Rating: 
Summary: Great Novel, Great Movie
Review: Naturally, a movie is rarely as good as the novel, and Snow Falling on Cedars doesn't break this guideline. However, considering the length and depth of the novel, the movie did a very fair rendition. Ethan Hawke surprised me, he was good, really good. And the imagery is absolutely beautiful, trees, snow, water, it's all good. And the flashbacks fit well. After reading the novel, I wondered how they would do that in the movie. But they managed and it worked. After reading the novel/watching the movie you realize that Ishmael still loves Hatsue, but he lets go and realizes it can never be. The movie is great in that it still retains the novel's ability to make you wonder: What if you find your soulmate, but that you aren't that person's soulmate? Ouch, poor Ishmael. The courtroom scenes are nicely depicted and the casting was well-done. All in all, 5 stars are deserved. I once did a report on the Japanese internment camps and even though the movie didn't dwell too much on that, we still get a strong sense of the injustice in the whole thing.
Rating: 
Summary: Marginalizes most interesting characters
Review: It's not a bad film and is to be commended for powerfully capturing the forcing of Americans of Japanese descent into crudely made, wooden shacks in the middle of deserts or dry lake beds.
But the most interesting characters are mere objects/plot devices to push the story along. They aren't allowed to tell their own stories. We solely see them through the eyes of the white characters.
The father, played by Cary Hiroyuki Tagawa and his son, played by Rick Yune, have an interesting story to be told -- the father who teaches his son to be strong, silent and have resolve, who is then interned into America's concentration camps, and the son, a WWII veteran, comes back to claim his father's land which was sold off while they were gone. Unfortunately, you don't hear it in this movie. ...
This movie is basically about a sometimes whiny man who can't live up to his father's legacy as a lawyer, and like an immature person, would rather hold a grudge than do what is right, that is, until the end.
Rating: 
Summary: 7 of 10
Review: One of the better grownup films lately; good drama, well acted, gorgeous cinema and music. A somewhat plodding pace but the rich cinematography helps a lot. I wish we had more contemporary films of this quality.
Rating:
Summary: beautiful movie, flawed as history or mystery
Review: This movie is stunningly beautiful, but unfortunately it lacks depth, historical accuracy, or suspense. The story has been covered in detail by other reviewers, and needn't be repeated here.The story takes place on an island on which nearly half of the population is Japanese-American (the author lives on Bainbridge Island, WA). The effort is to make the viewer (especially the local high school kids who are compelled to watch it in class) think that it represents history. The bigoted anti-Japanese prosecutor is portrayed in a comic fashion. His inane rantings are so exaggerated and perverse that a child can see through them. Which is probably the intent; since it is used as mandatory study material in the local public schools (in spite of the sexual content). It also slanders those individuals of Scandinavian descent (many who also live in this area); the Japanese-American protagonist was cheated by the Scandinavian-American mother of the killed person. Supposedly, this was the first time any Japanese-American was to have the opportunity to own land (something that is not borne out by contemporary land records), and this Norsky woman cheated him out of it. There was certainly injustice and bigotry; but it should also be remembered that most of the WWII-era anti-Japanese bigotry had disappated by 1950 (the time of this story). The Korean war was in progress; Japan was the major staging area (not to mention R&R spot) for US GIs in Korea; the flood of Japanese war brides was well underway; and more than anything else was the well-known heroism of Japanese-American GIs on the battlefields of Europe. Anti-Japanese bigotry had already become quite un-PC. The movie also fails as mystery. The case against the protagonist was based upon weak circumstantial evidence. Rather than do the necessary forensics to secure a conviction, much less formulate a reasonable motivation or plan, the prosecution made repeated expressions of racial bigotry. Left unanswered were several questions. If the protagonist hoped to acquire that land, how would murdering the legal owner accomplish that? If he did it in a rage, why would he wait 5 years after the end of the war to do it? And so on. Once again, a child could see through the flaws in the case. In the end, heroic White boy overcomes his past feelings of love for pretty Japanese-American girl and comes up with the evidence to prove her husband's innocence (the death turned out to be a tragic accident); thus giving her up forever but alleviating liberal White guilt. And this movie positively oozes liberal White guilt. If you have a "Perry Mason" view of how criminal prosecutions work, and a one-dimensional cartoon view of the issues of racial bigotry, then maybe this movie would appeal to you. If you like to look at beautiful Pacific Northwest scenery, then maybe this movie would appeal to you as well (but why not just visit PNW?). If you hope for a serious understanding of the history of that time, or inter-racial relations of that time, from this movie then either you will be deluded or greatly disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: A movie worth watching
Review: I think most students can agree with me that watching movies in class and our opinions on them are as distinct as black and white. You have the movies where you dread going to class because you know you have 45 minutes of watching the horrible thing (Ex.- Documentary on the Watergate Scandal). Then every once in a while you have the "Can't wait to get to that class, don't wanna even think about missing a day of school because I'll miss the movie" kind of movie. "Snow Falling on Cedars" reflects on the latter of the two types of movies. A story set when Japanese/American tensions were running high in the years following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, this is both a love story between an American boy and a Japanese girl, through the element of flashback; and a story of a man put on trial for a murder he claims he didn't commit. How these two stories come together as one is contained within the movie/book and I encourage all to at least watch the movie if you don't feel like reading the book. I haven't read the book...yet...after seeing the movie I feel compelled to read this book and it moved up high on my "need to read" list. If it's worth looking forward to attending that class in school for 3 straight days, it's worth you renting it and seeing for yourself why it's such a great story.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful cinematography
Review: I have never seen such a unique use of camera. In any ordinary scene crew made a great job transforming the ordinary to a shining picture. Apart from the cinematography the subject with its colorful background ties you in front of the screen. Great script and great performances from Ethan Hawke, Max Von Sydow, Youki Kudoh. One of the best movies I have ever seen.
Rating:
Summary: Nice cinematography . . . nothing else
Review: Some nice cinematography is wasted by an inane script full of historical inaccuracies, cliches, and stereotypes. The romance begins to succeed in the first 1/3 of the film, but the attempt to add suspense, tragedy, and mystery all fail miserably, and the actors appear to know it. I wouldn't waste a rental fee to see this tripe again.
Rating:
Summary: Romance, Murder, and Post-Pearl Harbor Race Relations
Review: With the serene backdrop of snow (a metaphor for recovering the purity and innocence of youth)lightly falling on majestic cedars, this work is an awesome example of cross-genre writing: although presented as a murder mystery, its deeper tale is about the nobility of love and resisting hypocritical racial peer pressures. Playwright and actor Sam Shephard, the father of less-than-war-hero Ishmael Chambers (played by Ethan Hawke), is the noble newspaper man who resists Japanese race-baiting in the wake of Pearl Harbor.Max Von Sydow is perfect as a, well, brilliant defense attorney nearing death; on his last legs, he says irreverent things a younger lawyer wouldn't, and even the judge has to pay attention. The acting is uniformly excellent, down to the falling of tears which parallels the same graceful trajectory as the snow. Indeed, given the constraints of the marketplace, and what it sets out to do, this is a perfect film. It combines the tried and true (for example, flashing back from a courtroom case to reveal the plot), with the new (using the murder mystery itself as a hook to explore the recent history of race relations). The forbidden love affair between the American boy and the Japanese girl makes this work also a kind of tragic romance on the model of Romeo and Juliet, but with prodigious race relations rather than more local familial feuds providing the barrier. In the end the film is more literary than knock-down bang-'em-up, more about race and time and rebellious puppy love than murder or storybook romance. But in my mind that's a good thing. And despite the slow-sounding title, I doubt many will be bored.
Rating:
Summary: A Work of Art
Review: This movie is a completely beautiful work of art. Every scene in the movie holds a sort of surreal beauty that is just amazing to behold. All the actors in the movie do amazing jobs and the music is just phenomenal. Ladies and gentlemen, this is as good as it gets.
Rating:
Summary: Shallow, Pedestrian
Review: Strip away the beautiful scenery and what's left is a shallow, pedestrian take on...nothing. There isn't a well-drawn character in the bunch. The movie is ostensibly about Ethan "hole-in-a-movie" Hawk's transformation from a wounded, lovelorn child into a do-the-right-thing man, but the moral dilemma he resolved was trivial, and 90% of human beings, ... would have resolved it in the same way, but a lot sooner and with less grief for others.
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