a5c7b9f00b The fictional British royal Prince George travels to Japan and falls in love with a local female tour guide named Sumi. He considers breaking the rules and staying with her there, but a Japanese gangster wants him dead.
Seven Nights In Japan is an old-fashioned romantic drama with a lot of James Bond alumni aboard as cast and crew. The screenwriter is Christopher Wood (The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker); the director is Lewis Gilbert (You Only Live Twice, The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker); and the cast includes Charles Gray (You Only Live Twice, Diamonds Are Forever), James Villiers (For Your Eyes Only) and Ann Lonnberg (Moonraker). The film couldn't, however, be further from a Bond film in style - it's all very genteel and leisurely-paced, with an emphasis on the romantic dilemma at its core. A few sequences involving political assassins are thrown in to pad the running time, but these aspects of the film merely come across as half-hearted and rather silly.<br/><br/>Royal tearaway Prince George (Michael York) arrives in Japan aboard a Royal Navy ship. He is a sailor with diplomatic duties and responsibilities to attend to, but has a history of neglecting such frivolities when the mood takes him. Faced with a long and tedious shore leave at the residence of the British Ambassador, Henry Hollander (Charles Gray), George decides he cannot bear such a stay. He sneaks out of the Ambassador's house at night and explore the delights of Tokyo alone, with civilian clothes and dark glasses to keep his identity secret. One evening, he meets a pretty tour guide named Sumi (Hidemi Aoki) and is immediately smitten with her. He returns to meet her again the following night, and soon a bond of love and desire forms between them. Sumi is not aware of George's true identity... together they head off into rural Japan, spending more time together and falling deeper in love as they do so. George begins to have serious doubts about returning to his ship, and contemplates throwing away all his royal privileges for a simple life with this humble Japanese tour guide. Meanwhile, a team of political assassins plot to locate the AWOL Prince and eliminate him.<br/><br/>The notion of a Royal craving a simpler life and having a wild fling - including (shock, horror) sex outside of marriage with a Japanese civilian, no less - was presumably a controversial theme when the film was released in 1976. However, the film doesn't really follow through on its controversial qualities, and instead contents itself with being a standard yarn of forbidden romance. York is fairly wooden as the Prince, though Aoki is sweetly vulnerable as his love interest. The scenes featuring Gray and Villiers - fretting hopelessly about whether the Prince will return in time for the ship's departure - provide some welcome comic relief. The film is beautifully shot by Henri Decae and has a lovely score by the under-used David Hentschel, but the drama is rarely convincing and the ultimate dilemma about which choice York will make - remain a Royal, or forsake it all in the name of love? - never really materialises into anything gripping. You should really care about what happens to these people, but you don't... it simply isn't particularly involving. And, as mentioned earlier, the assassination subplot is a laughable waste of time. Seven Nights is OK for what it is, a light and harmless romantic melodrama... but deeply affecting and heart-wrenching cinema it ain't.
The main story, of a British prince running away and, by accident, becoming involved with a lovely and naive Japanese tour guide, is enchanting and lovely. There is a subplot concerning a bunch of loony patriots bent on assassinating the prince. This should have added an element of excitement and tension. Instead, it looks like what it is - a lame add-on to pad the film out to feature length. This subplot adds absolutely nothing to the film, and only properly intersects to story at one point. Pity. But don't let this put you off. This film is a sheer delight for any man who finds Asian women lovely, as well as anyone who is a sucker for romance and the lure of the exotic. Warmly recommended.