Hacker Cinema
Black Rain
1989 · Film · 125 min
Directed by Ridley Scott
Two New York cops get involved in a gang war between members of the Yakuza, the Japanese Mafia. They arrest one of their killers and are ordered to escort him back to Japan. However, in Japan he manages to escape, and as they try to track him down, they get deeper and deeper into the Japanese Mafia scene and they have to learn that they can only win by playing the game—the Japanese way.
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3 comments on Hacker News
I don't think the tech war is the full explanation for the decline of Japanese tech; the failure to focus on software is a big one and seems to be due to internal factors such as conservatism and business models tied to sale of hardware.
However when the US combines it industrial interests with its state apparatus it is a formidable force; media described the Japanese society as authoritarian, bitter and racist - eager to get back the Americans after world war 2 - with the everyday Japanese being mindless warrior drones in a strict hierarchy. (For examples of this sentiment see the movies Black Rain or Rising Sun - or lookup the tragic death of Vincent Chin - a Chinese mistaken for being Japanese).
The US justice system ran a series of entrapment campaign targeting Japanese firms. And there was buy-american campaigns and extra tariffs were put on Japanese imports.
Ultimately the Japanese yielded. The plaza accord fixed the Yen at a very high price point hampering Japanese exports. And quotas were set for US exports to Japan and Japanese car factories were setup in the US.
And then in 90es you had the rise of now competitative tech firms from South Korea and Taiwan.
I was really down after I left the movie. It was unexpectedly one of the most depressing movies I've seen, right down there with The Reflecting Skin, Irreversible and Black Rain. It is a good movie, and I'm pleased that there's room in the public attention for movies like this, but the way that people talk about it I wonder if we even saw the same movie. I'm in no hurry to watch it again.
The Japanese film "Black Rain(1989)" directed by Shohei Imamura is one of the most powerful movies I've even seen. It's about a young woman trying to have a marriage arranged after the Horoshima bombing. It has nothing to do with the US film of same name starring Michael Douglas. Seek it out.