concerning Sessue Hayakawa's previous appearance in Bridge on the River Kwai. Less successful are the maudlin scenes between Jerry Lewis and little Robert Hirano, with both performers ladling on pathos with a trowel. Oh, yes: Geisha Boy served as the film debut of Suzanne Pleshette. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Jerry Lewis, Marie McDonald, (more)
The Bridge on the River Kwai opens in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in Burma in 1943, where a battle of wills rages between camp commander Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa) and newly arrived British colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness). Saito insists that Nicholson order his men to build a bridge over the river Kwai, which will be used to transport Japanese munitions. Nicholson refuses, despite all the various "persuasive" devices at Saito's disposal. Finally, Nicholson agrees, not so much to cooperate with his captor as to provide a morale-boosting project for the military engineers under his command. The colonel will prove that, by building a better bridge than Saito's men could build, the British soldier is a superior being even when under the thumb of the enemy. As the bridge goes up, Nicholson becomes obsessed with completing it to perfection, eventually losing sight of the fact that it will benefit the Japanese. Meanwhile, American POW Shears (William Holden), having escaped from the camp, agrees to save himself from a court martial by leading a group of British soldiers back to the camp to destroy Nicholson's bridge. Upon his return, Shears realizes that Nicholson's mania to complete his project has driven him mad. Filmed in Ceylon, Bridge on the River Kwai won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director for the legendary British filmmaker David Lean, and Best Actor for Guinness. It also won Best Screenplay for Pierre Boulle, the author of the novel on which the film was based, even though the actual writers were blacklisted writers Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson, who were given their Oscars under the table. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- William Holden, Alec Guinness, (more)
Samuel Fuller directed and cowrote this typically hard-boiled drama set in Japan following World War II. Eddie Kenner (Robert Stack) is given a special assignment by the Army to get the inside story on Sandy Dawson (Robert Ryan), a former GI who has formed a gang of fellow servicemen and Japanese locals who use their muscle to take over Tokyo's pachinko racket and commit a series of train robberies, targeting deliveries of military ammunition. Eddie is supposed to gather evidence on the murder of a soldier believed to have fallen in with the gang, and Eddie tries to blend in with the group to find out how they work. Hoping to learn more, Eddie also begins romancing Mariko (Shirley Yamaguchi), a Japanese woman who was married to the slain gangster, and he learns that the ruthless Dawson kills men who are injured during robberies rather than leave them behind to possibly testify against him. After a burglary goes wrong, Dawson becomes convinced that there's an informer in the group; wrongly believing it's Griff (Cameron Mitchell), Dawson kills his loyal soldier and makes Eddie his second in command. Veteran Japanese actor Sessue Hayakawa appears as Inspector Kito, a Japanese police detective working with Eddie to crack the case. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Robert Ryan, Robert Stack, (more)
- 1953
The English-language title of this Japanese film is General Yamashita; in any language, the title character is played by Sessue Hayakawa. During WW II, Yamashita is assigned to the Philippines by his longtime antagonist Tojo. The General tries to be an honorable man in his duties, but is overwhelmed by events. Put on trial for war crimes in 1945, General Yamashita is condemned to death, despite filmmaker Hiroshi Okawa's subliminal suggestions that his behavior was no worse than that of the American conquerors. Sessue Hayakawa's performance in Tomoyuki Yamashita is worth comparing to his similar characterizations in Three Came Home (1950) and Bridge on the River Kwai (1957). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Sessue Hayakawa
- 1950
Released in the U.S. in 1950, Mask of Korea has the sort of title that suggests a tie-in with the then-raging Korean Conflict. Not true. The film was actually lensed in France in 1940, under the title Macao l'Enfer de Jeu. Silent-film veterans Erich Von Stroheim and Sessue Hayakawa star as, respectively, a gun-runner and a gambling-house proprietor. The two men are brought into conflict over a revolution in Korea, and are also rivals for the affections of a beautiful woman (Mirielle Balin). When customers complained about the misleading title Mask of Korea, the film was rechristened Gambling Hell. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Erich Von Stroheim, Sessue Hayakawa, (more)
Based on the autobiographical book by Agnes Newton Keith, Three Came Home stars Claudette Colbert as Mrs. Keith. Trapped in Borneo during the Japanese invasion, Mrs. Keith and her British husband (Patric Knowles) are penned up in a prison camp along with several other subjects. Despite the humanitarian views of camp commander Col. Suga (Sessue Hayakawa), Mrs. Keith is subject to torture, starvation, and humiliation at the hands of the guards, with Suga helpless to intervene lest he incur the wrath of his own superiors. Three Came Home contains several unforgettable moments, including a comic interlude between the male and female prisoners that ends abruptly with a barrage of Japanese bullets, and the heartwrenching scene wherein Suga learns that his family has been killed in a bombing raid. Since lapsing into the public domain in 1977, Three Came Home has popped up innumerable times on cable television. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Claudette Colbert, Patric Knowles, (more)
One of the less famous Humphrey Bogart films is this 1949 drama about post-war guilt and remembrance. Bogart plays U.S. airman and war hero Joe Barrett. During the war, he believes, his wife Trina (Florence Marly) died in a Japanese concentration camp. But when Barrett returns to Tokyo and the bar named Tokyo Joe that he used to own, he discovers that Trina is not only alive, but she has married Mark Landis (Alexander Knox), an attorney, and they have a seven-year-old daughter Anya (Lora Lee Michel), whom he suspects is really his child. Baron Kimura (Sessue Hayakawa) forces Barrett into running an airborne smuggling operation by threatening to reveal publicly that Trina made wartime radio propaganda broadcasts. The shipment Barrett must fly includes three Japanese war criminals being brought back into the country, and Kimura insures that Barrett will comply by kidnapping Anya and holding her hostage. But the war criminals hijack the plane and are arrested. Barrett then tracks down Kimura and both die in a shoot-out which saves the life of Anya. ~ Michael Betzold, Rovi
- Starring:
- Humphrey Bogart, Florence Marly, (more)
- 1937
This bit of elegant esoterica was Max Ophuls' only directorial effort for 1937. Japanese matinee idol Sessue Hayakawa made a long-overdue return to films as Yaamo, a humble Chinese coolie in love with the beautiful and aristocratic Kohana (Michiko Tanaka). Following her father's suicide, Kohana is reduced to working as a Geisha girl, and it is in this capacity that she meets Russian naval officer Serge Polinoff (Pierre-Richard Willm), who marries the girl and takes her back to his homeland. Now regarding Kohana as a traitor, Yaamo swears vengeance on both the girl and her Russian husband. At film's end, only Kohana is left alive, which in context is surprising indeed. The Japanese government issued a formal complaint about the content of Yoshiwara, but French moviegoers were not yet conditioned to take such things seriously, and the film was a hit. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Pierre Richard-Willm
- 1937
Dr. Arnold Fanck, creator of that peculiarly Germanic movie genre known as the "mountain film," headed to Japan in 1937 to co-direct the German-Japanese co-production New Earth (aka Die Tochter des Samurai). Befitting Fanck's specialty, the opening reels are full of lovingly detailed shots of Japan's snowcapped mountain peaks. The plot proper gets under way when Isamu Kosugi, a Japanese who has lived for several years in Europe, returns to the land of his birth. Having turned his back on his heritage and its traditions, Kosugi intends to marry a white woman, journalist Ruth Eveler. But his father, played with forceful dignity by Sessue Hayakawa, intends for Kosugi to wed Setsuko Hara, a girl of his family's choosing. Will Kosugi re-embrace the ways of his ancestors, or will he break his father's heart by returning to Europe with Eveler on his arm? Gorgeously photographed by Dr. Fanck's longtime associate Richard Angst, The New Earth is visual feast -- but only when seen in a good, clear print. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Setsuko Hara, Sessue Hayakawa, (more)
- 1931
In this entry in the mystery series, the Chinese criminal mastermind exacts revenge upon his enemy Fletcher, the man responsible for slaughtering Manchu's wife and son during an uprising. To get even, he sends out his daughter to kill Fletcher, but en route, she meets up with a Scotland Yard detective and her plans are waylaid. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Anna May Wong, Warner Oland, (more)
- 1924
Originally released in 1924 and fully restored in 1990 by the Cinematheque Française, this silent French melodrama is especially notable for starring Japanese actor Sessue Hayakawa. The story centers on the wealthy wife of a professor of "Orientalism." She is being harassed by a pair of con men who are blackmailing her for an alleged indiscretion. Her old friend and business associate Hideo (Hayakawa) has just moved to Tokyo after losing his family in the country's devastating 1923 earthquake. An antique dealer by trade, he starts looking for ways to prove that the blackmailing is just an elaborate scam and not based on fact. This leads to tragedy when Hideo is mistakenly charged with the murder of the wife's husband, who suffered from a weak heart and was trying to save her from one of the grifters when he died. Hideo's willingness to die to protect her honor, touches the wife into disclosing the past problem that has caused everyone so much grief. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Huguette Duflos, Denise Legeay, (more)
- 1924
A political cabinet celebrates ten years in power at a luncheon. Congratulations are given for the booming economy and the abolishment of the army. When the former foreign secretary dies mysteriously, secret papers vital to national security disappear. Sessue Hayakawa, Ivy Duke, Tsuri Aoki, and Valia star in this political thriller. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi
- Starring:
- Sessue Hayakawa
- 1924
Sessue Hayakawa stars in a double role in this feature that combines political intrigue and fantasy. The heir to the throne must prove his bravery by taking secret documents guarded by a multiple-limbed fire god. San Yan (Hayakawa) and his wife (Tsuri Aoki) travel to the sacred temple on the advice of the evasive Englishman Mr. Oliphant. Nicholas Bates, Fred Raynham, Jeff Barlow, Harry Agar Lyons, and Tom Coventry co-star in this exotic adventure. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi
- 1923
Based on a 1908 French novel by Claude Farrére, this silent melodrama stars the husband-and-wife team of Sessue Hayakawa and Tsuru Aoki. Hayakawa plays a Japanese nobleman who, while away on a secret mission, learns of his wife's dalliance with a British naval officer (Felix Ward). Retaliating, Hayakawa has the his rival transferred to his battleship where their cultural differences quickly surface. Wounded in battle, Hayakawa forces the Briton to take over command of the battleship, thus ensuring his quick demise. Having rid himself of his rival, Hayakawa brings about a reconciliation with his wife, forcing her back to a life more in keeping with their ancient traditions. Produced in France in 1923, La Bataille was released in America the following year as The Danger Line. The story was remade in 1934, again as La Bataille and starring Charles Boyer and Annabella. An English-language version featuring Boyer and Merle Oberon was filmed simultaneously and released as Thunder in the East. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi
- Starring:
- Tsuru Aoki, Sessue Hayakawa, (more)
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