Modern Tokyo (1935)
This Traveltalk series short looks at pre-World War II Tokyo, highlighting the influences of Western culture.
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Best movie of this year hands down!
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Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.
Modern Tokyo (1935) *** (out of 4) Nice entry in James A. Fitzpatrick's TravelTalks series from MGM takes us to Tokyo years before the destruction of WWII. We start off learning that the six million people living there makes it the third biggest city in the world and for the longest time the city had no aspirations to become anything special until a Western cult began to take over. Fitzpatrick says that a lot of the current look of the buildings are due to a massive earthquake and fire that struck the city on September 1, 1923, which was the biggest disaster until the eventual war and resent tsunami. From here we visit several streets where we learn about the popularity an American movies and how Hollywood has left an impact on the people there. We also get to see various signs that show off the culture as well as some judo fighters. If you're a fan of the series then you already know that the main draw of these shorts were to show people what other parts of the world looked like. This might seem old-fashioned today but it's easy to see why this series was so popular back in the day. This is a pretty good entry in the series as we're told some fascinating history and the visuals are always good.