This movie potraits very well what Japanese soldiers were forced to live during the later years of WW2. Some were brave, some were crazy, some were cowards. I really like when Baron Nishi reads Sam mother's letter to his soldiers, and they realize Americans were not different at all from them. Really makes you think "why are we killing each other, if we are all brothers under a different flag?"
Well also if one reads the Bone Man of Kokoda (Kokichi Nishimura being the only survivor of his unit in Kokoda whom returned to the Kokoda Track to retrieve his fallen comrades remains and return them to Japan to honor their sacrifice) or what happened to the Japanese soldiers whom were in the Battle of Imphal / Kohima where out of 50-65000 Japanese soldiers - only 10-15000 survived - well under half the amount of the Japanese soldiers even walked out of that battle alive and those whom did were very sick and starving and badly injured soldiers - and the fact one Japanese commander - Kotoku Sato himself actually disobeyed orders to save his soldiers and later was relieved of command when he ignored his orders for a few weeks .... and after the war some of the surviving Japanese soldiers attributed Sato for this decision to the reason WHY they were alive - whilst he did save his soldiers he also lost his military prestige (though he did argue with the commander - Renya Mutaguchi whom was an example of a fanatic - whom ordered his soldiers to fight 'with their teeth until they were dead' andhad over optimistic plans to take India despite the odds against him and where after the war no doubt Mutaguchi was considered one of the worst Generals of WWII and the fact how Mutaguchi after the war remained unrepentant for the fact his decisions cost the lives of many of his soldiers in that battle until near his death)
There was also another Japanese General of WWII - Shizuichi Tanaka - this General was one of the Japanese Generals whom spent time in a Western Country (in the First World War he led Japanese soldiers in the London Victory Parade) and also spent time in England (he was an Oxford Graduate and studied Shakespeare's works) where he himself was passed over for promotion because of his 'pro-Western views' and then HE himself was opposed to Pearl Harbor's attack; General Tanaka also - when Japan was bombed - during the A-Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - as some Japanese officers were still diehard to the end to keep fighting - there was the Kyujo Rebellion which attempted to wrest control of the surrender speech by Emperor Hirohito and they needed help from General Tanaka's soldiers in the coup BUT General Tanaka REFUSED to help and he actually managed to convince the rebel officers to cease their rebellion via a scolding speech and how it was 'dishonorable and disgraceful to the Japanese Army to act in rebellion' AND he actually managed to stop them and order them to go home (the officers later commited Seppuku) .... although General Tanaka shot himself because despite being considered by some to be the 'Hero of the August 15th Incident' he felt guilty for failing to protect Tokyo from the B29 raids and hence he shot himself on behalf of his soldiers ....
And no doubt not all Japanese Generals or Commanding Officers were insane or Nationalistic arrogant discipline honor based people .... or Tojo's for the matter - given Tojo Hideki and many Japanese officers tended to slap soldiers or worse severely strike and berate officers and soldiers for petty things whereas the Commanding Generals at Iwo Jima and Okinawa - being Kuribayashi and Ujishima respectively did display humane ways to their soldiers - well as we know of Kuribayashi - in sharing the same hardships as his soldiers or where Ujishima disliked slapping or using violence to discipline his officers and soldiers ...
Yeah well they should have thought about that before raping and killing innocent civilians, and attacking the United States in the first place. Next you are going to tell me that I should have sympathy for SS Nazi's that killed Jews and other people labeled by them as undesirables.
@@slimj091 they as in all the japanese? Or just the ones who did the rape? Or their leaders? It's a broad statement I just want to make sure I understand where you're coming from
even the most heinous regimes in history have had those who often believed they were doing good. no person is inherently good or bad, but a culture of fanaticism can make good men do bad, bad acts.
@@MemekingJag and if there are inherently evil men among them, they are enabled to act according to their nature as the system they serve encourages it. That's why you can say that the "Japanese Empire" was evil or that "Nazi Germany" was but you can't lump all of its subjects categorically. Those who support those regimes are commiting evil actions, and in history there's no hindsight for the present so their evil might feel like less at the time.
@@deathpope3922 Sure. While I usually try and avoid labelling people as purely good or evil, there were certainly those in positions of authority in those two nations for example that not only believed in what they were doing, but didn't care about the pain and suffering of fellow human being's in order to achieve those goals; this being the closest thing to 'pure evil' outside extreme psychiatric cases you can get, and you're right in labelling the entities of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan as evil. However, while everyone in that nation not actively resisting is in a way, cooperating, you're right, I think it's important to keep in mind the wealth of complications that can either mislead, coax or directly trick and lie to a population in order to gain their compliance. I don't consider this (in most benign circumstances) to be true culpability; merely a mistake.
@@MemekingJag Make no mistake the Japanese Empire and it’s solders we’re evil. Brutality was not only accepted but promoted amongst the Japanese high command and troops, under the guise of racial superiority. Rape of Naking, Comfort Women, Unit 731, Battle of Manila are all prime examples of this.
the death of that officer to the gunners and riflemen would be worth a bar story, but to those whose lives he had saved he would be considered more than a hero
out of 21000 japanese soldiers only 216 were taken prisoner and even then it was mostly badly injured and unconscious men. the last men to surrender on iwo jima did so in 1949. the japanese took the thought of fighting to the last man insanely serious.
People fail to understand that the Japanese military was taught to believe that surrendering was a strategic choice, not a tactical one if that makes any sense.
@derpy potato. Edit: fixed grammar. I doub't that the officer was ever sen't to nanking. Because if he we're, he would be dead before the events of iwo jima. The japanese officers that lead to nanking probadly commited seppuku because of the failed offense
1:09 love this portrayal during the late year of the war, the absolute lack of equipment of the Japanese army yet they fought valiantly even if it was for an now ill cause.
@@slimj091 You think every conscript from some podunk village was some vicious murderer of children? You watched this movie thinking that? Every man in Japan was forced to help the war effort. It wasn't a choice. Damning millions of people en masse is evil. Obviously some of them were good, but were still forced to fight because they were Japanese men. The government is responsible for the war, not the grunts who were forced to fight and die for someone's greedy vision of conquest.
If the issue was that they had no more food, many of them could still fight on. But no more water...that's just when you know you're at an end. Humans can live, and fight, days even weeks without food. But very few can last without water longer than 3 days! So hearing 'there's no water' weighs much heavier than saying 'there's no more food', when you think about it.
Not really, it consistently makes the top 10 war movie lists for various periodicals and articles. So it’s highly regarded and respected. What you mean is that is was commercially under appreciated. Clint Eastwood admits this wasn’t ever aimed at getting box office returns, it was a passion project that he always wanted to do. Projects like that are rarely commercially successful. Mel Gibson’s Apocolypto is a great example of this too. Great movie, critics loved it, general audiences didn’t.
This movie was filmed at the same time as Flags of Our Fathers. IMO as a coherent story and movie, Letters From Iwo Jima was a better, tighter movie. Flags was very jumpy as it alternated from different characters and flashbacks to the point of it being jarring. Letters flowed much better. Yeah it had some flashbacks but it wasn't a constant thing like it was on Flags. This movie is also a rarity in Hollywood films: American directed (Clint Eastwood) and produced (Steven Spielberg was one of the producers), had a bunch of Japanese actors speaking Japanese and not English for the ease of an American audience. Most importantly it's a WWII movie made from the POV of the Japanese while fighting American forces. I'm a US Marine, so the Battle of Iwo Jima and the flag raising is something every Marine is taught the history about, so it's near and dear to me. But as a movie, Letters from Iwo Jima was the superior film than Flags of Our Fathers.
Such an interesting concept, too, to see such a pivotal battle play out on film from both opposing POVs, especially because they are stylistically similar. It really hammers home the fact that, to the men on the ground in these battles, there is a common thread of humanity to be found. The carnage and the struggle for survival is a shared experience, even though they are pitted against each other for ideological or political reasons.
I think both movies are equally good, and together are GREAT. It's not often that you get to see the same movie twice, from two different points of view (not jumping from one side to the other in the same film but a full story for each). That said, Letters from Iwo Jima stands out due to it's rarity in American cinema.
The scene I remember most is of a Japanese machine gunner armed with a bipod mounted machine gun defending the entrance to a bunker/cave with Mt Suribachi In the distance. It is not an exciting or poignant scene, but that particular image sticks in my mind.
Yea, this movie shows the reality war of hell at Pasific, Japan didn't had any supplies, weapon, and great soldier. Not like those all shit Hollywood movie (not all of them, bad example: Fury, good example: saving private Ryan for me) Sorry for very bad English anyway
@@akl2_8_davensabimanyup15 That is propaganda that US forced on newer generations to emasculate Japanese. Imperial Japanese Army had defeated the British, Dutch, French empires in Asia. The reason why US won was because Imperial Japan was misled by Generals that wanted to open multiple fronts and one with a newly fresh army, US military, that waited out the war as it was isolationist and had Nazi sympathies. Japan lost to allies, not to U.S. Japan already lost when USSR defeated Nazi Germany, but US only won because Israel Zionist scientists gave them an atom bomb in exchange to create Israel and protection.
Actually the survivors that made it were initially viewed as traitors and the sole officer(yes, one made it.) was about to be beheaded, but another officer stopped the commander.
@@silentotaku8 "nigete"/"nigero" carries with it an implication of escaping from something, while "hashire" just straight up means to run (and would also be used, for example, in a conversation about running track).
The Japanese garrison at Iwo Jima was cut off from supplies and food by the time of the invasion. So were the troops at Guadalcanal. There were also 110,000 troops in Rabaul, which was Japans forward deployed Pearl Harbor that was to defend the outer perimeter. They were also cut off from supplies and left isolated, and the IJN was too weak to withdraw army troops. The US didn’t need to invade, and Rabaul became useless as a military target with that many troops trapped until the surrender after the atomic bombs.
@@tbd-1 yes it wasn't completely cutoff but the supplies were woefully inadequate, since they werent able to use transport ships but destroyers and a few frigates.
@@tbd-1 You are sadly mistaken, if you consider the Tokyo Express any sort of reasonable avenue of resupply and retreat. I suggest you do a little more research.
@@thotpatroll5729 It's been a field of interest to me for some 45 years so it's pretty unlikely any further research will uncover anything that disputes what is already well known: The Tokyo Express was how the Japanese supplied and reinforced their garrison at Guadalcanal, and the Tokyo Express is how they withdrew their troops from the island in the end. Nobody, including myself said it was "reasonable" but that is how they did it.
The one reoccurring word you always hear about Imperial Japanese Soldiers from vets is TOUGH. The were the last ones standing and went tooth for nail for all those years.
@@rc59191 I thought that when Rising Storm 2 released I would be safe from ever having to suffer to knee mortars again...then they released the Mas-49 with Rifle Grenades, the horror was fresh in my mind once again.
That officer, Officer Nishi, was actually a gold medal Olympian for the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics in the show jumping individual event. Its a shame how wars ends so many lives. Girls Und Panzer also has a reference to him. She is best waifu
The officer shown here is a lieutenant. Colonel Nishi was shown in an earlier scene where he was blinded by shrapnel. He decided not to retreat and took his own life.
First of all he is not a racist. If he was he would have never worked with people of different races. Second of all this movie should prove to you that he isn't. He portrayed the Japanese as humanly as possible.
You do understand that how we see the past is one way of making the population think like you want? LIke for example Trumps whole "Make America great again" shtick that revolves around Americans nostalgia of how things were supposedly better in the 50's or 80's....
War movies are and can be propaganda. Showing how great our soldiers are, and how dishonorable and bad the other side is. In europe, china and korea a lot of people still carry ww2 grievances. The governments of some of these countries keep replaying the bloody events to their population and even the school children, to make sure they will never forget, and will one day be willing to take revenge for the sins of the forefathers. The most popular way to bring someone in line in these part of the world is saying "the revolutionary/warhero/martyr forefathers died for our country, and you're doing x!? Have no shame and live up to their sacrifice!". However, the idea of "heroic forefathers" isn't born out of nowhere, it must be drilled into human brains from early age through propaganda. All the circus like national parades, anthem singing, selective history learning, and movies serve enforcing such patriotic attitudes. The fact that you're saying that "the war ended decades ago and therefore doesn't matter" proves that you weren't indoctrinated. For millions of people, the war has never ended, the war will never end.
Although I'm an American and an aspiring US Naval Aviator, this movie was amazing ! Both film were amazing actually! I wish I could've been a Corsair pilot in WW2... I will continue the legacy of the pilots before me!
Marine aviators in those F4Us. VFM-213 "Hell Hawks". Participated as shore based sqd. in Solomons campaign. Taking vicious casualties. Then as carrier based F4U sqd for rest of PTO . Navy-USMC had their reasons, but I dislike how VFM-213 was treated after WWII. In 1945 213 was reactivated as USMC-Res Squadron. Squadron deployed again to Korea, then to Vietnam. It was stood down in mid 1970's.
God damn that Marine just falling back in time to avoid the grenade-suicide-charge. 1:24 Probably needed new dungarees after that fight. At least I would...
Watch the making of Enemy At The Gates. A lot of those actors are the stunt men operating the explosives. The character "luckily survives" so that the actor can do their job, and they hope the audience doesn't notice on first viewing.
its so so important to have movies like these. just shows, that there are no "bad" people, there are only perspectives and different points of view and nobody is to say that his view is or was the only right one. in the end, shits always coming to those at the end of the chain. whether its a soldier, a police man, a postman, a cashier.
Sure, there were certainly average, good men who fought for Japan in the war. But I disagree that there are no bad people. A lot of Japanese soldiers mercilessly slaughtered civilians and mutilated prisoners of war. That being said, of course the Allies committed war crimes as well and also had bad men, but the brutality that the Japanese showed in general far surpassed the Allies.
" ...that there are no "bad" people, there are only perspectives and different points of view and nobody is to say that his view is or was the only right one." Rape of Nanking. That was an interesting 'perspective' as you put it. I am pretty sure that anyone saying that any view supporting the massacre is a wrong view.
It should be noted that a lot of those killed by the Japanese were guerrilla fighters, and at the time, guerrilla warfare was illegal under international law and were allowed to be killed on sight. After the war, these were twisted to be civilian massacres. There were quite a bit of retribution on the locals as well, but name one power who had to fight guerrillas that didn't take it out on the locals. Up until ww2, Americans had been putting down Filipino freedom fighters for 4 decades, and killed even more in Vietnam than were supposedly killed in Nanking.
Man love the realism of it. But one thing from my understanding, didnt iwo have a shit ton of caves or is that Okinawa? Remembered reading a few books and it talked about the endless cave system they had not sure why they would run in the open but still just wanted to know if someone can answer it! Ty
Seems like the US had already begun assaulting the northern end of the island. Probably the cave systems leading from the south had already been destroyed by the advancing marines.
It had lots of caves but none of them went anything like the length of the island - it wasn't one giant interconnected complex. The landing beaches were all around the relatively flat middle part of the island so the Americans landed there and cut the two ends off from each other, then reduced the southern part which was mostly Mt. Suribachi, then started working their way north. These men were the last survivors from Suribachi so they had to go through the American lines to get to the remaining defenders in the north.
The Japanese are some of the most cultured, disciplined and respectful people to ever exist. It's sad that they had to be on the wrong side of World War II.
Unfortunately so many of their leaders and soldiers committed horrific atrocities that the good people of the nation are all blamed as well. You see this when people show no sympathy for the civilians murdered at Hiroshima.
They didn't "have" to be on the wrong side of WW2. They weren't forced to bomb Pearl Harbour. Yes, respectful and all, but nobody forced them to be the aggressor. They forced this onto themselves.
i think the retreat scene is a bit stupid from a military perspective, 2 sides are exchanging fire from their positions, you dont run out in the open because you will be 100% cut down by enemy of friendly miss fire...what about waiting till night and use the darkness as cover for example? and i dont know how long this is into the battle, but i think in reality, a lot of the positions and bunker networks were very very well supplied, a bunker network near the air field had like a few months support worth of ammo, water and gasoline supply to power for lighting and other stuff....i am sure as their positions were taken out and caves destroyed, resources started to run down but I still think in terms of necessities like water, ammo and basic ration they should had enough until the very last stage of battle....please correct me if i am wrong...
and yet they literally did run into machine gun fire, half of what made the U.S. so good back then was just the novel idea of not blindly charging into gunfire.
Japan was ashamed after the war for what their leaders had done. Am not sure how the Japanese public responded to the men returning home, many of whom were relatives.
Funny our army thought they were rats dug securely in their holes and had alot of supplies and were savages but on their side u see that they fight with almost nothing and that they held their honor foolishly and handed their lives to a cause unjust and terrible, only a few like this guy knew survival was the greatest of honor, the general was smart and keen on his commands but his troops were just idiots that made drastic uncalled actions that made their defeat sealed in fate
Japanese: Don't waste your bullets. America: and you get a Browning machine gun, and you get a Browning machine, heck we got so many of these things lets just stick them on some supply trucks and call it a day.
not a disrespectful kid but i guess we figth because thats what our ancestoors teach us so even we are brothers we learned to hate each other in order to believe lies from our own ancestors
![Blox Fruits Dragon Rework Update [Full Stream]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EqDAp8udhm0/mqdefault.jpg)
"They never retreat, they just fall back to another defensive position."
- Eugene B. Sledge, Marine Corp.
That's a retreat
Tactical retreat
It's Marine Corps*
@@krieger8825 no it isn't
"We're surrounded? Good, now we can kill the bastards in any direction."
- Col. Chesty Puller | Korean War.
This movie potraits very well what Japanese soldiers were forced to live during the later years of WW2. Some were brave, some were crazy, some were cowards.
I really like when Baron Nishi reads Sam mother's letter to his soldiers, and they realize Americans were not different at all from them. Really makes you think "why are we killing each other, if we are all brothers under a different flag?"
Well also if one reads the Bone Man of Kokoda (Kokichi Nishimura being the only survivor of his unit in Kokoda whom returned to the Kokoda Track to retrieve his fallen comrades remains and return them to Japan to honor their sacrifice) or what happened to the Japanese soldiers whom were in the Battle of Imphal / Kohima where out of 50-65000 Japanese soldiers - only 10-15000 survived - well under half the amount of the Japanese soldiers even walked out of that battle alive and those whom did were very sick and starving and badly injured soldiers - and the fact one Japanese commander - Kotoku Sato himself actually disobeyed orders to save his soldiers and later was relieved of command when he ignored his orders for a few weeks .... and after the war some of the surviving Japanese soldiers attributed Sato for this decision to the reason WHY they were alive - whilst he did save his soldiers he also lost his military prestige (though he did argue with the commander - Renya Mutaguchi whom was an example of a fanatic - whom ordered his soldiers to fight 'with their teeth until they were dead' andhad over optimistic plans to take India despite the odds against him and where after the war no doubt Mutaguchi was considered one of the worst Generals of WWII and the fact how Mutaguchi after the war remained unrepentant for the fact his decisions cost the lives of many of his soldiers in that battle until near his death)
There was also another Japanese General of WWII - Shizuichi Tanaka - this General was one of the Japanese Generals whom spent time in a Western Country (in the First World War he led Japanese soldiers in the London Victory Parade) and also spent time in England (he was an Oxford Graduate and studied Shakespeare's works) where he himself was passed over for promotion because of his 'pro-Western views' and then HE himself was opposed to Pearl Harbor's attack; General Tanaka also - when Japan was bombed - during the A-Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - as some Japanese officers were still diehard to the end to keep fighting - there was the Kyujo Rebellion which attempted to wrest control of the surrender speech by Emperor Hirohito and they needed help from General Tanaka's soldiers in the coup BUT General Tanaka REFUSED to help and he actually managed to convince the rebel officers to cease their rebellion via a scolding speech and how it was 'dishonorable and disgraceful to the Japanese Army to act in rebellion' AND he actually managed to stop them and order them to go home (the officers later commited Seppuku) .... although General Tanaka shot himself because despite being considered by some to be the 'Hero of the August 15th Incident' he felt guilty for failing to protect Tokyo from the B29 raids and hence he shot himself on behalf of his soldiers ....
And no doubt not all Japanese Generals or Commanding Officers were insane or Nationalistic arrogant discipline honor based people .... or Tojo's for the matter - given Tojo Hideki and many Japanese officers tended to slap soldiers or worse severely strike and berate officers and soldiers for petty things whereas the Commanding Generals at Iwo Jima and Okinawa - being Kuribayashi and Ujishima respectively did display humane ways to their soldiers - well as we know of Kuribayashi - in sharing the same hardships as his soldiers or where Ujishima disliked slapping or using violence to discipline his officers and soldiers ...
Yeah well they should have thought about that before raping and killing innocent civilians, and attacking the United States in the first place. Next you are going to tell me that I should have sympathy for SS Nazi's that killed Jews and other people labeled by them as undesirables.
@@slimj091 they as in all the japanese? Or just the ones who did the rape? Or their leaders? It's a broad statement I just want to make sure I understand where you're coming from
This movie did such an excellent job portraying the Japanese soldiers on Iwo as people, not entirely evil or heroic.
comfort women
even the most heinous regimes in history have had those who often believed they were doing good. no person is inherently good or bad, but a culture of fanaticism can make good men do bad, bad acts.
@@MemekingJag and if there are inherently evil men among them, they are enabled to act according to their nature as the system they serve encourages it. That's why you can say that the "Japanese Empire" was evil or that "Nazi Germany" was but you can't lump all of its subjects categorically. Those who support those regimes are commiting evil actions, and in history there's no hindsight for the present so their evil might feel like less at the time.
@@deathpope3922 Sure. While I usually try and avoid labelling people as purely good or evil, there were certainly those in positions of authority in those two nations for example that not only believed in what they were doing, but didn't care about the pain and suffering of fellow human being's in order to achieve those goals; this being the closest thing to 'pure evil' outside extreme psychiatric cases you can get, and you're right in labelling the entities of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan as evil.
However, while everyone in that nation not actively resisting is in a way, cooperating, you're right, I think it's important to keep in mind the wealth of complications that can either mislead, coax or directly trick and lie to a population in order to gain their compliance. I don't consider this (in most benign circumstances) to be true culpability; merely a mistake.
@@MemekingJag Make no mistake the Japanese Empire and it’s solders we’re evil. Brutality was not only accepted but promoted amongst the Japanese high command and troops, under the guise of racial superiority. Rape of Naking, Comfort Women, Unit 731, Battle of Manila are all prime examples of this.
I love how that guy with the mines who wanted to die honroably by sacrificing himself to blow up an american tank ended up surrendering in the end
Yeah because after all the Japanese soldiers were human. Important to show that these "fails" also happened
@@bingobongo1615 Also, not all of the kamikaze pilots committed suicide.
It's ironic because that guy forcefully killed all of his men, and he was the only one alive.
The will to live is strong
@@normanacree1635 dude there was one guy who flew back 13 times from it and they just shot him after
the death of that officer to the gunners and riflemen would be worth a bar story, but to those whose lives he had saved he would be considered more than a hero
out of 21000 japanese soldiers only 216 were taken prisoner and even then it was mostly badly injured and unconscious men. the last men to surrender on iwo jima did so in 1949. the japanese took the thought of fighting to the last man insanely serious.
People fail to understand that the Japanese military was taught to believe that surrendering was a strategic choice, not a tactical one if that makes any sense.
Bruh he probably massacred thousands of Chinese before he died. What a hero.
@derpy potato.
Edit: fixed grammar.
I doub't that the officer was ever sen't to nanking. Because if he we're, he would be dead before the events of iwo jima. The japanese officers that lead to nanking probadly commited seppuku because of the failed offense
@@kek2714 wh'at
The officer covered their retreat, died a hero.
trycoldman23 hmmm, the legendary animator is here as well lol
Racist and homophobic in just one sentence... impressive
he clearly refers to that particular Japanese guy, and if he reffered to the entire population that would just make it worse :P
Lego man is here!
R.I.P Officer Banzai!!!!!!
この謙さんは栗林さんにピッタリはまり役だったなあ。おかげでかなり感情移入できて素晴らしい作品に思えた。バロン西さんの役も素晴らしかった。なんとも気品高くエリートっぽい雰囲気が
走れー！走れー！走れー！が心に何故か響いた、なんか部下？達に生き残って欲しいって気持ちが込められてる気がする
3億円を盗んだ先輩 そして最後は敵に向かって突っ込んだ…
あなたは3億円を盗んでいても、人の心を持っているんですねぇ・・・
何故か心に響きました。
1:09 love this portrayal during the late year of the war, the absolute lack of equipment of the Japanese army yet they fought valiantly even if it was for an now ill cause.
“There is no more water”. Heartbreaking 😥
That's how deep in the shit they were. And they still kept on fighting.
Not really. I would say dying slowly of thirst in a dark cave is exactly what they deserved.
@@slimj091 You think every conscript from some podunk village was some vicious murderer of children? You watched this movie thinking that? Every man in Japan was forced to help the war effort. It wasn't a choice. Damning millions of people en masse is evil. Obviously some of them were good, but were still forced to fight because they were Japanese men. The government is responsible for the war, not the grunts who were forced to fight and die for someone's greedy vision of conquest.
Tell that to civilians during the Japanese Occupation.
@@Paelorian They could have, you know, surrendered.
Love how finally a US film shows the Japanese side on Iwo. Great movie. Especially after watching windtalkers Lolol.
If the issue was that they had no more food, many of them could still fight on.
But no more water...that's just when you know you're at an end.
Humans can live, and fight, days even weeks without food. But very few can last without water longer than 3 days!
So hearing 'there's no water' weighs much heavier than saying 'there's no more food', when you think about it.
Such an underrated movie
Very underrated.
Not really, it consistently makes the top 10 war movie lists for various periodicals and articles. So it’s highly regarded and respected. What you mean is that is was commercially under appreciated. Clint Eastwood admits this wasn’t ever aimed at getting box office returns, it was a passion project that he always wanted to do. Projects like that are rarely commercially successful. Mel Gibson’s Apocolypto is a great example of this too. Great movie, critics loved it, general audiences didn’t.
I liked it more than Flags of Our Fathers.
I remember watching this movie on HBO with my mom, better than Pearl Harbour
This movie was filmed at the same time as Flags of Our Fathers. IMO as a coherent story and movie, Letters From Iwo Jima was a better, tighter movie. Flags was very jumpy as it alternated from different characters and flashbacks to the point of it being jarring. Letters flowed much better. Yeah it had some flashbacks but it wasn't a constant thing like it was on Flags.
This movie is also a rarity in Hollywood films: American directed (Clint Eastwood) and produced (Steven Spielberg was one of the producers), had a bunch of Japanese actors speaking Japanese and not English for the ease of an American audience. Most importantly it's a WWII movie made from the POV of the Japanese while fighting American forces.
I'm a US Marine, so the Battle of Iwo Jima and the flag raising is something every Marine is taught the history about, so it's near and dear to me. But as a movie, Letters from Iwo Jima was the superior film than Flags of Our Fathers.
Such an interesting concept, too, to see such a pivotal battle play out on film from both opposing POVs, especially because they are stylistically similar. It really hammers home the fact that, to the men on the ground in these battles, there is a common thread of humanity to be found. The carnage and the struggle for survival is a shared experience, even though they are pitted against each other for ideological or political reasons.
I think both films are great but overall I thought Letters from Iwo Jima was better. More emotional, better flow, and better performances.
I think both movies are equally good, and together are GREAT. It's not often that you get to see the same movie twice, from two different points of view (not jumping from one side to the other in the same film but a full story for each). That said, Letters from Iwo Jima stands out due to it's rarity in American cinema.
Letters from Iwo Jima is my favourite of the two as well, mostly because of Ken Watanabe. His performance as General Kuribayashi was phenomenal.
This movies shows just how brave you had to be to do anything like this
All sides lived through hell
But this here was just pure bravery
L take. not brave, just brainwashed. go read some history
Wow the sound of that Japanese grenade explosion is exactly the same as I remembered from the game version of Band of Brothers. So much memories.
Thank you for your service. {salute}
@@kwb377 my pleasure. Killed many keyboard Nazis
Do you mean Brother's in Arms? If so that hilarious as thats exactly what I thought.
@@ZondaF25 yes！ That was the game!
"water for them." "We have no water." "Then, champagne for them." " We have loads of it."
But why is the Rum gone?
You mean Sake?
@@jbarral6509 SAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKKKKKKKKKKKEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE !!
Sake, or Kirin beer
We must not commit failure like this.Peace is the most important thing.
You would fit right in under Adolf, Joseph, Mao and their ilk.
The scene I remember most is of a Japanese machine gunner armed with a bipod mounted machine gun defending the entrance to a bunker/cave with Mt Suribachi In the distance. It is not an exciting or poignant scene, but that particular image sticks in my mind.
My favorite subtlety is that most of the shots fired missed. There was no miracle accuracy
Yea, this movie shows the reality war of hell at Pasific, Japan didn't had any supplies, weapon, and great soldier. Not like those all shit Hollywood movie (not all of them, bad example: Fury, good example: saving private Ryan for me)
Sorry for very bad English anyway
@@akl2_8_davensabimanyup15 That is propaganda that US forced on newer generations to emasculate Japanese. Imperial Japanese Army had defeated the British, Dutch, French empires in Asia. The reason why US won was because Imperial Japan was misled by Generals that wanted to open multiple fronts and one with a newly fresh army, US military, that waited out the war as it was isolationist and had Nazi sympathies. Japan lost to allies, not to U.S. Japan already lost when USSR defeated Nazi Germany, but US only won because Israel Zionist scientists gave them an atom bomb in exchange to create Israel and protection.
@@jacqueslee2592 keep telling yourself that.
@@dank_lord he is right
@@ΠαύλοςΣυναινού nope
このシーン好きです
自らを犠牲にし部下を守る幹部の鑑です。
"The blood of the soldier makes the glory of the general." (H.G. Bohn)
The Chinese phrase is 一將功成萬骨枯 (The success of one general is archived upon the rotting bones of ten thousand)
一番悲しいのはこういう映画を日本人自身の手で作れないところ。
イーストウッドに感謝。
sushi sushi yamate
Actually the survivors that made it were initially viewed as traitors and the sole officer(yes, one made it.) was about to be beheaded, but another officer stopped the commander.
彼らはまさに真の日本人である🇯🇵
1:15 "OVER HERE! OVER HERE! OVER HERE!!!" The lieutenant attracting attention from the USMC gunners
Ultimate sacrifice. RiP
He's saying Ruuun! Ruuuuun! Run!
@@ユーザー-v8v isn’t that “negaro” ?
@@silentotaku8 Hashire works the same
@@silentotaku8 "nigete"/"nigero" carries with it an implication of escaping from something, while "hashire" just straight up means to run (and would also be used, for example, in a conversation about running track).
The Japanese garrison at Iwo Jima was cut off from supplies and food by the time of the invasion. So were the troops at Guadalcanal. There were also 110,000 troops in Rabaul, which was Japans forward deployed Pearl Harbor that was to defend the outer perimeter. They were also cut off from supplies and left isolated, and the IJN was too weak to withdraw army troops. The US didn’t need to invade, and Rabaul became useless as a military target with that many troops trapped until the surrender after the atomic bombs.
The Japanese at Guadalcanal weren't cut off. Look up Tokyo Express to learn how they were resupplied and in the end, evacuated.
The Japanese soldiers on the islands that got bypassed were the lucky ones, if they didn't starve.
@@tbd-1 yes it wasn't completely cutoff but the supplies were woefully inadequate, since they werent able to use transport ships but destroyers and a few frigates.
@@tbd-1 You are sadly mistaken, if you consider the Tokyo Express any sort of reasonable avenue of resupply and retreat. I suggest you do a little more research.
@@thotpatroll5729 It's been a field of interest to me for some 45 years so it's pretty unlikely any further research will uncover anything that disputes what is already well known: The Tokyo Express was how the Japanese supplied and reinforced their garrison at Guadalcanal, and the Tokyo Express is how they withdrew their troops from the island in the end. Nobody, including myself said it was "reasonable" but that is how they did it.
The one reoccurring word you always hear about Imperial Japanese Soldiers from vets is TOUGH. The were the last ones standing and went tooth for nail for all those years.
This made me wanna play some Rising Storm again:D
Love playing as the Japanese because they're the only ones with mortars. Barely any FPS games let you use mortars in them.
@@rc59191 I thought that when Rising Storm 2 released I would be safe from ever having to suffer to knee mortars again...then they released the Mas-49 with Rifle Grenades, the horror was fresh in my mind once again.
That officer, Officer Nishi, was actually a gold medal Olympian for the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics in the show jumping individual event. Its a shame how wars ends so many lives. Girls Und Panzer also has a reference to him. She is best waifu
Chi-Ha Tan Academy shall not prevail!
Gross dude
The officer shown here is a lieutenant. Colonel Nishi was shown in an earlier scene where he was blinded by shrapnel. He decided not to retreat and took his own life.
A war film that portrays the IJA sympathetically made by one of Americas most Right wing directors.
Clint Eastwood is not the 1 dimensional stereotype the leftists paint him to be.
First of all he is not a racist. If he was he would have never worked with people of different races. Second of all this movie should prove to you that he isn't. He portrayed the Japanese as humanly as possible.
Average John fuck democrats
@@alexmark8917 oops sounds like us Democrats got you all triggered bro
@@JF-xm6tu aww snowflake
i think each side deserved respect
I saw this movie one time when I was eleven or twelve I haven't forgotten it.
Ken Watanabe went from last samurai to last officer
The Japanese don't believe in smoke grenades?
they had smoke grenades like every nation after ww1..... They might have run out.
by the time this battle took place Japan was already in bad shape. They were basically run out of everything.
Or maybe some covering fire?
they dont have water... maybe they dont have much bullets too :)
They couldn't afford to waste bullets. Their supply run had been cut off.
More people need to watch this movie.
I love how ppl say "War movies are propaganda!!". Propaganda for what? Wars that have been over for decades?
You do understand that how we see the past is one way of making the population think like you want? LIke for example Trumps whole "Make America great again" shtick that revolves around Americans nostalgia of how things were supposedly better in the 50's or 80's....
Pikkabuu fuck u Democrat POS
@Long live old Europe
Time when racism was still acceptable and income knequality really blew up in the US?
@ゴロゴロ Yes,most of them,but nanjing nanjing is the one that did a lot better than other stupid low budget anti-Japan film if you ask me.
War movies are and can be propaganda. Showing how great our soldiers are, and how dishonorable and bad the other side is.
In europe, china and korea a lot of people still carry ww2 grievances. The governments of some of these countries keep replaying the bloody events to their population and even the school children, to make sure they will never forget, and will one day be willing to take revenge for the sins of the forefathers.
The most popular way to bring someone in line in these part of the world is saying "the revolutionary/warhero/martyr forefathers died for our country, and you're doing x!? Have no shame and live up to their sacrifice!". However, the idea of "heroic forefathers" isn't born out of nowhere, it must be drilled into human brains from early age through propaganda. All the circus like national parades, anthem singing, selective history learning, and movies serve enforcing such patriotic attitudes.
The fact that you're saying that "the war ended decades ago and therefore doesn't matter" proves that you weren't indoctrinated. For millions of people, the war has never ended, the war will never end.
Although I'm an American and an aspiring US Naval Aviator, this movie was amazing ! Both film were amazing actually! I wish I could've been a Corsair pilot in WW2...
I will continue the legacy of the pilots before me!
Marine aviators in those F4Us. VFM-213 "Hell Hawks". Participated as shore based sqd. in Solomons campaign. Taking vicious casualties. Then as carrier based F4U sqd for rest of PTO . Navy-USMC had their reasons, but I dislike how VFM-213 was treated after WWII. In 1945 213 was reactivated as USMC-Res Squadron. Squadron deployed again to Korea, then to Vietnam. It was stood down in mid 1970's.
@@dkoz8321 plenty of new Zealand'ers flew Corsairs in the Pacific campaign
God damn that Marine just falling back in time to avoid the grenade-suicide-charge. 1:24
Probably needed new dungarees after that fight.
At least I would...
Shoot man I would need a dang shower not just dungarees lol.
Watch the making of Enemy At The Gates. A lot of those actors are the stunt men operating the explosives. The character "luckily survives" so that the actor can do their job, and they hope the audience doesn't notice on first viewing.
1:15 when you forgot that theres a camper infront of you
0:25 he say the n word
One of the best Pacific front movies.
Came for the clip, stayed for the crazy comments
F.u.c.k Allah fuck off
Herr Richtig hey look! It's a social reject. :D still in your parents basement you fat racist? xD
Ouch.
このシーンの皆に「走れ」と叫びながら自分は敵に掛かる大久保中尉に惚れた
Their job was to die for the Emperor.
Our job was to make that happen.
~ US Marine.
@Prkau telek Your name is the sound a cat makes coughing up a hairball.
Abandoned by their own Government, they fought to the last man. Even when the Odds are stacked against them.
Latters...
its so so important to have movies like these. just shows, that there are no "bad" people, there are only perspectives and different points of view and nobody is to say that his view is or was the only right one. in the end, shits always coming to those at the end of the chain. whether its a soldier, a police man, a postman, a cashier.
Sure, there were certainly average, good men who fought for Japan in the war. But I disagree that there are no bad people. A lot of Japanese soldiers mercilessly slaughtered civilians and mutilated prisoners of war. That being said, of course the Allies committed war crimes as well and also had bad men, but the brutality that the Japanese showed in general far surpassed the Allies.
" ...that there are no "bad" people, there are only perspectives and different points of view and nobody is to say that his view is or was the only right one."
Rape of Nanking. That was an interesting 'perspective' as you put it. I am pretty sure that anyone saying that any view supporting the massacre is a wrong view.
@@bugwar5545 sure everyone agrees that its the wrong perspective as long as your measuring for a perspective is based on morale
@@Marshmallox43 Not 'morale' but 'morals'. I suspect that wasn't a typo on your part, was it?
Respect to the cameraman for recording this in the middle of combat without fearing being shot
亡くなられた日米両軍将兵の方々に哀悼の意を。
The General’s look defeated when the Troops landed on there ground
Running at the enemy with a live hand grenade instead of throwing it is galaxy brain stuff.
Yea, he did so the americans would focus fire into him instead of his men fleeing. Quite galaxyous indeed.
That machine gunner is the real MVP. He looks so used to Japanese banzai attacks.
now i really want to watch this movie...
That was some balls him saving his men
I wonder how this film would have gone over if it had been made and shown in 1946.
Japanese are the example of real loyalty and no cowardice to their country
Yet that ferocious loyalty drove them into killing many innocent people
Loyalty pushed into fanatism around 1945....
It should be noted that a lot of those killed by the Japanese were guerrilla fighters, and at the time, guerrilla warfare was illegal under international law and were allowed to be killed on sight. After the war, these were twisted to be civilian massacres. There were quite a bit of retribution on the locals as well, but name one power who had to fight guerrillas that didn't take it out on the locals. Up until ww2, Americans had been putting down Filipino freedom fighters for 4 decades, and killed even more in Vietnam than were supposedly killed in Nanking.
@@bloodndestroy just like the partizans in europe..
@Lord Admiral Spire damn straight
1:15 RUN ! RUN！RUN！
More like "LOOK OVER HERE! OVER HERE! OVER HERE!" He was yelling at the USMC gunners to attract their attention
@@yatsumleung8618
日本語がわかるが、ちょっと違うニュアンスな気がする。
So tragic that we fought one another.
1:14
Then he's shouting "run!! run!!"
Man love the realism of it. But one thing from my understanding, didnt iwo have a shit ton of caves or is that Okinawa? Remembered reading a few books and it talked about the endless cave system they had not sure why they would run in the open but still just wanted to know if someone can answer it! Ty
Seems like the US had already begun assaulting the northern end of the island. Probably the cave systems leading from the south had already been destroyed by the advancing marines.
It had lots of caves but none of them went anything like the length of the island - it wasn't one giant interconnected complex. The landing beaches were all around the relatively flat middle part of the island so the Americans landed there and cut the two ends off from each other, then reduced the southern part which was mostly Mt. Suribachi, then started working their way north. These men were the last survivors from Suribachi so they had to go through the American lines to get to the remaining defenders in the north.
Best american made warmovie ever.
The Japanese are some of the most cultured, disciplined and respectful people to ever exist. It's sad that they had to be on the wrong side of World War II.
Unfortunately so many of their leaders and soldiers committed horrific atrocities that the good people of the nation are all blamed as well. You see this when people show no sympathy for the civilians murdered at Hiroshima.
They didn't "have" to be on the wrong side of WW2. They weren't forced to bomb Pearl Harbour. Yes, respectful and all, but nobody forced them to be the aggressor. They forced this onto themselves.
@@aaronsun4746 We stopped giving them oil and Tojo took exception to that...
Everybody was on the 'wrong side' of WW2. Disgusting atrocities on a mass scale were committed by everybody involved.
@@artloverivy many more would have died if the allied powers invaded mainland Japan
I'm glad they're our allies now.
U know your rifle sucks when recoil hits you like 105mm howitzer
Or it has a really strong caliber.
2:04 Explanation for many of the banzai charges on the Pacific islands right there...
1:11 the damn Arisaka jam. If they refined that rifle to be more durable, that wouldn't have been as much of a hindrance.
Τenno banzai , but Tenno didn't care...
世界の、すべての、守るべきモノな為に戦った、戦わされた、すべての英霊に敬礼。
なにその句読点の使い方
Humans say war is bad. But we love to see war movies and play war game on PC. Young children play with soldiers and toy guns
How have I not seen this movie!?
Cuz you ain't rented it on Amazon.
FOR THE RISING SUN
That's why I like movies from Axis perspective more
You must have loved 'Conspiracy' from 2001 with Branagh.
Die so you can cover your men, what a hero
The Marine on that gun was having a field day
Really good movie
"don't waste a single bullet" they took that the wrong way
i think the retreat scene is a bit stupid from a military perspective, 2 sides are exchanging fire from their positions, you dont run out in the open because you will be 100% cut down by enemy of friendly miss fire...what about waiting till night and use the darkness as cover for example? and i dont know how long this is into the battle, but i think in reality, a lot of the positions and bunker networks were very very well supplied, a bunker network near the air field had like a few months support worth of ammo, water and gasoline supply to power for lighting and other stuff....i am sure as their positions were taken out and caves destroyed, resources started to run down but I still think in terms of necessities like water, ammo and basic ration they should had enough until the very last stage of battle....please correct me if i am wrong...
and yet they literally did run into machine gun fire, half of what made the U.S. so good back then was just the novel idea of not blindly charging into gunfire.
I never unterstood why they not waited for darkness.
It does not matter if foreigners do not understand it. They are heroes forever for Japanese.
Japan was ashamed after the war for what their leaders had done. Am not sure how the Japanese public responded to the men returning home, many of whom were relatives.
部下を一人でも多く逃がす為に自ら犠牲になる立派な上官だと思う
この上官の名前ってありましたっけ？
大久保中尉だった気がします。
作中登場の架空の士官、大久保中尉ですよね
Wat gun is that japanese officer using?
That officer was so clever. Clever as a rock.
I'd feel far more sympathy for those Japanese soldiers if one of the guys they were shooting at wasn't my grandpa.
Epic
War is an elite toy
Is this a deleted scene?
In battle race and shit doesnt matter its just survival fucking brutal
Fantastic film
Nice insight, if only that of the, unrealistic or not, esprit the corps of the Japanese fighting forces
Tribute to the brave Japanese warriors
xtx lcogxog chill out
xtx lcogxog So you think a portion of the Japanese soldiers who committed those crimes represents their entire army?
xtx lcogxog you're a bit overzealous here, pal.
And you're just wrong.
xtx you do know that incidents like the nanking massacre and unit 731 were not that common and there are bad units and soldiers on both sides
simon ikr how hard is it to do a little bit of research before you comment on something you dont know
World wars described in one scene
西男爵かこれ･･･DVD持ってるだけで観てないんだよな、辛くて
Funny our army thought they were rats dug securely in their holes and had alot of supplies and were savages but on their side u see that they fight with almost nothing and that they held their honor foolishly and handed their lives to a cause unjust and terrible, only a few like this guy knew survival was the greatest of honor, the general was smart and keen on his commands but his troops were just idiots that made drastic uncalled actions that made their defeat sealed in fate
This is a good fighting scene not like the most scenes are now the scenes now are just switching to fast between filmpositions
I think more infantry were killed by mortars, artillery, and bombs then direct fire
No such thing as a retreat, it's actually a tactical withdraw
良い指揮官
Legends of Japan 🙌
Japanese: Don't waste your bullets.
America: and you get a Browning machine gun, and you get a Browning machine, heck we got so many of these things lets just stick them on some supply trucks and call it a day.
not a disrespectful kid but i guess we figth because thats what our ancestoors teach us so even we are brothers we learned to hate each other in order to believe lies from our own ancestors