Tora! Tora! Tora!

On this date in 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy carries out a surprise attack on the United States Pacific Fleet and its defending Army and Marine air forces at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

"Tora! Tora! Tora!" is a 1970 Japanese-American biographical war drama film that dramatizes the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Veteran 20th Century Fox executive Darryl F. Zanuck, who had earlier produced "The Longest Day" (1962), wanted to create an epic that depicted what "really happened on December 7, 1941," with a "revisionist's approach." He believed that the commanders in Hawaii, General Short and Admiral Kimmel, though scapegoated for decades, provided adequate defensive measures for the apparent threats, including relocation of the fighter aircraft at Pearl Harbor to the middle of the base, in response to fears of sabotage from local Japanese. Despite a breakthrough in intelligence, they had received limited warning of the increasing risk of aerial attack. Recognizing that a balanced and objective recounting was necessary, Zanuck developed an American-Japanese co-production, allowing for "a point of view from both nations." He was helped out by his son, Richard D. Zanuck, who was chief executive at Fox during this time.

Production on "Tora! Tora! Tora" took three years to plan and prepare for the eight months of principal photography. The film was created in two separate productions, one based in the United States, directed by Richard Fleischer, and one based in Japan. Akira Kurosawa agreed to direct the Japanese part of the film only because he was told that David Lean was to direct the American part. Lean, in fact, was never part of the project. When Kurosawa found out about this, he tried to get himself fired from the production and succeeded. When Kurosawa was fired from the production, the Japanese sequences were at least three weeks behind schedule. Producer Elmo Williams solved the problem by hiring two Japanese directors to head two production units as replacements. Toshio Masuda handled the dramatic scenes. He had directed approximately twenty-five features in only a decade. Kinji Fukasaku had experience directing large scale action scenes and scenes involving special effects.

The film was considered a flop when it was released in the U.S., but was a huge success in Japan. The film's failure in North America was partly blamed on opposition to the Vietnam War. Young moviegoers were not interested in a movie about World War II, and could not understand what was controversial about attacking a naval base.