2.The Courtroom as a “Theatre of Catharsis and Revenge”法庭像一个宣泄与复仇的戏剧院As this self-consciousness implies, Tokyo Trial uses the adversarial process verydifferently from Judgment at Nuremberg. Since the film, like Mei himself, assumes the defend ants’ guilt from the outset (and declares it unequivocally to the viewer throughdocumentary footage), the ensuing trial sequences do not reveal competing narratives to bejudged, but serve only to reinforce the conviction that the defendants deserve to be punished.Like a public trial, the courtroom scenes are carefully choreographed so as to “rally popular sentiment . . . and direct indignation toward targeted opponents.”像这种自我意识暗示的一样，《东京审判》使用了控辩式方法，这与《纽伦堡审判》很不相同。
从电影中，像梅（梅汝璈）自己在开始时就称被告有罪（并通过纪录片的镜头明确肯定的向观众申明了这点），接下来的审判程序中没有显示经过对方的对立表述就定罪了，唯一的作用就是加强了被告应被定罪这一信念。
像公审一样，法庭现场被精心设计成“人心所向。
愤慨的矛头指向目标对手。
”At no point does the film permit a serious counter-argument to the defenda nts’ guilt. In fact, like Jiang Qing’s televised trial, the film altogether omits the defense’s case. The prosecution gives an impassioned closing argument, for example, but the defense’s response is conspicuously absent. Far from “being pulled rhythmically back and forth . . . between two positions,” the viewer is pulled in one direction from start to finish.在电影中，对于“被告有罪”一直没有出现激烈的反驳辩论.。
事实上，和对江青的电视审判一样，电影都省略了辩护部分。
例如，控方做了慷慨激昂的总结陈词，辩方却没有响应。
双方之间缺少“有节奏的来回的交锋”，电影从头到尾，观众都被拉向了同一个方向。
The defense team’s presence in the courtroom serves but one purpose: to stoke the viewer’s moral outrage. Hirose Itiro, the l ead defense attorney, frequently serves as a lightning rod for this disgust. Unlike Hans Rolfe, who vigorously yet honorably presents his clients’ defense, Hirose spends his time on camera doing little to further his clients’ case, but repeatedly provokes the ire of the judges, the prosecution, and, undoubtedly, the film audience. In his opening statement, for instance, he casts aspersions upon the judges’ qualifications and expresses mock “sorrow for the dignity of law” (a move that the head prosecutor compares to “the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor”). After an early Japanese witness affirms that the Huanggutun Incident was “planned, instigated, and carried out by Japan,” Hirose’s cross-examination consists simplyof the biting question, “Are you even Japanese?” When a Chinese man testifies that Japanesesoldiers forced him, at gunpoint, to rape a Chinese woman, Hirose insinuates that the man had acted voluntarily. The viewer’s outrage is mirrored in the witness, who goes so berserk atHi rose’s suggestion that he must be physically restrained.辩护律师团存在于在法庭上的作用仅仅是为了一个目的：引起观众心理上的愤慨。
不同于鲁尔夫律师为自己的当事人竭力辩护，辩护团副团长广濑一郎频繁的作为了一个令人嫌恶的避雷针。
在电影中，广濑一郎很少为他的当事人作进一步辩护，却重复不断地挑衅愤怒的法官，控方，毫无疑问，还有观众。
例如，在开场陈述中，他质疑法官的资质，并声称“为法律的尊严感到悲哀”（把首席检察官的行为比做偷袭珍珠港一样卑鄙）。
在一个日本证人指证皇姑屯事件是“日本人蓄谋策划实施的”后，广濑一郎的反诘也仅是一个尖刻的提问“你是日本人吗？”当一个中国人作证说他在日本士兵的枪口下被迫强奸中国妇女的时候，广濑一郎暗示说那个中国人的强奸行为是自愿的。
观众的义愤在证人那里得到了印证，当广濑一郎辩称证人是为了自虐时，观众们变得狂怒起来。
The film could hardly present the defendants themselves less sympathetically. Their inhumanity and utter lack of remorse are communicated most forcefully when Japanese prime minister Hideki Tojo takes the stand near the end of the film. After the American prosecutor cites evidence that the Japanese army had killed over two million Chinese from 1937 to 1941, Hideki states flatly that it was “the fault of China’s leaders.” He altogether denies wrongdoing on his part, and proceeds to declare that if he were acquitted, he would start more wars. This latter admission provokes a chorus of gasps from the courtroom audience (and, presumably, the viewer). In stark contrast to Ernst Janning, Hideki and his co-defendants are portrayed as unrepentant, emotionless murderers—worthy subjects of the “very purest, unequivocal kind of hatred.” Consequently, the viewer demands their swift demise.电影很少对被告给予同情。
在电影快结尾，日本头号战犯东条英机坚持着站立起来时，强有力的传达出他们的不人道，轻蔑和全然不悔。
当美国检察官用证据指出日本军队在1937-1941年间杀害了200万中国人后，东条英机平静的陈述那是“中国领导人的过错”。
他对他被指认的违法犯罪行为都进行了反驳，并继续声称如果自己被开释，将会发动更多的战争。
后面的挑衅引起了法庭上听众的一片嘘声（可能，还有观众的）。
与詹宁法官形成鲜明对比，东条英机和他的共犯被描述成毫无悔改之意的冷血的凶手----纯粹的，worthy subjects of the “very purest, unequivocal kind of hatred.”因此，观众们希望他们赶快死亡。
The only instance in which documentary footage is actually embedded into the trial process likewise serves this melodramatic purpose. In an allusion to Judgment at Nuremberg, the pros ecution in Tokyo Trial shows “surreptitiously filmed” footage of the Nanjing Massacre at trial. The brief but graphic clip shows fires raging, Japanese soldiers marching through streets, and dozens of corpses strewn on the ground. This self-referential trope, however, serves a fundamentally different purpose here than in Judgment at Nuremberg. Because Judge Mei had already declared the Nanjing incident a “massacre” during an earlier narrative sequence featuring actual footage of Japanese soldiers attacking the city, the in-court film clip is not necessary to convince viewers of the defendants’ guilt or the veracity of the massacre. The graphic footage merely serves to shock the conscious and provoke anger so that, like the crowd at the end of TheWhite-Haired Girl, the film audience calls out for retribution.纪录片镜头里在审判过程中加入的唯一的例子也是为了达到悲壮煽情的目的。