Sayonara - Plot

Plot

Lloyd "Ace" Gruver, a major and the son of a U.S. Army general, is stationed at Itami Air Force Base (now Osaka International Airport) near Kobe, Japan. He falls in love with a Japanese entertainer (Hana-ogi) who is a performer for a Takarazuka-like theater company, whom he meets through his enlisted crew chief, Airman Kelly.

Kelly is about to wed a Japanese woman, Katsumi, in spite of the disapproval of the United States military, which will not recognize the marriage. The Air Force, including Gruver, is against the marriage. Gruver and Kelly have an argument during which Gruver uses a racial slur to describe Kelly's fiancee. Gruver eventually apologizes, then agrees to be Kelly's best man at the wedding.

Kelly suffers further prejudice at the hands of a particularly nasty colonel, pulling extra duty and all the less-attractive assignments. When he and many others who are married to Japanese are ordered back to the States, Kelly realizes he will not be able to take his wife, who is now pregnant.

Finding no other way to be together, Kelly and Katsumi commit double suicide. This strengthens Major Gruver's resolve to marry his own Japanese lover. When asked by a Stars and Stripes reporter what will he say to both the "big brass" as well as to the Japanese, neither of which will be particularly happy, Major Gruver says, "Tell 'em we said 'Sayonara.'"

The ending in the movie, however, differs from that of the book, in which Gruver says "sayonara" to his Japanese girlfriend and returns to the States.

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