Snow Falling on Cedars (1999)

hyped garbage

Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

In general I give this film rather high marks. It does a very good job of portraying the resentment toward the Japanese after World War II, as well as the general racism against Asians in that area at that time. I was particularly impressed with the courtroom scene where a White female landowner (I suppose she saw herself as a "real American") demonstrates her prejudice against foreigners, even though she herself had a strong foreign accent.I saw this film on cable when it first came to television, and now again a dozen years later. When I first saw the film I was impressed with young Ethan Hawke. I haven't been very impressed with him since.I am not a big fan of flashbacks, although they have their place. Some directors rely on them way too much, and that is evident in this film. I found it made the story a bit confusing in parts. And I had to laugh at one of our reviewers who said the story couldn't be told in sequence. Really? A story that occurs in sequence can't be told in sequence? This film has SOME flashbacks for the sake of having flashbacks.The cinematography here is excellent, and some scenes are particularly memorable. The rounding up of the Japanese in order to send them to relocation camps is a haunting sequence.As good as the "round up" sequence was, PARTS of the courtroom scenes were equally bad. Key testimony was quite good, but to show the blur of the trial, there were lousy slow motion scenes with muffled sounds. I was not impressed.As mentioned, Ethan Hawke was very good here as the young newspaper man struggling with idealism. James Cromwell was very good as the judge, in part because in his career you never quite knew whether he was going to be the good guy or the bad guy. Richard Jenkins is not a handsome guy, which is probably why he is so underrated as an actor; he does very nicely here as the sheriff. A highlight of the film is Max von Sydow as the defense attorney!!! And Rick Yune was appropriately stoic as the young Japanese man on trail.This is a darned good film, despite a few faults. Recommended, though it didn't end up on my DVD shelf.

This movie made no sense to anyone in my house. It barely made sense to me and I read the book. Nothing in the movie tied together, major details of the story were left out. There was easy too many flashes through information that made the story. The music was good to bring you in emotionally but they weren't the same emotions the book brought about. I was very disappointed in the entire portrayal of the trial we,weren't even sure what the evidence was or how it applied to the case because it was all done behind music. And...the title is Snow Falling on Cedars and they barely talked about the storm. People were expected to put too much thought into this to make it all make sense.

Midpoint in the movie, the Japanese-American Internment is underway in a small Northwestern farming and fishing island in the Seattle, Washington, area. The Miyamoto family is visited by officials enforcing the expropriation and relocation of American citizens of Japanese ancestry. The officials rummage through the family's entire home and grounds, turning up every manner of personal items, especially anything of sentimental value such as personal letters or keepsakes (which supposedly suggest Japanese-cultural sympathies)—all boxed and taken away before their tearful eyes. The policemen find a container of dynamite, used by the Miyamoto men to clear the land, blow tree stumps. Turns out the law makes it a crime for people of Japanese ancestry to own explosives—a felony. "Aha!" the cops say, "we have a serious criminal." With the sensitivity of a dirty toilet seat, the goon squad handcuffs the father and takes him into immediate custody. Sound familiar? It does if you've been on the receiving end of any sort of act of state aggression... from busting kids for drugs to fabricating wars for the benefit of the Carlyle Group. ...For my complete review of this movie and for other movie and book reviews, please visit my site TheCoffeeCoaster.com.Brian Wright Copyright 2009

This is probably the worst movie I have ever seen in my life, and the first video rental that made me and a buddy push the fast-forward button more than three times. When you have two religious viewers show the most emotion when a character swears at his former love while losing a limb, you know the movie is really bad. Snow falling on cedars has way too many shots of snow actually falling on cedars. And snow falling on the ground. And people talking like they are watching snow falling. Soooo boring. Believe me, it is much better to simply sit in front of your apartment window and watch the snow actually fall then to waste money renting this movie.