Letters from Iwo Jima

• moca

  27 Feb 07, 16:10

  My personal opinion:
  
  Have seen both Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima.
  
  Both are anti-war war films. Good.
  
  But...
  
  Unlike Saving Private Ryan, both films are terribly predictable and pretty boring. The characters are somehow quite distant and unreal. The good are overly good, the bad are overly bad.
  
  I also don't know how much real facts are in the films. I question how true is it that so many of the Jap officers were portrayed as insurbodinate to the CO.
  
  There was also a scene where a group of about 8 Jap soldiers were committing suicide. They were all standing very close together inside a cave. Then, one by one, each one took a grenade, pulled out the pin with their teeth (like all Hollywood movies), thumped the grenade firing mechanism against their helmet and then held the exploding grenade to their chest. Each time, the victim gets blown wide open, but those standing nearby are not only unscathed, but also unaffected by the blast and concussion even though they are in a small cave which must magnify all the sounds.
  
  So in a way, while both films are MUST WATCH for military buffs, I would rate it as being much much less entertaining than SPR.
  
  If SPR was a 10 out of 10, I would give FOF and LIJ about 5 out of 10.
  
  And ZERO for reality.
• Shotgun

  27 Feb 07, 20:02

  It seemed to me, that the Japanese weren't well trained in infantry movements. In Letters from Iwo Jima, the Japanese attacks were just a cluster-fark of ppl running towards the enemy's direction.
  
  The American Marines on the other hand, seemed to have very good coordination on the squad level, fire movement, overwatch etc etc.
• Marco_Simone

  27 Feb 07, 22:01

  Originally posted by moca:

  My personal opinion:
  
  Have seen both Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima.
  
  Both are anti-war war films. Good.
  
  But...
  
  Unlike Saving Private Ryan, both films are terribly predictable and pretty boring. The characters are somehow quite distant and unreal. The good are overly good, the bad are overly bad.
  
  

  Letters is NOT an ENTERTAINMENT movie with lots of gunfire and explosions,it is never intended to be such a show.
  
  As for the lack of realism in the show,it dont really matter in the show.
• beavan

  27 Feb 07, 22:07

  Originally posted by Shotgun:

  It seemed to me, that the Japanese weren't well trained in infantry movements. In Letters from Iwo Jima, the Japanese attacks were just a cluster-fark of ppl running towards the enemy's direction.
  
  The American Marines on the other hand, seemed to have very good coordination on the squad level, fire movement, overwatch etc etc.

  the japanese were the last ditch troops thrown to the frontline to defend Iwo Jima. i would guess their best troops are already tied down somewhere or already dead fighting for their country.
• SingaporeTyrannosaur

  27 Feb 07, 22:27

  Given what they had, they made a rather good accounting of themselves... as much as I disagree with the attempt some may try to romantize Japanese aggression by painting all of the Japanese efforts in the war through the lens of this movie.
  
  But as it went, most of the soldiers involved in Iwo Jima were conscripts who had no direct say (nor were aware) of the atrocities their comrades were causing in asia, and they fought bravely defending their soil and many of them deserved to be remembered... even if they were misguided in their cause.
• Si Geena

  28 Feb 07, 10:38

  Originally posted by Shotgun:

  It seemed to me, that the Japanese weren't well trained in infantry movements. In Letters from Iwo Jima, the Japanese attacks were just a cluster-fark of ppl running towards the enemy's direction.
  
  The American Marines on the other hand, seemed to have very good coordination on the squad level, fire movement, overwatch etc etc.

  From many accounts of infantry fighting, the Japanese tend to do very well in movement to objective, i.e., proper use of concealed paths and fieldcraft to get into position.
  
  However, once they start the actual firefight... they tend to break down very fast.
  
  I tend to think that their fire and movt doctrine is not very well-thought out. I recall reading about their attacks in Guadacanal. Movt through jungle terrain to the objective at the US airbase was very sound and undiscovered. But once they attempted the assault phase, all hell broke loose and they don't really break-in well at all.
  
  Perhaps an overemphasis on moral courage in place of proper fire and movt doctrine.
• beavan

  28 Feb 07, 13:33

  perhaps they are just new and unused to fire?most people won't be.
• nanren4ever

  28 Feb 07, 13:52

  I will highly recommend Letters from Iwo Jima. Watching Flags of Our Fathers is not a necessity to understand this movie, but it will be nice 2 have a background understanding of the history behind it.
  
  I think this movie humanizes everyone and show that withstanding the fact that its a war and its every man for himself, in the end, everyone is a human, and everyone yearns and pins for their families. No matter what atrocities was done by the Japanese in other parts of Asia, we must remember tat all they want is for the war to be over, and be reunited with their families. They didn't ask for the war, nor did they want to be in one. It was loyalty to the Emperor and the country that they fought in the war.
  
  I am not condoning their actions, but I hope that at least some of us can stop seeing the Japs as monsters, as when they are, in the end, just human beings.
  
  Also, in the post above me, there was this posting about how the Japs did not seem to have gd tactical movements. I guess most of their better soldiers are tied down because they are needed to defend the homeland. The movie kinda explain it when they say No reinforcement will be sent to Iwo Jima, and that whatever is on the island will be the only resources they have.
• SingaporeTyrannosaur

  28 Feb 07, 13:59

  The Japanese supposedly were world leaders in night fighting.
  
  But often if you look at the kill/death ratios you tend to realize that they take more losses fighting a determined enemy (not the retreating and demoralized dudes they were pwning at the start of the war)... so it probably points to some serious lack in their tatics.
  
  I mean they often take more losses then the opposing side even when they are defending, even when suicides had been taken into account. It could have a lot to do with their men-wasting tatics of using reckless tatics or thinking that soldiers are expendable. In the end as "brave" or "honorable" they thought it was, it ended up working against them.