Come See the Paradise

Come See the Paradise (Blu-Ray) (*)

$22.99

Screened, competed or awarded at:
Cannes Film Festival
Other Film Festival Awards

Language Selections:
Danish ( Subtitles )
English ( Dolby Digital 2.0 )
Finnish ( Subtitles )
Swedish ( Subtitles )

Product Origin/Format:
Sweden ( Blu-Ray/Region B )

Running Time:
128 min

Aspect Ratio:
Widescreen (1.78:1)

Special Features:
Interactive Menu
Scene Access
Blu-Ray & DVD Combo

Movie filmed in 1990 and produced in:
United States ( USA, Canada )

Directed By:
Alan Parker

Written By:
Alan Parker

Actors:
Dennis Quaid ..... Jack McGurn
Tamlyn Tomita ..... Lily Yuriko Kawamura
Sab Shimono ..... Hiroshi Kawamura
Shizuko Hoshi ..... Mrs. Kawamura
Stan Egi ..... Charlie Kawamura
Ronald Yamamoto ..... Harry Kawamura
Akemi Nishino ..... Dulcie Kawamura
Naomi Nakano ..... Joyce Kawamura
Brady Tsurutani ..... Frankie Kawamura
Elizabeth Gilliam ..... Younger Mini McGann
Shyree Mezick ..... Middle Mini McGann
Caroline Junko King ..... Older Mini McGann
Pruitt Taylor Vince ..... Augie Farrell
Colm Meaney ..... Gerry McGurn
Becky Ann Baker ..... Marge McGurn

Synopsis:

Portraying one of the shadier details of American history, this is the story of Jack McGurn, who comes to Los Angeles in 1936. He gets a job at a movie theatre in Little Tokyo and falls in love with the boss's daughter, Lily Kawamura. When her father finds out, he is fired and forbidden ever to see her again. But together they escape to Seattle. When the war breaks out, the authorities decide that the Japanese immigrants must live in camps like war prisoners.

While told in the prospective of a Nisei (2nd generation Japanese-American), this film does not fall to maudlin. The historical prospective is the facts leading up to the internment of West Coast Japanese nationals and Japanese-Americans just after the Pearl Harbor attack. In addition to telling about the internment camps, it also provides some insight into pre-war union efforts to organize It is told in flawless flashbacks. To a large extent the film is a narrative of people whose ability to lead their own lives were constrained by illegal activities of others.Jack McGurn (Quaid) moves to Los Angeles from New Jersey in 1936 to escape from troubles that fall on him as a labor organizer. He takes a job as a projectionist in a Little Tokyo movie theater run by a Japanese-American family. He falls in love with his Japanese boss's daughter. Forbidden by the father to see one another and barred from marrying by California law, the couple elope to Seattle, Washington. (The law there permitted inter-racial marriage.) They have a little girl they name Mini, who looks more like an Asian-American than a European-American. McGurn gets a job working as a 'fish smasher.' He is unjustly jailed for interfering when a peaceful legal protest of working conditions where he works is violently broken up by management goons and police. He is paroled just as the Japanese nation attacks America. McGurn's wife and daughter, and her family, are sent to Manzanar. McGurn parole is suspended but he then has to joins the United States Army without time to return to his wife before she is sent to the internment camp. He goes AWOL to visit his family in the camp.The movie has reconstructed scenes of the forced sale by Little Tokyo residents and scenes in the camp intended to show injustices that occur as a result of the order to intern west coast Japanese-Americans. 1944 Supreme Court rulings about the camps constitutionality allow American members of the family who had signed loyalty oaths to leave the camp. They go to live with an aunt, since they have no home in Little Tokyo anymore.The story is told in flashback as the mother tells Mini about Jack, whom Mini barely remembers, as the two of them are walking towards a railroad station where they are to meet Jack coming back from the war after the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

Come See the Paradise is a 1990 film directed by Alan Parker, starring Dennis Quaid and Tamlyn Tomita. Set before and during World War II, the film depicts the treatment of Japanese Americans in America following the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the subsequent loss of civil liberties within the framework of a love story.

This product was added to our catalog on Friday 25 January, 2013.

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