Letters from Iwo Jima

[Wobbly Goblin]

This movie was kind of a let down. In fact, if it's historically accurate...Iwo Jima wasn't much of a battle. I was always under the belief that it was a blood-bath, similar to Normandy Beach. Maybe it was, but the movie certainly didn't portray it that way. Also, the movie was all in subtitles...why do they do that? Two thumbs down!

As tens of thousands of Allied troops push further inland, the Japanese troops defending Iwo Jima during World War II prepare to meet their fate in this Clint Eastwood-directed Oscar nominee for Best Picture, a companion piece to his hit film Flags of Our Fathers. Japanese Gen. Tadamichi Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe) knows his men are outnumbered and, with no hope of rescue, that most will eventually die in battle -- or end up killing themselves.

YouTube - Letters from Iwo Jima

[Greyfox60]

Actually it was a bloodbath.

Some info here

Some info from there
"More US Marines earned the Medal of Honor on Iwo Jima than in any other battle in US History.
In 36 days of fighting there were 25,851 US casualties (1 in 3 were killed or wounded).
Of these, 6,825 American boys were killed. Virtually all 22,000 Japanese perished."


I think the reason for the captioning is for some reason recent directors feel that this gives a movie a greater sense of "realism". Maybe he thought that since this is from the Japanese point of view, that they should show them speaking their own language.

[Wobbly Goblin]

Originally Posted by Greyfox60

Actually it was a bloodbath.

Ya...that's what I always believed. I guess I should clarify my post because it looks like I hated the movie. The truth is it had the makings of a pretty good story, but the subtitles blew it for me. Also, there was very little to show that the Japanese put up much of a fight. In fact, it's safe to say that they killed more of their own guys then they did ours. Certainly that can't be true. Guess it was done to show the whole Japanese pride...last stand for the Emperor thing?

[Mutiny]

I liked the movie, I thought subtitles was a good choice. If they made the Japanese speaking English it would have been a poor choice.

[LOOON]

Eastwood did the 'Japanese' side for a reason. It was a 'companion' movie to Flags of our Fathers.

Flags was a great movie, IMO.