Letters from Iwo Jima is a retelling of the Battle for Iwo Jima during WW2. The island is a volcanic rocky island that hold the strategic location being the door leading into the heart of the Japanese home islands, and thus became the prime target for US forces.
The film is based partially on 2 Japanese novels of that battle and partly fictionalised.

Produced by Clink Eastwood as a two-parter WW2 opus telling the battle from both the US and the Japanese perspectives. Although it is an American director’s effort I decided to put this review into my Japanese-Korean movie review blog as the language of that film is in Japanese.

Where Flags was a great disappointment, Letters hit the jackpot.Eastwood did not bring any western emotional baggage into his story telling of Letters from Iwo Jima, but was able to look at the battle from the Japanese perspective. No one, US nor Japanese, was perfect but so very human; capable of great bravery in the face of withering gun fire, as well as utter cruelty
Ken Watanabe as General Kuribayashi is the perfect General, able to command the respect of the lowly infantryman, as well as a masterly tactician and strategist. His plan was not to stop the invading US forces from landing, which he considered impossible to achieve. Therefore, his plan was to stop the US forces from moving inland away from the beaches, making the landing zone a death trap where his artillery and mortars were zeroed in.
He also abandoned the past infantry tactics that the Japanese forces had used, namely the senseless banzai charges that causes needless deaths in the face of machinegun fire. He also forbiddened his soldiers from committing suicide.

Letters from Iso Jima is a sensitive story from the point of view of a young Japanese drafted to defend the island.
He left behind his wife and does not want to die. His fellow soldiers were similarly like him and caught in a situation beyond their control and want nothing more than to get out of it with their lives intact.

Cast:

Links:
Wikipedia – About Iwo Jima
Wikipedia – The Battle for Iwo Jima in WW2
Wikipedia – Letters from Iwo Jima

Rating: 4 out of 5
Clint Eastwood did not make a mess of this movie. It is sensitive and moving film of young men caught in a war not of their making and wanting nothing more than to live. Instead they were forced to fight; kill or be killed. Most of them died……

A ninja movie about how the Shogun made use of 2 ninja clans to fight and destroy each other in that act by making promises that whichever clan succeeds would influence which of his sons would succeed him as Shogun.
He views these ninjas as a serious threat to his rule now that he has unified all Japan under him. He feared their special skills and thus seek to turn them against each other to their own destruction.

Unknowing of his true intentions, the Iga and Koga clans picked their own 5 best warriors to fight the other clan to the death.

Gennosuke of the Koga clan had earlier met and fallen in love with Oboro of the Iga clan earlier and when he learned of this duel, he refused to fight and insist on going to see the Shogun to find out the real reason for this duel.

Oboro is forced by her group to chase after Gennosuke and thus, the fight takes place despite Gennosuke’s refusal to fight.

Cast:
Nakama Yukie as Oboro of the Iga clan
Odagiri Jo as Gennosuke of the Koga clan

What is a Shinobi?

Rating: 2 out of 5
I love a ninja movie as much as the next guy but I do so hate sad endings. This movie has pretty good CGIs as well as unusual ninja characters and their special skills.

Second in director Yamada Yoji’s samurai trilogy, it tells the story of a young samurai, Katagiri Munezo, tasked with killing a prisoner who had escaped from prison.

Prior to this, the young samurai had rescued a married woman from an unhappy marriage. She was a former servant of his family. Social conventions forced him to ask the woman to return to her father’s home as he could not keep her by his side.

Upon receiving his order to kill this renegade samurai, Munezo visited his sword master for advice as he know he is not so skillful as this renegade who were also trained by his teacher.

On the night before he was to confront the escaped prisoner he was visited by the prisoner’s wife who offered her body if he’d spare her husband’s life. Munezo turned her down and she told him she’d visit his superior who’d ordered the death of her husband. Munezo tried to persuade her from this course of action as he knows this officer cannot be trusted to keep his word.

In the duel he wounded the renegade who was then shot dead by a hidden musketeer. The renegade’s wife committed suicide in despair and Munezo was filled with anguish. He decided to seek revenge for the dead renegade and his wife and redeem their honour by assassinating the superior officer. This is where the title of the movie is revealed.

Munezo resigned his position after the deed and went to look for the woman he loved and live the life of a commoner.
More info……

Cast:
Nagase Masatoshi as Samurai Katagiri Munezo
Matsu Takako

Rating: 3.5/5
Don’t expect lots of sword play as this is not the director’s style nor is he telling a sword flick story.
It does have a happy ending and I’m a sucker for that.

Third in director Yamada Yoji’s samurai trilogy, it tells the story of a low ranked samurai, Shinnojo, serving as his liege lord’s food taster. Although he gets by on his annual allowance of 30 kokus, he dreams of leaving his job and starting his own sword training dojo. He is supported in his aspiration by his lovely wife. Kayo.

One day, he fell ill while tasting an out-of-season shellfish and as a result of the poisoning he became blind despite recovering.
Despondent and in despair over how to survive and feed his family he wanted to end his life.

Kayo was forced by his relatives to appeal to his Senior Duty Officer to help her husband. He agreed but the price was high and he continued to take advantage of her by threatening to tell her husband.

Eventually, rumours reached him and he found out what hi wife was doing and he divorced her. Angry and humiliated he took up his sword training and reached an even higher plateau of achievement in being able to sense his opponent’s movement without seeing. His sword master taught him to fight with no thoughts of surviving, thereby attaining a psychological edge over his opponent.

He was to challenge this senior officer to a duel and he defeated him. In humiliation, the officer later ended his own life but never told of who had so handily defeated him, a senior disciple of a famous master.

Not to spoil the story for you, there is a happy ending here. Yes, I’m a sucker for happy endings.
More info…….

Cast:
Kimura Takuya as retainer Mimura Shinnojo
Dan Rei as wife Kayo

Rating: 4/5
Don’t expect lots of sword fighting as that’s not the director’s focus which is on story telling based on the main characters. He’d rather dwell on their emotions than on the external appeal of swordsmanship.
But, the fight when it happens is exciting as we are rooting for the young blinded samurai defending his honour.

First in Yamada Yoji’s acclaimed samurai trilogy, The Twilight Samurai, looks beyond the shallow surface of the Japanese culture of that period on the effect on an individual’s conduct. One is required to conform to social norms and standards to the extent of suppressing all individuality in order to “fit in”.

Sanada Hiroyuki plays a low ranked but highly skilled samurai widower with 2 young children around whom his life revolves. He’s attracted to a beautiful but married woman so it seems their relationship is doomed even though she is divorced from her husband as social convention frowns upon such relationship. That and his reticent and reserved nature that prevents him from opening up to her.

The motto of this story is that life is short and we should make the best of each moment, social norms be damned.

Cast:
Sanada Hiroyuki
Miyazawa Rie

Rating: 3/5
This is the first movie of this director that I’ve watched and it’s very different from the usual samurai flicks that I’m so fond of. It’s not about fighting. It’s about the man and his emotions. That’s so atypical of Japanese samurai movies.
Sad to say it has a sad ending and I’m not a fan of such endings.