This movie has two things going for it: Wesley Snipes, before he went all vampire-zombie, and Sean Connery, who's always a welcome presence. Connery's cop character is evidently Japan's roving ambassador of ass-kissing adoration. Infuriatingly smug and omniscient, he's there not so much to investigate the central murder as tell us all, through Snipes' chronically fascinated everyman, just how wildly superior are Japanese culture and business practices compared to hick-town U.S.A. They will RULE THE WORLD in Toyotas, listening to Sony's, wearing expensive Kenzo cologne. Hmm.
Michael Crichton, who helped adapt the screenplay from his novel, was a doctor AND attorney. He made movies. He wrote bestseller after bestseller - not one of them above the quality of potboiler, but all moneymakers. He was a daunting overachiever. But psychic? Seer? Prophet of the socioeconomic future? Well... in that, he flopped. "Rising Sun" was released in 1993, the year Japan's economy plunged into a 10-year economic tank from which it still hasn't fully recovered. In that time, South Korea, China, even Taiwan have emerged as Asian powerhouses - and, in the region as well as globally, are stiff competition for the sons of heaven. So it goes.
But aside from all the 'future shock' nonsense, the murder mystery itself is pinned to vast, vast conspiracies run by deep-pockets Japanese corporations on the American west coast. Any plot inconsistencies or unbelievable coincidences are written off to the nefarious puppet-masters controlling everything but jackrabbit population. It's... turgid, routine stuff, and, ultimately, ridiculous and unbelievable. The car chases are lame, too.
Another creepy element: The main murder at issue takes place during a session of conference-table fornication; it's all recorded on video disk and during the course of the investigation, we're "treated" to it about 37 times. Can we say "voyeuristic"? A little! That's probably no accident, since Crichton wrote a low-budget independent about that very subject in the early '70s called "Extreme Close-Up". It was a... thing... with him... evidently. If it's not your own particular fetish, you'll feel your skin begin to crawl.
Michael Crichton, who helped adapt the screenplay from his novel, was a doctor AND attorney. He made movies. He wrote bestseller after bestseller - not one of them above the quality of potboiler, but all moneymakers. He was a daunting overachiever. But psychic? Seer? Prophet of the socioeconomic future? Well... in that, he flopped. "Rising Sun" was released in 1993, the year Japan's economy plunged into a 10-year economic tank from which it still hasn't fully recovered. In that time, South Korea, China, even Taiwan have emerged as Asian powerhouses - and, in the region as well as globally, are stiff competition for the sons of heaven. So it goes.
But aside from all the 'future shock' nonsense, the murder mystery itself is pinned to vast, vast conspiracies run by deep-pockets Japanese corporations on the American west coast. Any plot inconsistencies or unbelievable coincidences are written off to the nefarious puppet-masters controlling everything but jackrabbit population. It's... turgid, routine stuff, and, ultimately, ridiculous and unbelievable. The car chases are lame, too.
Another creepy element: The main murder at issue takes place during a session of conference-table fornication; it's all recorded on video disk and during the course of the investigation, we're "treated" to it about 37 times. Can we say "voyeuristic"? A little! That's probably no accident, since Crichton wrote a low-budget independent about that very subject in the early '70s called "Extreme Close-Up". It was a... thing... with him... evidently. If it's not your own particular fetish, you'll feel your skin begin to crawl.