Movie Review: Dawn of a New Day

The movie was definitely interesting. I was a little lost throughout the movie because I'm not very familiar with some of the technical terms they used when creating the VHS. It was educational seeing how Japanese business men interacted with each other. Before I saw this movie, I knew nothing about Sony's Betamax or the struggles they went through to create the VHS. I'm glad Kayaga kept pushing the development of the VHS instead of giving up to the Betamax. Now that makes me interested in seeing the story of Betamax's struggles. One part of the movie I really enjoyed was when Kagaya wanted to share the VHS design with other companies so that they can improve the design later on without having to keep changing the video system which makes it so much more beneficial for the customers.

This movie reminds me alot of The Pirates of Silicon Valley which is mainly about Bill Gates's PC vs everyone else. Dawn of a New Day definitely had a more honorable tone to it, I can respect Kayaga for his persistant efforts. But Bill Gate's character was portrayed in a less than favorable way. I wonder whether both movies were done through accuracy or just the director's point of view, because whoever made Pirates of Silicon Valley didn't like Bill Gates very much. There's a big difference in how Bill Gates faced his struggles compared of Kagaya. Either way this movie was highly informative about the VHS's development. I never would have guessed that technology could be so dramatic.

I would recommend this movie to someone interested in the history of VHS. It wasn't a bad movie at all, it's just a bit hard to relate to, though I like the message it sends to it's viewers about not giving up even if it seems almost hopeless. Kayaga knew he had a good idea and was very persistant and it payed off in the end.

Now I wish current technology would take after Kayaga's views of uniting into 1 main unit instead of making different types and competing with each other. When I go into stores there are HiDef DVDs and Blue Ray DVDs, Fullscreen/Widescreen and it's just very confusing to the consumers.