Nisei is defined as someone living in the United States of America or Canada that was born in Japan. This film is the story of two brothers who volunteer for the American military after being detained in a Japanese internment camp, and their time serving a country that isn’t theirs.
There are two key components to Nisei: the story and the emotion. Both have to work in order for this film to be successful, and while I love the story, only fifty-percent completion isn’t enough to say that the film is successful.
Story:
If anyone says that this story isn’t interesting, they are lying.
If anyone says that this isn’t a story worth telling, they are wrong.
If someone can’t appreciate the sacrifices that the two brothers made in the film, they are lost.
The reality is that this story is brilliant. It moves along quickly, and it allows viewers to think about their own lives and the decisions that they make on a daily basis.
Why do we make sacrifices?
Does our family support the decisions that we make?
How can I be a better person?
These things and more come into the fold throughout the course of Nisei, and never does a moment pass when viewers aren’t forced to look internally and do what they can to understand themselves and their lives.
Emotion:
One singular moment lent itself to emotion, and it’s not the one that many would expect to allow emotion to rise to the surface.
In a film about war, displaced immigrants, and fractured families, emotion should be the thing that appears the most–constantly reeling viewers in further and allowing the film to resonate with them. I felt that the attention to detail in this regard was lacking, and I struggled to find the emotion present in Nisei–which is something that I rarely struggle with. I needed more emotion, and I needed to be able to fall in love with the characters on screen–but that never happened.
There’s a lot happening in Nisei, but the key components of the film were the story and the emotion (or the lack thereof). I was underwhelmed when all was said and done, and in a film of this magnitude, covering a story like this, emotion should have been bursting from the seams. I ultimately felt disconnected from Nisei, and that’s never good for business.
Written & Directed by Darren Haruo Rae.
Starring Jonathan Tanigaki, Brent Yoshida, Shiro Kawai, Jabez Armodia, Alfred Hsing, etc.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/10
