Watched the two first episodes of the mini-series Tokyo Trial a NHK-Dutch TV-Netflix coproduction, about the Nuremberg counterpart for the Pacific War. As you would expect the cast is an international patchwork of solid second fiddles and odd choices : S.Keach lending his voice to the narration, M.Ironside as MacArthur, David Freeman (Bellocq in Raiders of the Lost Ark), Irrfan Khan (Slumdog Millionaire), Stephen McHattie, Serge Hazanavicius (brother of Michel, the director of The Artist) and japanese punk director Shynia Tsukamoto (!) playing the writer of the Burmese Harp.
The subject matter is riveting, the show... leaves a bit to be desired so far. It's not an easy proposition as they decided to keep, probably out of respect for the history (and consideration for their budget), all of the black & white footage of the court proceedings and charged individuals. To not break the visuals, the actors playing the judges are also shot in some phoney black & white "damaged" stock when in court, it's not the best.
The major issue so far however is that everything from the political implications to the personal granularity is treated piecemeal and it all makes for a rather superficial treatment of the political & legal arguments with cookie cutter characters (obligatory soviet judge strong arming the court on pure political grounds). The point would have been better served by taking more liberties with the source and maybe focusing on one aspect through a more streamlined unity of drama -for instance one major meeting with all the key legal arguments in depth-. Because so far it's all stiff and overly academic (including a grading perfectly aligned with current trends... and little personality).
