David Bowie is outstanding as the defiant British prisoner whose erotic appeal undoes the Japanese commandant, played by Sakamoto, who was at the height of his fame as a musical icon in Japan
Comment
05/01/08
Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983)
79 %
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted: 14
Fresh: 11
Rotten:3
Average Rating: 6.3/10
Runtime: 2 hrs 4 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: Transferred from a military prison in Batavia, a British major is sentenced to a Japanese prison camp on Java in 1942. There, he clashes psychologically, culturally and physically with the camp's commander who is, in truth, infatuated... [More]
Starring: David Bowie, Tom Conti, Takeshi Kitano, Jack Thompson
Director: Nagisa Oshima
DVD Info
Reviews for Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence
1 - 15 (sorted by date; Australian critics are listed first)
Top Critic From Oshima's later career... most notable is this bilingual, end-of-WWII tearjerker about forgiveness and understanding between cultures, which could have been dubbed The Man Who Fell to Java.
10/02/08
For all the praise heaped upon Oshima's admittedly ambitious film about East-West relations in the microcosm of a Japanese PoW camp during World War II, it's far less satisfactory than most of his earlier work.
06/24/06
Top Critic Mr. Oshima has staged the film in a spacious tropical setting and filled it with a great number of extras. Even so, Mr. Bowie always stands out from the crowd.
08/30/04
Top Critic Fine performances by Conti, Takeshi (brilliant in his first dramatic role), Sakamoto (a Japanese pop star in his film acting debut who also contributed the memorable score), and Bowie enhance this provocative film.
07/30/03
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05/24/03
The context and frequent incontinence of the execution bring the film uncomfortably close to the pseudophilosophical bondage fantasies of Yukio Mishima.
01/01/00
1 - 15 (sorted by date; Australian critics are listed first)
Related Forums for Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence
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