Rising Sun (Blu-ray)

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There are two things you should know about "Rising Sun." The first is that the film deviates sharply from the Michael Crichton book that inspired it--so much so that Crichton quit the project. In the film version, a different "who" done it. The second thing is that Sean Connery and Wesley Snipes are so comfortable and assured in their roles that they make us feel at ease no matter how complicated or convoluted the plot seems to get. And it does. You have to pay attention while you're watching "Rising Sun."

But don't expect the typical buddy-cop film. There isn't nearly the banter and humor of "Lethal Weapon," "Running Scared," or any number of films in this genre. Director Philip Kaufman ("The Unbearable Lightness of Being") plays it mostly straight in this investigative thriller about the apparent murder of a call girl who was found on the conference table in the board room of a Japanese corporation. If anything, it's old cop/young cop, or rather, Sempai/Kohai, as senior Japanese expert Capt. John Connor (Connery) keeps reminding his junior Japanese expert assigned partner, Lt. Webster Smith (Snipes). Crichton's book was popular but bashed Japan something fierce. The film is slightly toned down, but the world in which Connor and Webster investigate is still made sinister by the Japanese.

The focus is a possible buyout of an American company called Microcom by a Japanese corporate giant based in Trump-sized Nakamoto Tower. Congress has to approve the acquisition, and so a grand party in Nakamoto Tower includes plenty of dignitaries . . . and politicians. Our suspicions of the Japanese are raised almost instantly, though, as we eavesdrop on boardroom negotiations and see that, as in a Vegas scam, the Japanese have bugged the Microcom representatives. Their whispers are being monitored by people in the Nakamoto Tower security room on additional screens that have been added just for the negotiations, and their every word is relayed to the Japanese. Translation: there's no way you're going to beat these guys.

Unknown powers have requested that Smith not only show up that evening when the body is discovered to act as a Japanese liaison, but to pick up someone along the way. That someone turns out to be an apparently legendary figure who's been coaxed out of retirement (as in "The Rock") to help in this situation. Who's giving whom the authority to do what is never quite clear. But we accept it as uneasily as Smith. One word of warning, however. Connor's Sempai routine can get a little old, and it's here, not in any aspect of plot or assignation of blame, where much of the racism resides. "Bow" he tells his charge, who already knows. We're never told much about why the Japanese believe as they do, only that they do, with a tone that sounds straight out of an old WWII patriotic movie. You know, that Oriental mind stuff, as if the Oriental mind were a creation of an evil scientist. Get past that, though, and "Rising Sun" is a decent investigative thriller with plenty of twists and turns and enough action to satisfy viewers' blood-lust.