Ken Watanabe is usually to be found being tough and awesome in front of the camera in the likes of Batman Begins,** Letters From Iwo Jima** and Chris Nolan’s upcoming Inception. Now rumour has it he might be stepping behind the lens to direct a film about World War Two’s legendary 442nd US military unit.
It’s certainly a story worth telling: following the events of Pearl Harbour, the US moved to contain all Japanese/Japanese American citizens in internment camps, labelled as “enemy aliens” thanks to Japan’s opposition in the conflict. But thanks to the sheer number of Japanese Americans living on Hawaii, it was deemed impractical on the island. Plus there were many Japanese troops in the State still willing to fight for the US.
So an amalgam of volunteers from Hawaii (where 150,000 of the island’s 400,000 people were Japanese-American) and troops who had pledged loyalty were sent for training and became their own largely self-sufficient fighting force. Even though many of their families were still in camps, the group ended up as the most decorated unit in the history of the US armed forces, earning awards including 21 Medals of Honour.
While this is strictly unconfirmed for now, Watanabe sounds like an interesting choice to make it, despite no directing experience. Heck, we’d be happy even if he just starred in the thing. According to Pajiba, producer Bill Gerber (who worked on Gran Torino) is still setting the project up, so it remains to be seen if it makes it before the cameras regardless of who ends up directing it.