Letters From Iwo Jima

[Shawn Southern]

Letters and Flags

Ugh.......I must be in the minority - I thought Flags of our Fathers to rival Saving Private Ryan in all elements.....on the other hand, I came close to walking out on Letters from Iwo Jima - BORING BORING BORING imho. I saw Letters first and then Flags of our Fathers....having the two perspectives was interesting. I've purchased a copy of Flags of our Fathers for my DVD library...won't revisit Letters from Iwo Jima. Just my take...

[Fallschirmjaeger]

February 22nd

Well letters form iwo jima opens up here on the 22nd of february for new zealand,i will see it next week i think.

[Wayne f]

Iwo Jima's Last Defender

The Battle for Iwo Jima began in early 1945 and lasted 35-plus days.
The last two Japanese soldier's gave-up - Jan 6, 1949.......
Wayne

[Tim O'Keefe]

Marines on PBS

Greetings all Marines, and those that support them...

Check out your local PBS stations for a great look at the United States Marines!
Starts with those yellow footprints, tells history of training of Boots, Brings memorys back for sure...!

Of course Iwo is featured...I think the two movies are both worth seeing.

Tim

[Tim B.]

The Battle for Iwo Jima began in early 1945 and lasted 35-plus days.
The last two Japanese soldier's gave-up - Jan 6, 1949.......
Wayne

They found one still hiding out in Guam in 1975! Wonder if he got back pay!
Tim

[Nico C]

I saw the movie today, together with my father of 69, who was in the Marines.
Great movie, I must say
Ken Watanabe played a master role. I saw him playing a good role in "the last samurai", but in this movie he was super.
A great actor.

This movie will for sure be bought on dvd.

[Chap15]

IMO, the movie was ok. Why the darkness in the film. I know BOB did the same thing at times. What is the affect???

Regarding the treatment of POWs. I almost walked out when the GIs shot the two japs. I didn't like it when BOB showed Spears killing the Germans.
Did it happen yes. But most of the time, the fact is that when captured, if you survived the first few minutes, you would most likely survive internment (pending starvation or sickness). Revenge killings mostly take place upon capture.

But besides that one scene, the movie was ok.

[Nico C]

Shooting prisoners AFTER capture was a common thing on both sides:

*I can refer to the numerous atrocities on the eastern front.

*In Normandy, 12ss wasn't spared either by the Canadians (vice versa also).

*In the Ardennes, some 60 germans were ronded up, brought into a field and killed by american soldiers.

*Malmedy massacre was a same story.

It is good thing that the movie showed this execution.
When trying to make a movie close to reality, you should not avoid these things. They are a part of the history of WWII.

[Chap15]

One could list the number of murders of POWs behind the lines, because they can be counted and documented. The number of revenge killings are much higher and harder to proove.

My point was why did they have to show it. To be fair??? If they showed americans shooting or beating japs shortly after they were captured, then I would have no problem. But the issue is proportionality. The number of cases of murders behind the lines against those in the heat of battle are far between. But in the arena of agendas and being fair and balanced they had to show that the americans were just as bad.

Another point in the movie that was not real...could someone blow themselves up with a grenade in a cave and not even make any of the other guys at least dizzy. To have 6 grenades go off one after the other in a cave was not real!!! They all would have been knocked out at least after the first grenade.

[Jean-Loup]

Grenades arent, or at least werent, so powerfull. Looks at table 54 here: http://history.amedd.army.mil/booksd...s/chapter4.htm

Out of 47 grenade casualties, only 6 died. 38 of the casulaties happened at a range of less then three yards from the grenade explosion. Not one single guy out of 47 was wounded at a distance of more then 5 yards.
Many people during the war had grenades explode almost in contact with them, without getting any serious wounds.

I am going to see Letters of Iwo Jima tonight

[Jean-Loup]

OK, after seeing it, I admit that grenade scene wasnt very convincing, especialy when several idiots in front of me in the cinema were laughing and saying "banzai, boom".

I didnt like the movie so much. I saw it subtitled in Croatian so didnt understand everything that was being said properly, that might have biased my judgement. But I perfered Flags of our fathers.
Actualy, I didnt find either movie very powerfull or exciting. The actors didnt look convincing either.

JL

[münster]

I seen it last night and had the samee trouble as Jean, the subtitles were in german and I couldnt concentrate on translating and watching. I did think the movie was fantastic and cant believe Scorceses movie beat that for an Osacr!

Was the best war film ive seen in 10 years.

[milcollector]

great movie, however I would have preferred more detail on them actually building the tunnels and fortifications.
The movie skipped huge parts of this process.
A more chronological story would have been better.

Can someone please explain why the Japs killed themselves with grenades so early ?
I mean they seem to have had plenty of small arms and grenade ammo, why not take out a few more Americans before they finally wasted their lives ?

They seemed to top themselves way too early. What a waste of manpower.

[Larry Lipps]

It certainly wasn't one of my all time favorites. It may be just me but I still thought Hollywood just couldn help trying to toss in a political statement by having the US soldiers kill their prisoners while the Japanese offered the last of their medical supplies to a wounded flame thrower operator, not likely! The first air attack was worth the price of admission but after that the best I could give it was a C+.

[milcollector]

absolutely, the movie had a definite left-wing political slant.

Also, funny how the only Japanese that were portrayed as good, were the ones that had first-hand experience with America.

The Japanese officers that had never been to the States were portrayed as the bad guys.

What does that tell you ?