So I just finished watching Clint Eastwood’s 2 latest movies which I found out recently that they were meant to tell the same story, but from 2 different perspectives. Both are about the battle of Iwo Jima, but Letters From Iwo Jima was the story from the Japanese perspectives and Flags Of Our Fathers was from the American perspective. I thought both movies were done really well, and the message conveyed from both movies are rather different, yet feel the same.
Letters From Iwo Jima
Official Site
IMDb: 8.1/10 (9,924 votes)
Yahoo! Movies: The Critics: A- / Yahoo! Users: B+
Rotten Tomatoes: Rating: 91% / Average Rating: 8.2/10
Apple Trailer
Amazon.com DVD
Amazon.com Soundtrack
Amazon.com HD DVD
Amazon.com Blu-Ray
MY RATING: 8/10
Flags Of Our Fathers
Official Site
IMDb: 7.2/10 (14,102 votes)
Yahoo! Movies: The Critics: B+ / Yahoo! Users: B
Rotten Tomatoes: Rating: 73% / Average Rating: 7/10
Apple Trailer
Amazon.com DVD
Amazon.com HD DVD
Amazon.com Blu-Ray
MY RATING: 7/10
There’s really not much spoilers to these movies as they’re based on an actual events and we already know the outcome. Letters From Iwo Jima is shot almost completely in Japanese and attempts to reflect the view of the Japanese during the war time. The Japanese were a very proud race and they would rather suicide honorably when they’ve lost instead of begging for mercy from the enemy. It was suppose to be “an honor” to serve and die for the country, yet like us, many of them also have fear of going to war and never coming home. Their views of American soldiers were that we were pigs and barbaric like. Led by a great general, they have resorted to hiding in the mountains and what was supposed to be a couple day battle led on to last over a month. The story follows an ex-owner of a bakery who tries his best to survive in order to see his daughter which was born after he had left to prepare for war.
Letters From Iwo Jima mostly takes place on the island itself from the preparation of the battle to the end of the battler. Flags Of Our Fathers is a bit different in that it mashes 2 story lines together. The focus of this movie was on the photograph of the 6 men who had lifted the flag and stuck it in Iwo Jima. This story follows a corporal who was a medic for his platoon. The story goes back and forth between the battle grounds as the remaining heroes tour the country asking people to buy bonds. They message from this movie is that these are just regular people and not really heroes as we put them to be.
While watching Pumpkin Scissors, they talked about a secret unit which utilized flame throwers, and due to the inhumanness of burning enemies to death and the fact the soldiers who operated flame throwers for long periods of time suffered burns and problems in themselves, the project was scrapped. I recalled in WW2 movies that flame throwers were used and they’re actually quite effective. When I sawed them used in these movies, it got me thinking, are they banned now or did we just decide to stop using them. According to Wikipedia: Flamethrowers have not been in the U.S. arsenal since 1978, when the Department of Defense unilaterally stopped using them, because of public opinion concerns that found their use inhumane, although they are not banned in any international treaty the U.S. has signed. Thus, the US decision to remove flamethrowers from its arsenal is entirely voluntary. The USA Army does, however, use the M202A1 FLASH, a rocket launcher with four triethylaluminum-packed warheads.