硫黄島からの手紙 Letters from Iwo Jima

I had watched this more than a month ago and could only find time now to post the review. I was surfing the cinema's website for new Japanese films and happened to see that this was coming to town during Chinese New Year so I took the trouble to travel to the city in the middle of night just to catch its preview. The main reason for wanting to see this was to assess whether it was worth the accolades given by critics and had nothing to do with its Oscar nomination. In addition, I wanted to see if Ninomiya Kazunari was able to shed his boyish image for his role in this movie which is considerably an emotionally-heavy film.

As I have not seen the US version, "Flags of our Fathers", I am unable to make any comparisions between both films. It has been said that you will get the full picture of what went on during the Iwojima war on both the US and Japan side after watching both films but my interest level in watching the US version is rather low at this point.

Until I watched this movie, I had no idea about Iwojima's existence and its meaning to both US and Japan during WWII. According to the Wikipedia Japan entry on the Iwojima battle, you would be able to see the position of Iwojima which is between Saipan and Tokyo. At that time, the US military wanted to carry out air strikes on Tokyo but would have to bear with the considerable risk of being shot down by the Japanese troops from Iwojima. As such, seizing control of the island would mean that the US troops could have a central point to refuel before heading towards Tokyo and avoid the attacks from Japan. To the Japanese however, maintaining control of the island was important as the loss would mean a turning point in the war which Japan could see that it was losing soon. Iwojima was somewhat like a fortress to prevent the attacks on Tokyo. Psychologically, if they lost Iwojima, this would feel like a big setback since this would be the first piece of Japanese land lost to the enemy. As such, despite the fact that Iwojima was just a small volcanic island covered by sulphuric deposits causing the inability of crops to grow, it became a point of contention for both sides during the war.

Due to the launch of the movies, this has renewed interest in Iwojima but you will be disappointed if you wish to go there as a tourist. This is because the island is closed to the general public and is used as a training air base for the Self Defence Forces. As such, there are no native inhabitants on this island except for the military personnel.

With regards to the story, I find that the battle was quite long and it seemed never-ending. Well, that's to be expected since the battle was only expected to be over in 5 days but took 36 days in the end. I can't imagine what it felt like to be one of the soldiers there where they knew they were going to die but they didn't know when.

To be frank, I didn't really understand the thinking of sacrificing for the Emperor and country in this manner and it was particularly disturbing to see some of the soldiers using grenades on themselves so that they would not be caught by the US military. To me, if they had really wanted to be patriotic towards their country, dying while fighting would be more worthwhile rather than seeking death like a coward just because they knew they were losing. As such, when they kept using the phrase "okuni no tame" (for the sake of the country), it really got on my nerves because their actions suggested otherwise.

As for the cast, Ninomiya really shines as Saigo, the cynical ex-baker who lost everything due to the war and scorns at the thinking of sacrificing everything for the country. He left his pregnant wife at home to come to Iwojima and his only wish is to return safely to see his newborn daughter and wife. As such, it is very evident that Saigo tries to keep a low profile in the troops by pretending to be a lousy shooter (if he put in his best effort, things could have been different) and keeps complaining about the war. Although it might seem that Saigo is a coward in the eyes of the patriotic type in the troops, I see that he's a very focused man. He knows exactly what his aim is and to achieve that, he doesn't care what happens. If not for his desire to return home, I doubt he would have survived in the end. Although Ninomiya's childish looks makes it hard to believe that he's a married man in the movie, I must say that this is a vast improvement from his past works. In fact, he seemed more like the leading man as compared to Watanabe Ken.

Talking about Watanabe, he plays the charismatic commander of the troops, Kuribayashi who was trained in the US before coming to Iwojima. Having understood the US way of fighting a war, he was deemed to be the right man for the job. However, he was constantly struggling internally at the same time because he knew that there was no hope of winning the battle, he didn't want to fight his old friends from the US although he was duty-bound to do so, he also wanted to return home to his family. Watanabe was good in bringing out these emotions of Kuribayashi and struck a strong screen presence but compared to Ninomiya who was slightly more impressive, I would say that Watanabe had only maintained his usual high standard thus resulting in why Ninomiya was the one who got more praise for his performance.

Ihara Takeshi's role as Nishi was considerably outstanding along with Ninomiya and Watanabe but it was a pity that he had to die in this manner. As for Nakamura Shido, I don't really like his character Itou who felt more like comical relief to me in this serious film. Besides, the cowardly nature of his character just seemed to remind me of his real life where he has a string of scandals and an almost non-existent marriage to talk of. Thus, it's really hard for me to feel anything positive towards him through this film although much of it has to be attributed to the character itself. Kase Ryo's role Shimizu felt like a pitiful comparision to Saigo where the former is the personification of patrioism but ended up being the scapegoat for Saigo when he tried to defect to the US side.

Overall, this film was quite enjoyable and matched up to my expectations on the whole. However, if you are not prepared to spend slightly over 2 hours on a war film without much colour in the background (the setting is dark, murky, dusty most of the time) and has no interest to see how this never-ending battle was fought, you could do without watching this after all.