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Flight From Ashiya

1964, Movie, NR, 102 mins

Flight From Ashiya: Review

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Filmed entirely in Japan and surrounding waters, this Japanese-American co-production has some fine special effects created by the resourceful host-country craftsmen. Effects are about all this maudlin adventure-drama possesses; even consummate actor Widmark (with the meatiest role) seems as wooden as a ginkgo tree. The tale deals with three members of a US Air Force rescue team, Widmark, Brynner, and Chakiris, during a storm-tossed mission at sea. The background stories of all three are shown in flashback. Chakiris has turned coward, the result of a failed rescue mission when his helicopter precipitated an avalanche, wiping out the rescuees. Brynner, of Polish-Japanese extraction, has lost his zest for life since the death of his Algerian sweetheart, Gaubert, in a North African bridge-demolition wartime foul-up. Team leader Widmark thinks the Nipponese, including half of Brynner, should ride in the rear of the aircraft because his wife, Knight, and infant child died in a Japanese prison camp. Loath to risk his aircraft and crew for a handful of Japanese survivors on fragile rafts in the raging waters below, Widmark finally recalls his dead bride's final injunction to him--eschew hatred--and opts to save the survivors. He effects this rescue by having the half-Japanese Brynner parachute into the storm with supplies for the victims. Widmark and Chakiris then land the amphibian and pick everyone up. Widmark is injured during the landing, which gives Chakiris a chance to overcome his fear of flying and ferry the folks back to the base at Ashiya where the pokerfaced Parker awaits him. The film is notable only for having at least one flashback within a flashback. leave a comment
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