The movie Tora! Tora! Tora! (トラ・トラ・トラ！), released in 1970, is
a dramatization of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the series of American blunders that aggravated its effectiveness. The title is the code-words that were used by the Japanese to indicate a complete success of the attack, using a repetition of the Japanese word for tiger. The movie was critically acclaimed for its vivid action scenes as well as its almost documentary accuracy. Its most famous line, however, though widely assumed to be a quotation, transpired to be fictitious.
The film was created in two separate productions, one based in the United States, directed by Richard Fleischer, and one based in Japan. The Japanese side of the production was initially directed by Akira Kurosawa, but after two years of work with no useful results, 20th Century Fox turned the project over to Kinji Fukasaku who completed it.
The screenplay was written by Ladislas Farago, Larry Forrester, Ryuzo Kikushima, and Hideo Oguni, based on the book by Gordon W. Prange. Charles Wheeler , the cinematographer, was nominated for an Oscar. The film contains excellent second unit and miniature photography , shot by Ray Kellogg .
The film had an "all-star" cast, including
