MartinHafer I wonder if Humphrey Bogart ever traveled to Japan. Sure, the film is set there and much of it was filmed there, but in practically ever scene you see Bogart, it either was filmed in a studio or he appears to be acting in front of a projected image. So, it seems that they shot the backgrounds with one film unit and superimposed Bogie onto the backgrounds repeatedly. It is pretty noticeable and makes the film seem a tad cheap.The film finds Bogart coming to Japan just after the war. He claims he is there to try to reopen a business he'd left behind when the war broke out--a bar. But, it's obvious that the US military (who is in charge of Japan at this point in history) is keeping Bogart ('Joe') under surveillance. When Joe finally does make his way to the closed bar, he meets with his old Japanese partner (Teru Shimada--who you may remember as a villain from YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE) for a stupid reunion scene (you just have to see it to know what I mean). It soon becomes apparent that Joe and his old friends were not so much bar owners but running their own black market business--and Bogie is there to start it up once again--along with a new partner (Sessue Hayakawa).There is a side plot as well. Before the war, Joe was involved with a Russian lady who lived in Japan (Florence Marly) and thought she'd been killed in the war. However, when he finds her after all these years he finds that she's married and with a child...HIS child! What to do, what to do? This film finds Bogart in a more sedate role. Later in his career, he often was less of the action hero or tough guy. While he is a bit seedy here, the is not the sort to shoot or beat up people in TOKYO JOE--and many who want that super-manly Bogie may be disappointed. He made several films like this, such as SIROCCO and LEFT HAND OF GOD--all decent films but with a much more sedate sort of anti-hero. Now considering the actor's age, this sort of transition wasn't that bad an idea though they are far from his best films.

Irie212 Two charismatic actors (Bogart and Hayakawa), two exceptional performances (Teru Shimada and Alexander Knox), and two powerful scenes redeem this otherwise disappointing film.First, the disappointments: director Heisler and leading lady Marly. Both clearly earned their downward-spiraling careers, each ending up cranking out small-screen stuff like "77 Sunset Strip." Equally disappointing is the on-location filming-- not that it's bad. It memorably exposes the destruction of Tokyo (half the city was bombed to rubble by us); unfortunately, the vintage footage is put in amateurish hands, resulting in painfully obvious use of rear projection when Bogart himself is in the frame, or painfully obvious use of a double wearing a trench coat and fedora.The two powerful scenes occur in the final half hour, and they are noteworthy if only because they remind modern audiences that brutal scenes do not need to be bloody scenes:First, we're in a cargo plane en route back to Japan, and though there is no explicit violence, the danger is palpable because the audience knows that the war criminals on board are capable of absolutely anything. Second, a rare portrayal of seppuku, filmed in a way that relies entirely on the actor's expressions to convey the barbarity of what he is doing to himself — and he succeeds so well that you simultaneously can't take your eyes off his face, and can't stand to watch.Both scenes have far more do with Japanese characters than with Americans, and that is the real strength of this film: The Japanese are not treated as clichés of cruelty-- or of comedy, as they are in the artlessly racist "Lost in Translation" (2003). In "Tokyo Joe," the Japanese are every bit as complex as the Americans, if not more so. Their characters are the losers of the war, after all, the people learning to live, as one of them says, "in shame."

HelloTexas11 The setting for 'Tokyo Joe' is more interesting than the plot. It takes place in Japan not long after the second world war, during the American occupation. The country is being rebuilt, but times are still tough; at one point, we see Humphey Bogart's character toss a cigarette butt to the sidewalk and several people dive to retrieve it. In what is definitely one of Bogie's lesser vehicles, the story is confusing and at times it's hard to know exactly what Joe Barrett's (Bogart) motivations are. A colonel in WW2, Barrett had also owned a nightclub (shades of Casablanca) in Japan and returns after a few years to see what became of it. He finds it still operating but is frustrated at the amount of American red tape he must go through to re-establish himself as the owner. Then he discovers that his Russian-born wife Trina, whom he thought dead, is alive and remarried to a wealthy businessman named Mark Landis. At first, he is furious and determined to get Trina back, but when he discovers she has a daughter, his daughter no less, his mood softens. Then he meets with a shady Japanese underworld figure to front a small air freight company... Barrett will fly the plane and ask no questions about the cargo. The Japanese crime boss says they will export frozen frogs to North and South America. I'm serious. There is even a point later in the film when crates are being loaded onto a plane and one of them is dropped and comes open. We expect to see guns or drugs spilled out but sure enough, it's a bunch of frozen frogs. Barrett says to hurry and get them loaded before they spoil. Bleccch. Anyway, that's about all you need to know about the plot. Eventually, Barrett is ordered to bring three Japanese baddies, former bigwigs from the war, back to Japan from Korea so they can stir up trouble. An elaborate (well, fairly elaborate) sting operation is set up by American authorities and the plan is thwarted. I wonder how many Bogart pictures tried to copy 'Casablanca' either in part of in whole; 'Tokyo Joe' certainly would be one of them. There is the tragic former romance, the smoky nightclub and requisite mood music ('These Foolish Things' weaves in and out of the picture), the exotic locale and even a Paul Henreid-ish character in Alexander Knox's Mark Landis. Humphrey Bogart gives an adequate performance, lending credibility to scenes and plot devices that don't really deserve it. 'Tokyo Joe' is something of a curiosity, a time-capsule worth a look.

edwagreen This certainly was not one of Humphrey Bogart's best films? Why? There is very little action in it. When the action does occur, it is so quickly resolved. The end is predictable because after all, Florence Marly (Trina) can't have two husbands.What did the Baron really want to smuggle in? Just some Communists to stir things up, or was there even more to this?Alexander Knox is terribly miscast as Bob Landis, Tina's second husband. He is drab and needed to exert much more if he wanted his wife back all together. Surprising that after such a brilliant performance in 1944's "Wilson," Knox got stuck with this part. The part called for a much more suave type. Knox totally lacked appeal here and it's showing.The ending really ends with a question mark. However, we know how it had to end. This certainly wasn't a Casablanca. Ingrid Bergman could easily have taught Flo Marly some lessons here.