Word: harakiri
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...Colonel Tojo (Robert Armstrong) in their ultra-ceremonious dens. He gets framed by the Japanese police; makes the romantic acquaintance of a half-Chinese beauty (Sylvia Sidney) whose access to high places stirs his suspicions; unmasks the crookery of a fellow-journalist (Rhys Williams); helps drive Tanaka to harakiri. For comic relief he makes a monkey, again & again, out of his feckless shadower (Leonard Strong). He uses judo, to thrilling and protracted effect, to chop down huge, shaven-pated Heavy Jack Halloran. Finally, in front of the U.S. Embassy one night, he confronts what looks like the entire secret police...
...mysterious civilian in a wrinkled raincoat and baggy suit, clutching a bulging cardboard suitcase; 3) two minor Luftwaffe officers and five German naval officers and technicians; 4) some interesting metal dispatch boxes apparently full of papers and armament blueprints. Missing were the bodies of two unnamed Japanese who committed harakiri when surrender was ordered. Explained the Navy: the Germans tossed their dead allies overboard...
...clear that the Jap command had resorted to a defense as macabre to Western minds as it was typically Japanese. There was no question that the harakiri tactic of Kamikaze (Divine Tempest) airmen had been adopted as a chief effort. There were strong indications that it had become the major hope of a defense of desperation...
...meanwhile learned a little more about Japanese mental processes. One of their cases was a Jap officer who discussed surrender at the water's edge, confident of the protection his flag of truce gave him. He asked 24 hours to make his decision: surrender or harakiri. But when he turned up 24 hours later, he had discovered another alternative. He politely informed the Americans that he had decided to stay in the jungle, politely withdrew...
...chief weaknesses is instability. Reared in Japan's feudal atmosphere, savagely repressed all his life, he is apt to blow up in tight spots, make "banzai" suicide charges, commit harakiri. Victorious, he swells with arrogance and takes his repressions out on helpless prisoners...