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Letters from Iwo Jima - 11/4/2007 6:23:58 PM

morvwilson

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Just got to watch this film.
What I was told on this thread held true.
A much better film than Flags Of Our Fathers
Interesting that this was a side line project that was filmed at the same time! lol
thanks for the good tip!

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RE: Letters from Iwo Jima - 11/4/2007 8:19:42 PM

MrBoats

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I can't agree strongly enough. I was concerned it would glorify the Japanese defenders, but it turned out to be very even-handed and objective. I wish "Flags" had been half as good, but "Letters" is a classic. The scenes of the initial landings and the wait for the reaction reminded me of the landing scene in "Private Ryan." I had the same knot in my gut, knowing what was about to happen.

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RE: Letters from Iwo Jima - 11/4/2007 9:11:15 PM

KG Erwin

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I bought the collectors' 5-DVD set of the two movies, and for a Pacific War fan it's a great set to own.

As for the movies, I like both of them, but I'm predisposed to do so. "Letters" focuses more upon the battle itself, and it puts a human face upon our former enemies. I can't say enough about Ken Watanabe's portrayal of Kuribayashi.

As for the collectors' set, the documentary "Heroes of Iwo Jima" (hosted by fromer Marine Gene Hackman) actually does a better job of telling the flagraisers' story than "Flags" did.

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RE: Letters from Iwo Jima - 11/5/2007 2:01:48 AM

morvwilson

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I particularly liked the Saigo charactor. There is always a guy like him in every outfit. Likeable, but not quite competant and draws every unpleasant job.

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RE: Letters from Iwo Jima - 11/6/2007 7:49:32 PM

Doggie

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Yep, the poor Japanese were such swell guys

Too bad any movie that portrayed them as they really were would be worse than the most graphic slasher film imaginable.

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RE: Letters from Iwo Jima - 11/7/2007 12:33:46 AM

MrBoats

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Speaking only for myself,

I'm well aware of how brutal the Japanese were toward civilians and soldiers alike. I think that their behavior during the war has been glossed over to a large extent, as has that of the Soviet soldiers. I'm glad that books like "The Rape of Nanking" have been published to draw attention to the butchering of millions of people by the Japanese all over Asia.

Perhaps there should have been more scenes of Japanese soldiers torturing marines in the film. As it is, I think "Letters" does a remarkable job of depicting the battle from our enemy's point of view. I expected it to glorify them, and I was relieved when it did not. I think that there were decent Japanese soldiers as well as monsters. Their culture and doctrine certainly did give the monsters free rein.

We do need a "Schindler's List" set in China or the Phillipines. Something to remind the public of the other campaigns of genocide conducted in the 20th Century. Of course, that series of films would run into the dozens.

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RE: Letters from Iwo Jima - 11/7/2007 2:16:03 AM

Halsey

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Doggie

Yep, the poor Japanese were such swell guys

Too bad any movie that portrayed them as they really were would be worse than the most graphic slasher film imaginable.

I actually started booing in the movie theatre when the Japanese commander wouldn't let his troops shoot the wounded Marine.
He wanted to treat his wounds, and talk to him about the good ole days back in the USA.
What a crock that was!

I'll never waste my money again on a Clint Eastwood flick!!!

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RE: Letters from Iwo Jima - 11/7/2007 2:28:47 AM

Warfare1

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quote:

ORIGINAL: KG Erwin

I bought the collectors' 5-DVD set of the two movies, and for a Pacific War fan it's a great set to own.

As for the movies, I like both of them, but I'm predisposed to do so. "Letters" focuses more upon the battle itself, and it puts a human face upon our former enemies. I can't say enough about Ken Watanabe's portrayal of Kuribayashi.

As for the collectors' set, the documentary "Heroes of Iwo Jima" (hosted by fromer Marine Gene Hackman) actually does a better job of telling the flagraisers' story than "Flags" did.

I have to echo KG Erwin's comments about the 5 disc set. This set, plus the book, "Flags of Our Fathers", does a remarkable job of depicting war in the Pacific from both sides.

http://www.amazon.com/Letters-Flags-Fathers-Five-Disc-Commemorative/dp/B000P1XITE

In addition, I also highly recommend the box set "Band of Brothers" which does a superb job of following Easy Company (101st) through the war in Europe. I cannot recommend this set highly enough. I am currently watching it for the second time, and it gets better the more I watch it. You and your family will treasure this collection for many years to come.

http://www.amazon.com/Band-Brothers-Damien-Lewis/dp/B00006CXSS

Let's show movie makers what we are willing to spend our money on. And let's let the makers of the current Pacific War version of Band of Brothers know that their efforts will be rewarded.

With Remembrance Day almost upon us, both the 5-disc Pacific War collection and "Band of Brothers" will provide great viewing entertainment as well as helping us to remember the sacrifice of those who gave their tomorrow for our today.

< Message edited by Warfare1 -- 11/7/2007 2:31:57 AM >

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RE: Letters from Iwo Jima - 11/8/2007 5:26:52 AM

wesy

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Sure there were bad guys on all sides - here's another link to our own less than wonderful people. Trust me i'm not discounting the Japanese attrocities, but humans from all sides were guilty.

here are some less than swell allied folk

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RE: Letters from Iwo Jima - 11/8/2007 6:24:28 AM

Doggie

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quote:

ORIGINAL: wesy

here are some less than swell allied folk

quote:

He said: "We have this stereotypical idea that the Japanese were all cruel and robotic while the Allied forces were tough but fair in their treatment of the enemy.

It wasn't a "stereotype". Even the most rabid anti-Japanese propaganda films of the era were optimistic when compared to the reality of Japanese savagry. No western theater would have been allowed to present a true portrait of the routine depravity that was life in the service of the Emporer.

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RE: Letters from Iwo Jima - 11/8/2007 7:16:28 AM

MrBoats

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I have to agree with Doggie. The Nanking massacre alone could never be properly represented on film without an X rating. The real River Kwai story would sicken the strongest stomachs. There was great cruelty on all sides on all fronts (read Eugene Sledge's "With the Old Breed" for examples) but I believe that most of it on our side occured at the front in the heat of battle. Japanese prisoners in the U.S. were not routinely tortured and murdered as were Allied POW's. And our treatment of the Japanese during the occupation was the complete opposite of their practices in Asia.

My uncle served with the 28th ID in Europe; he said that prisoners were not taken unless absolutely necessary -- both sides had an unspoken agreement about that. As units were worn down to the nub they did not have spare soldiers available for watching POW's. I don't consider him to have been a war criminal. War is cruelty, as General Sherman said.

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RE: Letters from Iwo Jima - 11/8/2007 9:14:26 AM

Raverdave

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Who the hell are we to sit and pontificate about what our fathers did in the pacific in WW2. You can read and watch as much as you like but it still cannot allow you to come anywhere close to being able to say what was right or not. WW2 was "Total" war and that was the point that the troops of the day understood. NONE of us can imagine what our feelings would have been, let alone our actions if placed in the same situation.

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RE: Letters from Iwo Jima - 11/8/2007 9:16:31 AM

Raverdave

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Oh and one other point............i thought that both LFI and FOOF were simply an "ok" films.....6 out of 10.

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RE: Letters from Iwo Jima - 11/8/2007 9:09:57 PM

mjk428

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quote:

............i thought that both LFI and FOOF were simply an "ok" films.....6 out of 10.

I had high hopes for these films but sadly I'd go with 3 & 6 - with "Letters" the better of the two. "Flags" was pure BS. Hopefully Clint will bounce back or else retire.

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RE: Letters from Iwo Jima - 11/12/2007 1:10:36 PM

planetbrain

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I too thought that both movies were only average but LFI was the more interesting of the two if only because of an unusual perspective for westerners.
I find some uncomfortable truths behind FOOF that makes for a lot of irony,that Clint tried to cover in the movie, I guess. Take the most famous picture of WW2-the second raising of a US flag and turn it into a propaganda vehicle for raising bond money.
A hero in a flash for public consumption.

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RE: Letters from Iwo Jima - 11/12/2007 9:38:24 PM

KG Erwin

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quote:

ORIGINAL: planetbrain

...I find some uncomfortable truths behind FOOF that makes for a lot of irony,that Clint tried to cover in the movie, I guess. Take the most famous picture of WW2-the second raising of a US flag and turn it into a propaganda vehicle for raising bond money.
A hero in a flash for public consumption.

This may be the biggest reason why many folks didn't like the movie: "The uncomfortable truths". Actually, FOOF stayed faithful to the book, and James Bradley DID have a lot of input on how his book was to be translated into a film. The special-features DVD for FOOF makes this clear.

"A hero in a flash for public consumption". There's a modern equivalent of this -- the story of a West Virginia girl who got captured by the Iraqis. Same type of spin, only differing in the details.
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RE: Letters from Iwo Jima - 11/12/2007 11:40:47 PM

timtom

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Raverdave

Who the hell are we to sit and pontificate about what our fathers did in the pacific in WW2.� You can read and watch as much as you like but it still cannot allow you to come anywhere close to being able to say what was right or not.� WW2 was "Total" war and that was the point that the troops of the day understood.� NONE of us can imagine what our feelings would have been, let alone our actions if placed in the same situation.�

All true, but doesn't this equate issuing a moral carte blance?

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RE: Letters from Iwo Jima - 11/13/2007 3:20:08 AM

Veldor

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quote:

ORIGINAL: morvwilson

Just got to watch this film.
What I was told on this thread held true.
A much better film than Flags Of Our Fathers
Interesting that this was a side line project that was filmed at the same time! lol
thanks for the good tip!

I HATE sub-titled films. Or that was I did until I saw this movie.

I did not care much for Flags of our Fathers, but liked Letters from Iwo Jima enough to start looking for other sub-titled films I might otherwise have ignored.

Two I would definitely recommend to anyone who liked Letters from Iwo Jima are:

The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen) 2007 - 5 stars
Black Book from Paul Verhoeven 2006 - 4 stars

The first movie is flawless, the second has a few too many bits of gratuitous Verhoeven style nudity for some (Think Basic Instict here) but is otherwise still an excellent film. Both German subtitled films.

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RE: Letters from Iwo Jima - 11/13/2007 11:28:17 PM

Fred98

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"The Lives of Others" One of the great movies of the last decade.
-

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RE: Letters from Iwo Jima - 11/14/2007 9:54:30 AM

Doggie

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Joe 98

"The Lives of Others"� One of the great movies of the last decade.
-

Yeah, but it didn't get much play in the U.S. media because it portrayed communists in a bad light.

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RE: Letters from Iwo Jima - 11/18/2007 12:30:29 PM

Hortlund

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Doggie
Too bad any movie that portrayed them as they really were would be worse than the most graphic slasher film imaginable.

Wow, such stereotyping. No Japanese soldier ever did anything nice for anyone, is that what you are saying? All Japanese soldiers were incarnations of pure evil?

I thought sentiments like yours went out of fashion after the war, but I see that some people are stuck in ww2-era propaganda and stereotyping.

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RE: Letters from Iwo Jima - 11/18/2007 4:09:16 PM

Sarge

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Panzerjaeger Hortlund

Wow, such stereotyping. No Japanese soldier ever did anything nice for anyone, is that what you are saying? All Japanese soldiers were incarnations of pure evil?

I thought sentiments like yours went out of fashion after the war, but I see that some people are stuck in ww2-era propaganda and stereotyping.

Nanking Massacre was only one of the many atrocities inflicted on the innocent by the hand of the Japanese soldier.

Propaganda and stereotyping

Unit 731
lethal human experimentation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

The Changde chemical weapon attack
Emperor authorized the use of toxic gas on 375 separate occasions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changde_chemical_weapon_attack

Vietnamese Famine of 1945
2 million people starved to death
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_Famine_of_1945

Japanese military's use of forced labor
around 100,000 Asian labourers and 16,000 Allied POWs died as a direct result of the Burma Railway
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Railway

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RE: Letters from Iwo Jima - 11/18/2007 4:18:44 PM

Titanwarrior89

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I just read your "Swell guys" link. I see what you mean. The worst animal in the world is the human animal.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Doggie

Yep, the poor Japanese were such swell guys

Too bad any movie that portrayed them as they really were would be worse than the most graphic slasher film imaginable.

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RE: Letters from Iwo Jima - 11/18/2007 6:46:48 PM

Hortlund

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Sarge
Nanking Massacre..blah blah

Guilt is always individual, never collective. That is why we dont think of all Germans as concentration camp guards, all Americans as My Lai-murderers or all Japanese as Nanking massacrers. Im sure you understand this if you sit and think about it for a while.

What I objected to was the complete idiocy of doggies comment. Believe it or not, there were japanese soldiers who never committed a warcrime, beheaded a prisoner of war, raped a chinese woman or shot a child.

What I object to is the knee-jerk stereotype that all japanese were evil and all americans were good. Reality is more complex than that. There were good japanese, and there were evil americans too. Despite how much you want to pretend it isnt so.

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RE: Letters from Iwo Jima - 11/18/2007 10:01:42 PM

Sarge

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ORIGINAL: Panzerjaeger Hortlund

quote:

Guilt is always individual, never collective. That is why we dont think of all Germans as concentration camp guards, all Americans as My Lai-murderers or all Japanese as Nanking massacrers. Im sure you understand this if you sit and think about it for a while.

Your missing the point, the moral breakdown of a military force is what Doggie was pointing out .
(I assume )
You can hardly make the assumption from the rouge My Lai incident and imply it to the Holocaust and Nanking .

Two where attempts to exterminate a race one was a rouge incident in the field .

ORIGINAL: Panzerjaeger Hortlund

quote:

What I object to is the knee-jerk stereotype that all japanese were evil and all americans were good

Your replies are based on emotion with zero historical insight of Japanese doctrine of WWII.

< Message edited by Sarge -- 11/18/2007 10:02:12 PM >

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RE: Letters from Iwo Jima - 11/18/2007 10:16:43 PM

Dixie

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No-one here is denying that the general Japanese attitude was based on horrific treatment of PoWs and enemy civilians, we all know how they treated others. But you cannot say that every Japanese solider was a murdering rapist and that none of them were like the central character in Letters from Iwo Jima. I do realise that generally the Japanese were not pleasant to be around during the war, however there are more than a few accounts of Japanese guards sneaking food and medicine to POWs.

As Panzerjaeger Hortlund has said there were elements in all militaries during the war which did not conform to the stereotypes which have come about after the war. There was not a single army amongst the major forces which does not have some incident that they would rather not publicise. Shooting POWs, whilst not necessarily common in the US forces still took place.

PS: Letters was IMO a much better film, maybe because it is what is expected from a war film? I didn't really get into Flags.

< Message edited by Dixie -- 11/18/2007 10:17:54 PM >

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RE: Letters from Iwo Jima - 11/18/2007 11:09:52 PM

Hortlund

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Sarge
Your missing the point, the moral breakdown of a military force is what Doggie was pointing out .
(I assume )
You can hardly make the assumption from the rouge My Lai incident and imply it to the Holocaust and Nanking .

Two where attempts to exterminate a race one was a rouge incident in the field .

Lets not go into the "who was worse", discussions like that never ends well. For that matter, once you have passed a certain threshold, you are too far into "bad guy"-land that it doesnt matter if someone was even worse. Lets just focus on the important lesson to be learned. Guilt is always individual, never collective.

And what, if not a moral breakdown of a military force, would My Lai be characterized as? But like I said, lets leave that.

quote:

Your replies are based on emotion with zero historical insight of Japanese doctrine of WWII.

Rubbish. Now, Im not going to be childish enough to sit here and say that I know more about Japanese doctrine in ww2 than you, because I dont know what your knowledge level is. But let me say this. I was involved in the development of HoI2, and one of the things that fell on my desk was to do the doctrines for all the major nations...which meant that I spent several weeks researching the doctrinal development of all those nations...which includes Japan, incidentally. So I know quite alot about Japanese doctrine in 1931-1945.

And lets leave all that aside too, because even that is beside the point. What I objected to, and what I continue to object to is the absolutely idiotic idea that all Japanese soldiers were bad or evil.

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RE: Letters from Iwo Jima - 11/19/2007 12:00:12 AM

Sarge

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Panzerjaeger Hortlund

Rubbish. Now, Im not going to be childish enough to sit here and say that I know more about Japanese doctrine in ww2 than you, because I dont know what your knowledge level is. But let me say this. I was involved in the development of HoI2, and one of the things that fell on my desk was to do the doctrines for all the major nations...which meant that I spent several weeks researching the doctrinal development of all those nations...which includes Japan, incidentally. So I know quite alot about Japanese doctrine in 1931-1945.

Really ?

They you might remember a little nugget on Japans refusal to sign the Geneva Convention .
How about the chapter on the Empire openly denouncing of the Treaty of Versailles, and the Hague Conventions.

I take it that doctrinal development never made it to the game

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RE: Letters from Iwo Jima - 11/19/2007 12:06:40 AM

Dixie

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Sarge

How about the chapter on the Empire openly denouncing of the Treaty of Versailles....

That means nothing really. How about the chapter where the US Senate refused to ratify the treaty. Great Britain didn't believe it was fair either. There was only one nation who didn't think it was too harsh, and that was France who didn't think it went far enough.

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RE: Letters from Iwo Jima - 11/19/2007 12:57:03 AM

Sarge

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Dixie

That means nothing really. How about the chapter where the US Senate refused to ratify the treaty. Great Britain didn't believe it was fair either. There was only one nation who didn't think it was too harsh, and that was France who didn't think it went far enough.

Hardly ,
Out right discontent of the Geneva Convention along with Treaty of Versailles, and the Hague Conventions. All combined is a appropriate evidence of the training and doctrine that lead the average Japanese in the field.

The Hague Conventions are a direct attempt to instill human treatment of POW�s

How is US Senate refused to ratify the treaty and Empire refusal to impose consequences on his military force for any atrocity tactics employed in the field , ............. means nothing ?

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