By now, you must have thought that I am someone who gets overly excited easily because of all the generous reviews be it as books, movies, music albums, or even DVDs. Truth is, if the product is not potentially good, I wouldn’t pay for it. Since I only write reviews on products that I buy, naturally they are already in my good book. As for Golden Globe Award Winner for Best Foreign Film – “Letters From Iwo Jima”, I do have my 2-cent worth of criticism though.
I picked “Letters From Iwo Jima”, together with the rest of my Movie Review Squad, because we have been anticipating this movie since we watched “Flags Of Our Fathers” (see previous blog) back in mid December last year. So, let me be upfront here. My only two complains of this movie are (1) it is a long slow moving show and (2) for a war that 20,000 Japanese troops have perished, it certainly does not look like there are that many Japanese in the show (compares to the fleet size of the American troops in “Flags Of Our Fathers”).
“Letters From Iwo Jima” has quite a number of interesting points that should not be missed. First, I have not seen anyone who directs two separate movies based on the same scenario and have the story told in two different perspectives. Clint Eastwood is the director of both “Flags Of Our Fathers” and “Letters From Iwo Jima”. Second, I seldom get to watch a war movie being told from the Japanese perspective. I have watched many war movies told from the Western perspective, even from the German’s perspective. But from the Japanese perspective acted by the Japanese? It is kind of rare. I have learnt quite a few things new about the Japanese from the movies itself which is refreshing. Third, there is so much humanity being put into the show that I felt bad just to watch what the Japanese has to go through.
Now, back to my two complains. It is a long slow moving show because the movies portrays a losing war. I mean, whatever they do, however smart and humane the Commander-in-chief is, they are going to lose the war. The first explosion happens 45 minutes into this 2 hours long show so you can imagine it is a different kind of war movie. Watching a losing war is like watching “Apollo 13” – a doomed to fail mission (“Apollo 13” is equally boring to me). And we don’t get to see that many Japanese probably because the story is reconstructed from the letters found inside the Japanese caves and I think the focus of the story is on some of the key characters.
I am a fan of Ken Watanabe (“The Last Samurai” and “Memoirs of a Geisha”) who plays the role of General Tadamichi Kuribayashi in “Letters From Iwo Jima” well. That is probably another good point coming from this long slow moving show.
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[…] Within this rather depressing storyline, the magic of the casting (again, Socks included) turns the entire mood of the movie around, like the fireplace in a cold winter night. The 14 years old young and sweet actress Mayuko Fukuda (福田麻由子) is certainly one of my favorites. Such a sweet personality and smile she has that matches so well with the puppy (a Golden Retriever?). It is such a joy to watch the younger version of Akari. The amazing thing is that the actress who plays the older Akari, Lena Tanaka (田中麗奈), is just as sweet. If I am to pick one tiny detail to critic, I would say that while the casting of the 28 years old Lena Tanaka is still believable, having the 34 years old actor Ryo Kase to play the supposed to be 24 years old childhood friend of Akari is a bit far off. My friend TK and I thought that Ryo Kase is selected because he is a professional guitar player in real life as demanded by the plot. After some research at home, he is actually one of the actors who played in Clint Eastwood’s “Letter from Iwo Jima”. […]