The story of the internment of American Japanese after Pearl Harbor has been told before in Come See the Paradise. Here it forms the backdrop to a story of the childhood friendship and young love of a Japanese girl (Youki Kudoh) and the American son (Ethan Hawke) of a liberal newspaperman (Sam Shepard). With other actors and certainly with a different director, this could have been a poignant and evocative story. The ending - the climax of a courtroom murder trial - still does touch the emotions. But, using a flashback-within-flashback technique, director Scott Hicks, of Shine fame, renders the story fragmentary, slow and boring, robbing the end of some of its potential power. Hawke and Kudoh are sincere but lack charisma and mutual chemistry. Shepard and Max Von Sydow (an aged but impassioned lawyer) present more fully rounded characters. A long slog.