Flight from Ashiya [SEP] narrative location
Flight from Ashiya
Flight from Ashiya (aka Ashiya Kara no hiko) is a 1964 film about the U.S. Air Force's Air Rescue Service, flying from Ashiya Air Base, Japan. In this fictionalized American-Japanese co-production film set in the early 1960s, a flight crew's mission is to rescue a liferaft of Japanese civilians stranded in rough seas. "Flight from Ashiya" was based on the 1959 novel by Elliott Arnold. The film was released in Japan as "Ashiya Kara no hiko".
writing in "The New York Times", was scathing in his review of "Flight From Ashiya": "Occasionally, it's diverting to see just how consistently bad a picture can be. Anyone interested should catch 'Flight From Ashiya', which opened yesterday at the Palace and other Premiere Showcase theaters."
Aviation film historian Stephen Pendo, in "Aviation in the Cinema" (1985) had a similar reaction; 'Flight from Ashiya" was "dull" and ruined by "too many flashbacks.