Back in 2001, I was living in Japan. It was there I had the somewhat surreal experience of attending the world premiere of Pearl Harbor, in the company of director Michael Bay, star Ben Affleck, and around 40,000 Japanese. (I have no idea quite what they made of it).

It is, frankly, a crappy movie which struggles to build a coherent human narrative around the Japanese attack sequence. There is a rather lame love triangle and a historically dubious attempt to directly link the subsequent “Doolittle raid” on Japan by US fighters as a way of delivering dramatic retribution. 

Bay does deliver however when it comes to the action of the kamikaze attack itself. Its a stunning 40 minute sequence that begins with a bomb’s eye view of being dropped onto a US carrier. Its just a pity that it comes in the middle of 3 yawn-inducing hours! 

The poster I have for Pearl Harbor has the distinction of being by some way the biggest I own – its a whopping 4×3 metre billboard, and comes in 8 parts (which makes it very difficult to photograph). Its unfortunate that the film itself is somewhat unworthy of this powerful image. I have this for sale here to anyone with a huge wall!