Released in 1967 as part of Toho's 35th anniversary and based on a well-known Japanese Novel that goes by the same title, this film tells the story of Japan's surrender to the Allies during World War 2. When Emperor Hirohito makes the incredible decision that Japan should surrender, many reluctantly went along. Some though did not agree and rebelled in an attempt to stop his broadcast of surrender. These events lasted for 24 hours and therefore the title of the novel and the movie, Japan’s Longest Day. Directed by Kihachi Okamoto, it had a star-studded cast with many recognized Japanese actors, among them were the three actors most associated with Akira Kurosawa (Toshiro Mifune, Takeshi Shimura, and Tatsuya Nakadai) as well as many actors from the Godzilla series. For those who are interested in knowing about this, the movie has won several important awards and is broadcasted on every anniversary of the surrender.

Filmed in black and white and widescreen, the grain is noticeable throughout the movie on this DVD. The image is also at times soft in terms of detail, which can be very noticeable on occasion, though the picture comes in clear enough to suffice in most circumstances. Some of the more difficult aspects would be seeing things in the background as well as those actors who sat off in the far distance.

Japan’s Longest Day is presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.35:1 and is Anamorphic for widescreen TVs.

The sound comes in mostly clear with little or no problems at all and should be very acceptable to most viewers. The audio is automatically accompanied by English subtitles with two modes. One allows for the viewer to watch the movie and have the full subtitles for the actors as well as the information while the limited subtitles option will display only the subtitles for the information about the historical facts from the movie such as the dates and the names of the historical personalities involved.

This DVD has a release in terms of a limited number of extras though it is somewhat impressive. The image gallery has a slideshow of images from the movie itself as well as an image at the very beginning that displays the poster for the movie. For those that want to learn a bit more about the events, the program notes go into some details about the historical events that form the basis of the movie, the novel that provided the basis of the screenplay, information about Toho Studios, and some of the words used in the movie. Finally there are four trailers which include one for Japan’s Longest Day as well as three other films: Shogun Assassin, The Trail of Blood, and Samurai Assassin.

After considering all of these factors, this is a pretty good DVD release for a very impressive Japanese movie although the lack of extras may provide some problems. The price of the DVD which stands between $25 and $30 may provide some trouble in considering whether to buy the DVD but it still should be considered for a movie such as this.