Fresh
An even more sombre affair, as beautifully restrained as the earlier film but also, despite its scenes of battle, death, suicide and suffering, shockingly intimate.
Wally Hammond, Time Out
Letters from Iwo Jima
The battle of Iwo Jima seen through the eyes of the Japanese soldiers.
2006 · 2h 21m · R
Action, Drama, War
Directed by
Clint Eastwood
Overview
The story of the battle of Iwo Jima between the United States and Imperial Japan during World War II, as told from the perspective of the Japanese who fought it.
Director and cast
- Clint Eastwood Director
- Ken Watanabe as General Tadamichi Kuribayashi
- Kazunari Ninomiya as Private Saigo
- Tsuyoshi Ihara as Colonel Baron Nishi
- Ryo Kase as Private Shimizu
- Shido Nakamura as Lieutenant Ito
- Hiroshi Watanabe as Lieutenant Fujita
- Takumi Bando as Captain Tanida
- Yuki Matsuzaki as Private Nozaki
- Takashi Yamaguchi as Kashiwara
- Eijiro Ozaki as Lieutenant Okubo
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
91%
Tomatometer
Fresh
The movie's sense of doom is powerfully conveyed; one graphic scene has weeping soldiers blowing themselves up with grenades.
Stephen Garrett, Time Out New York
Fresh
Indirectly but cogently comment on our experiences of other movies. Having Japanese soldiers as heroes allows us to reconsider the didacticism we've been handed in the past.
Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
Fresh
The proper way to appreciate Letters and Flags is to treat them as complimentary halves of the same epic movie, a Godfather war epic. One half is plainly more ambitious than the other, but both have virtues that distinguish them.
Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel
Fresh
By placing us on the opposite side of the battlefield, the movie forces us to approach it from a fresh perspective. The technique also lends Letters an uncommon timelessness.
Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald
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