letters from iwo jima movie with subtitles

'We never spoke about what had happened.' 'Nobody wanted to hear our stories,' says Satoru Omagari, who was a sub-lieutenant in the imperial navy air force. Japanese veterans were treated like pariahs, blamed for the madness that had consumed their country and stigmatised by rumours of atrocities.

The Americans, at least, had their glory. Nearly one-third of all marines killed in the second World War died on the island. The battle remains, after 60 years of blood-soaked history in Korea, Vietnam and Iraq, the US marines' deadliest. The black sands of Iwo Jima passed into military legend, immortalised in Joe Rosenthal's photo showing a group of US marines raising the Stars and Stripes on Mount Suribachi on February 23rd, 1945. When the fighting stopped, nearly 7,000 Allies were dead and just 1,080 of the 21,800 Japanese troops defending the island had been taken alive. The 20.7sq km island was blasted almost flat, becoming what one veteran called a 'sulphurous, crater-filled hellhole' in six weeks of intense fighting in February and March 1945. 'He told me he didn't want to make a movie simply about war, but about families and the human heart.'Ī speck of volcanic rock in the Pacific Ocean about 1,126km south of Tokyo, Iwo Jima was the site of one of warfare's most brutal battles. 'He wanted to know what kind of man my grandfather was,' says councillor Shindo. 'They deserve respect just as the American forces do.'Įastwood's quest for authenticity led him to the office of lawmaker Yoshitaka Shindo, grandson of Tadamichi Kuribayashi, the general who defended the island in 1945. 'These men gave their lives for what they thought was to defend their country,' he later said. The iconic star had decided midway through making Flags of Our Fathers that he was 'telling only half the story', and decided to make a second movie told entirely from the Japanese perspective, with subtitles and local actors.

Clint Eastwood was in town - his first trip to Tokyo in four decades - to research Letters from Iwo Jima, the second of his two-part, second World War epic which began with Flags of Our Fathers. David McNeillreports from Tokyo on the reaction to Clint Eastwood's second film about the battle for Iwo Jima, told from the Japanese perspective and starring local actors.Ī familiar lanky figure was seen strolling through the corridors of Japan's parliament buildings.

Letters from iwo jima movie with subtitles