Wartime General Tojo stirs Japan at Christmas

TOKYO (AFP) - Japan remembered World War II at Christmas time as acclaimed actor and director Takeshi Kitano starred in a television epic as General Hideki Tojo, who ordered the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Better known for playing gangsters and other underworld characters, Kitano managed to portray the militarist prime minister with surprising resemblance in a documentary-drama broadcast over four and a half hours on Christmas Eve.

"The script read somewhat differently from the image of Hideki Tojo as we have known him," said the 61-year-old, who started his career as a stand-up comic.

"With special makeup on, I looked very much like Mr Tojo and I couldn't help laughing," said the director of such international award-winning movies as "Sonatine" (1993), "Hanabi (Fireworks)" (1997) and "Zatoichi" (2003).

Kitano, who played opposite David Bowie as a tough army sergeant in Nagisa Oshima's "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence," wore a bald wig, a moustache and a pair of round-lens glasses for his latest role.

"I felt as if Mr Tojo had descended on me and I was happy," he said.

The prime-time special on the TBS network followed Tojo during the three months leading up to the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, which brought the United States into the war.

Tojo is seen conferring on military plans with Emperor Hirohito, who is usually portrayed in Japan as a detached observer with little responsibility for the war.

After the war, the occupying United States allowed Hirohito to remain on the throne but Tojo was tried and executed as a war criminal.

The TBS special portrayed Tojo as a reluctant leader who struggled to reach a decision and showed Hirohito as hesitant about war.

"This drama is meant to tell how we went into the cruel war," said the special's producer Yasuo Yagi, adding that it resembled Japan's "irresponsible" politics at present. "I hope it conveys a hint about our country's future."

The programming was somewhat out of place on Japanese television for the festive year-end and New Year season which is usually reserved for hours-long period epics such as ones about famous samurai warriors.

But the drama drew a respectable 12.1 percent of television viewers on Christmas Eve.

"We chose the timing because it was close to the (Pearl Harbor) anniversary. It is important to broadcast such a programme at this time of the year," TBS publicist Takahiro Ishida said.

It was the second in a series of World War II documentary-dramas produced by TBS which in March featured victims of the devastating US air raids on Tokyo.

The series come as Japan is grappling with its own militarist past under the scrutiny of its Asian neighbours six decades after the war ended in August 1945.

In November, Japan's then air force chief of staff was sacked for writing that Japan was not an aggressor nation im WWII.

Japan's ties with China were frozen while Junichiro Koizumi made pilgrimages as prime minister from 2001 to 2006 to a shrine in Tokyo which honours the war dead including Tojo and other wartime leaders.

Media comments on the programme were generally favourable.

"It is fine as an attempt to thoroughly analyse the war and provide a basis to sustain our will to renounce war," said the Yomiuri Shimbun.

"Takeshi's own air makes Tojo's character more real," the Asahi Shimbun said. "It cools the euphoria of Christmas Eve a little bit and makes you think about the times."