The Week In Arts: It's history - but not as we know it

WE ALL know what happens when Americans make Second World War movies. They win the war with very little help from their friends. But now it's the turn of a defeated nation to do a little cinematic revisionism.

One of the more curious movies at this week's Berlin film festival was Lorelei: The Witch of the Pacific Ocean. The Japanese film tells the story of a submarine chasing after an American bomber taking off from a South Pacific island on a mission to drop a third atomic bomb on Japan, this time on Tokyo. The U-boat causes havoc among the US fleet before gunning down the threatening bomber as it lifts off from the Pacific island.

The film's star Koji Yakusho, left, commented: "There are so few war movies in Japan these days, so it was exciting to have this opportunity. It's not so much about nationalism, but about patriotism."

In America, Variety magazine wonders with its inevitable and inelegant abbreviation whether "auds will buy the far-fetched story". My hunch is that auds will not.