EASTWOOD TURNS HIS MAGNUM IN FOR A KIMONO

Horsefeathers ^ | 12-29-2006 | Yale Kramer

[ritt]

Dirty Harry has finally succumbed to the endemic moral pathology of Hollywood. The best evidence of this is the New York Times’ A.O. Scott’s rating of “almost perfect” for Clint Eastwood’s new film “Letters from Iwo Jima.” Following suit, most of the major media reviews acknowledged it as a masterpiece and contender for many Academy Awards...

[nmh]

What a pity. Eastwood humanizing murderers. You'd think they were the good ole guys next door to you.

"Below, Clint Eastwood will find a list of more specific barbaric acts committed by those good-natured boys in the Imperial Japanese Army who loved their moms and girl friends. The details of them all are readily available on the internet."

"In China alone, during 1937-45, approximately 3.95 million civilians were killed as a direct result of the Japanese invasion. The most infamous incident during this period was the Nanking Massacre of 1937-38, when, according to the findings of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, the Japanese Army massacred as many as 260,000 civilians and prisoners of war. A scorched earth strategy used by Japanese forces in China in 1942-45, sanctioned by Hirohito himself, was responsible for the deaths of 2.7 million Chinese civilians."

"Special Japanese military units conducted experiments on civilians and POWs in China. One of the most infamous was Unit 731. Victims were subjected to vivisection without anesthesia and amputations, and were used to test biological weapons, among other experiments."

[rellimpank]

--and then there was that enlightened, compassionate POW camp commander, who in one of his final acts of compassion to a group of American airmen had them killed, butchered and served the livers to the guards---

[EveningStar]

Michael Medved, who is quite conservative, didn't quite see it this way. He gave the movie 4 stars out of 4, and had this to say about it:

"Clint Eastwood’s heart-breaking vision of the Japanese side of one of the great battles of World War II, this subtitled battlefield classic exceeds the acknowledged excellence of its American-perspective counterpart (Flags of Our Fathers). Through directorial alchemy and consistently capable performances, Eastwood makes the suicidal intensity of the doomed Imperial defenders look believable, if not comprehensible. Far from a whitewash of a fanatical enemy, the film highlights both the best (with a compassionate commander played by the great Ken Watanabe) and the worst of the Japanese militarist traditions."

Please keep in mind that Medved, unlike many of the folks here, actually saw the movie.

[SpringheelJack]

What a pity. Eastwood humanizing murderers. You'd think they were the good ole guys next door to you.

According to this man's own article, Eastwood's film features a "sadistic Bushido-oriented captain," and apparently pits the film's Kuribayashi character into conflict with his junior officers who are much the same. I don't see the relevance of this fellow complaining that Eastwood's Iwo Jima film doesn't depict incidents that happened in Nanking or Unit 731.

The outrage seems feigned, anyway, since even this guy writes that "Sure, all grunts are similar in that they miss their homes, their wives and sweethearts, they look at photographs of them before the battle, they tell jokes and form friendships, they are kind to little children and dogs."

It seems to me that that's all Eastwood was aiming to show, and if a fine film like Das Boot can be made about soldiers from Nazi Germany without shaking our confidence that there was "any point to us opposing them", then our tender minds should be able to survive Letters from Iwo Jima.

[reg45]

a fine film like Das Boot can be made about soldiers from Nazi Germany

Actually, Das Boot was about sailors (specifically submariners) not soldiers.

[Cheburashka]

What a pity. Eastwood humanizing murderers. You'd think they were the good ole guys next door to you.
---
Let me make sure I understand you. You're saying every - I repeat every - Japanese serviceman was a murderer?

[nmh]

"Let me make sure I understand you. You're saying every - I repeat every - Japanese serviceman was a murderer?"

You totally misunderstand my exchanges. The Japanese in particular are over the top in brutality when at war. Any service man that is Japanese that spears babies thrown up in the air, as done in China is a modern day monster.

[nmh]

The Rape of Nanking is a good book for you to read, which you probably won't that tells of the utter depravity of the Japanese in China. It's a toss up ... who's worse, Muslims or the Japenese when at war.