JAYFORCE

War being an ultimate evil, carried out by loyalists who kill and destroy on a massive scale, how can we hope to bring ‘war criminals’ to justice – to bring closure to the war and ensure justice and peace for both sides? Can we call an enemy combatant a criminal who was doing the same thing our warriors and officers were doing just because we won? Big dilemma.

As the Japanese surrender at the end of WWII, General Douglas MacArthur (played by Tommy Lee Jones) charges General Bonner Fellers (played by Matthew Fox) with the task of deciding if Emperor Hirohito will be hanged as a war criminal. Influencing Fellers’ ruling is his quest to find Aya, an exchange student he met years earlier in the U.S.

“Emperor” tells a portion of the story of post-war justice in Japan (with a love story sort of mixed in, of course). Bold (and secret) moves that won the peace in that time are shared and explored. But more pressing than the measures taken, consider a couple of the issues/questions faced at the time:

1. Emperor Hirohito was considered a god to many in Japan. How do you bring a god to man’s ‘justice’?
2. Emperor Hirohito being a spiritual leader, not a figure wielding much political or war-making power, may have been no more than a figurehead for government and military officials to use to rally troops. Can we find justice in sentencing a figurehead to death?

A spiritual figure of a people put to death for ‘crimes’ per the judgement of those who had the power to do so. Why does that sound familiar? Argh! I know this one… hair like wool… feet like bronze… Jesus why can’t I remember?

Well, I’ll leave it there. Interesting story. Looks like this could be a good movie. Tommy Lee Jones movies often are.

– @ojones1