Most of the factors deemed anti-Japanese in Crichton's novel have been removed or softened for the film, which revolves around the murder of a young woman at the LA office of a huge Asian corporation. The key players are John Connor (Sean Connery), a police detective whose love of all things Japanese has many colleagues doubting his motives, and Web Smith (Wesley Snipes), Connor's younger, slow-on-the-uptake partner. The murder, it seems, has been recorded on a video disk that has then been electronically adjusted to twist the facts. As Connor and Smith uncover successive layers of digital cover-up, the disk becomes both the fulcrum on which the investigation turns, and a metaphor for the detective process itself.
Kaufman gives RISING SUN a brilliant, high-tech-meets-urban-grunge sheen, conjuring extremes of opulence and sleaze and suggesting a moral shadowland where every character is compromised. Connery is in his element as the almost mystically gifted Connor, though Snipes can't make us believe in Smith's stupidity--15 minutes into the film, he's the only one in the theater who still hasn't figured out what's going on.
more Rising Sun products
You might be also interested in the following websites:
