It’s April 7, 1945, and the Japanese Imperial Navy is launching what would become its final offensive of World War II. Known as “Operation Ten-Go”, this historically disastrous mission involving the behemoth Battleship Yamato resulted in the loss of over 3000 crewmen’s lives. However the story of this massive battleship began 12 years earlier. In 1933, Japan was struggling to rebuild. A puppet state had been set up in Manchuria, Japan had withdrawn from the League of Nations, and was facing growing international opposition and isolation. Internally, the Japanese Imperial Navy is competing with the Army for funds. Those in charge are holding a New Vessel Construction Conference to debate which ship construction proposal to submit for funding approval. Vice-Admiral Osami Nagano (Jun Kunimura) argues that aircraft carriers will be vital in any future wars, and that battleships are a thing of the past. However, his longtime rival, Rear-Admiral Shigetaro Shizuma (Isao Hashizume) disagrees, stating that battles are fought with guns, not planes, and that only cowards without honor attack by air. Shizuma wants to build a giant, magnificent battleship that would serve as a display of strength for the navy. Vice Admiral Tadamichi Hirayama (Min Tanaka) has a similar idea, presenting his own plans for a massive battleship, designed to show the world Japan’s dignity, grace and power. However, Admiral Nagano fears that a huge battleship would send the wrong message to other countries, and start a war rather than prevent it. The minister wants to submit the cheapest vessel for funding, and out of these three ships, Hirayama’s budget estimate is far lower than any of the others, despite the grandiose size of his ship. Admiral Nagano believes that Hirayama’s estimate is far too low—that there is no way his ship could be built for that little money. He accuses Hirayama of lying and lowballing his estimate just so that his design would be selected. And so, after some arguing, the committee decides to postpone the vote until the next meeting.

Admiral Nagano has just two weeks to prove that Hirayama lied about his estimate, but he’s not sure who could possibly do a detailed cost analysis in such a short amount of time. As Nagano is having dinner with his lead architect Rear-Admiral Yoshio Fujioka (Hajime Yamazaki) and Admiral Yamamoto (Hiroshi Tachi), the officers cross paths with civilian Tadashi Kai (Masaki Suda). Kai is an unusual young man with an obsession for measuring things. He is a genius at mathematics, and was a promising student at Tokyo University. He had been expelled after being accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a young woman he was tutoring—Kyoko Ozaki (Minami Hamabe), the daughter of powerful industrialist Tomekichi Ozaki (Ken’ichi Yajima), one of the men backing Hirayama’s plan. The Admirals witness Kai’s genius with numbers firsthand, and believe he might just be able to pull off the impossible and provide them with a fast, accurate cost estimate for Hirayama’s battleship. However, Kai hates the military, stating that it is always wasting the public’s hard-earned money on expensive, useless weapons, leaving them in poverty. He doesn’t care about these officer’s ranks, and doesn’t want anything to do with them or their plan, but the admirals convince him that if Hirayama’s showpiece battleship were to be built, it would almost certainly lead the country into war.

Kai reluctantly agrees to take the job. However, in order for Kai’s findings to be taken seriously, he is going to have to officially join the Navy. Admiral Nagano even gives him the rank of Lieutenant Commander, and assigns Ensign Shojiro Tanaka (Tasuku Emoto) to assist him with anything he needs and guide him on Navy protocol. However, Tanaka is a little bitter about this assignment, especially since this newly appointed civilian already outranks him. Kai quickly discovers that his task is not going to be easy. He doesn’t know anything about ships, and the blueprints for Hirayama’s battleship are marked confidential and are thus off-limits. How is he supposed to estimate the cost of building a ship when he can’t even see the plans?! He’s going to have to get creative if he’s going to complete this mission in time and prevent Japan from starting a war. Meanwhile, Admiral Hirayama is doing everything he can to prevent Kai from getting the information he needs to complete his cost analysis—that includes hiding part price lists and making sure no one in the shipyards will talk with him. He also assigns Sub-Lieutenant Kunihiko Takato (Okuno Eita) to spy on Kai and Tanaka, reporting back their progress, and intervening/throwing wrenches in their plans whenever possible.

Based on the film’s tile, and massive opening battle sequence, I was expecting The Great War of Archimedes to be more of an action-packed film about naval warfare. However, the title is actually a play on words, with Archimedes referring to the mathematician at the heart of the film. The movie is more of a character drama, following this young, genius of a mathematician who quickly becomes obsessed with his mission, trying desperately to stop the Imperial Japanese Navy from building a massive battleship that could ultimately lead the country to start another world war. While this may not sound very exciting, the filmmakers have done an excellent job of making it so. It is fascinating to watch how Kai’s mind works—as new obstacles are thrown in his path, he quickly adapts and finds new ways to get the information that he needs. If he needs to know about shipbuilding, he’ll read 12 books on the subject and become an expert overnight. Even his assistant, Tanaka, can’t help but be won over by his brilliance and eccentricity. It’s a race against the clock, and there are several twists and turns to the story that keep you guessing how things will play out—despite knowing the history and seeing the massive battleship in the film’s opening sequence. The film is based on the manga Archimedes no Taisen, but certain scenes and elements of the story actually reminded me of moments and themes from some big blockbuster films, such as A Beautiful Mind, Good Will Hunting, A Few Good Men, and even Star Wars—in this Palpatine trying to tempt Luke to the dark side kind of way! The film is a nice blend of mystery, drama and thriller, plus a bit of romance and humor to round things out. The movie runs a bit long, but I found the story and performances to be quite engaging throughout, even when it gets a bit technical with all the naval and mathematics jargon.

Well Go’s Blu-ray release offers both the original Japanese language track as well as an English dub. As with all these Well Go releases, I usually try out the English dub first. In the opening sequence, there are some generic crewmen on the battleship who cheer and crack jokes. These sailors had the most cringeworthy American-sounding voice acting, that almost made me bail on the dub track and switch the the Japanese track. Fortunately, these soldiers are just in this one scene, and the rest of the dub sounded a lot better. However, the subtitles have nearly the same dialogue as the dub, so those who are willing to read, would probably enjoy the original Japanese track more. The Japanese voices generally have a more serious and grave tone to them, while some of the dubbed voices come off a little more comical at times. Both tracks are offered in 5.1 DTS-HD MA, which really shine in the film’s opening battle sequence. The sounds of gunfire, planes flying overhead, bombs being dropped, and explosions all come to life and fill the room with the deadly sounds of war. The rest of the film is more dialogue driven, but the soundtrack still provides a generally solid ambiance throughout. The video quality is also excellent, with a very clean, crisp picture with a nice level of detail, especially in close-ups.

The disc is packed in a standard Blu-ray keepcase with a cardboard slipcover. Like other Well Go releases, there is no digital copy included, but unfortunately there is also no bonus material besides the film’s trailer as some previews for four other Well Go releases, including two that are war-themed.

What’s Included:

Film: (2:09:49)

Blu-ray:
• 1080p / Widescreen 2.39:1
• Audio: Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, Japanese Stereo, English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, English Stereo
• Subtitles: English

Extras:
All trailers play back-to-back once one is selected.

• Trailer (1:42)
• Previews
  • Deliver Us From Evil (1:23)
  • T-34 (2:28)
  • Battle of Jangsari (1:37)
  • My Way (2:15)

Final Thoughts:

While the film’s explosive and exciting opening battle sequence may not be representative of the rest of the movie, The Great War of Archimedes is still an engaging and entertaining drama with some unique and sometimes fun characters trying to beat the odds and complete a seemingly impossible mission. Well Go’s Blu-ray release looks and sounds great, but unfortunately doesn’t include any bonus material. That said, the film itself is worth a look and is quite enjoyable as long as the viewer is not expecting an action-packed WWII naval battle beyond the opening sequence.