letters from iwo jima movie with subtitles

Most of the runtime is devoted to the opposite ends of the military hierarchy. General Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe), who’d lived with and befriended Americans before the War, and who thought up the controversial tactic of digging into the rock and carving a network of tunnels and 5,000-odd caves, they held out for 35.Īs the monstrous American force approaches and commences belching its deadly hail of fire and lead, we view the inexorable disintegration of Japanese resistance via a handful of compelling points of view. They were expected to hold out for no more than five days. Furthermore, they were all men who were told they’d be meeting their end on this unhospitable, sulphurous spit of volcanic rock - and assured that it was an honour for them to do so. With no air or naval support, Iwo Jima’s defenders were vastly outnumbered, not to mention scantly provisioned, and facing the full, hi-tech might of the US war machine. The Japanese half of the story is also more inherently dramatic. Where Flags’ plot meant constant hopping from the battle itself to the flag-raisers’ publicity tour to modern-day segments, Letters is tight and focused, both feet planted firmly in the island’s black sand, with restrained use of flashback to flesh out key characters. But mainly it’s because the story’s simply better. This is partly because, given the shift of perspective, it feels fresher. Not a sequel, but a companion piece - a parallaquel, if you like.Īnd a movie that’s considerably superior to Flags Of Our Fathers.

So now we have something rather unprecedented: an entire, separate movie, released only a few months later, devoted entirely to the other side of the conflict.

Had Flags Of Our Fathers - Clint Eastwood’s account of the US servicemen photographed raising Old Glory at the peak of Mount Suribachi - been Eastwood’s only Iwo Jima movie, then no doubt it would have drawn similar critical heat.īut Clint couldn’t leave it there, with what he saw as half an untold story. Somewhat understandable for a 1940s propaganda pic, but more recent examples (Black Hawk Down springs to mind) have left a sour taste in the mouth. Hollywood is often criticised for dehumanising its enemies, reducing them to shadowy shapes behind bursts of gunfire and the occasional Wilhelm scream.

Letters from iwo jima movie with subtitles