Tora! Tora! Tora!/Trivia

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • What Could Have Been: The movie was originally slated to be directed by British director David Lean (American side) and beloved Japanese auteur Akira Kurosawa (Japanese side), but Lean pulled out early in production. Kurosawa continued on for a while, until he was told that the Japanese section had been shortened to 90 minutes (the script Kurosawa had written was four hours long). Despite this, Kurosawa did begin production, but was replaced after three weeks. His experiences with Tora! Tora! Tora! and the failure of his next film Dodesukaden led to his Creator Breakdown in 1971.