A Bataan Death March Survivor's Review of Clint Eastwood's film, "Letters from Iwo Jima"

The National Bureau of Asian Research's Japan (e-mail discussion) Forumn ^ | 2-15-07 | Lester Tenney, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus Arizona State University

[Borges]

I don't know why it wasn't mentioned that the 'nice' Japanese soldiers are shown brutally bayoneting an unarmed Marine and are overwhelmingly opposed to giving Morphine to another before one of the Officers who had American friends before the war orders other to do so.

[unkus]

I understand that the Japanese troops on Iwo Jima were the cream of the crop and the toughest the Japanese had. No old men and young kids like Hitler used in Berlin.

[California Patriot]

Are you saying the movie seems to have that premise?

[California Patriot]

Interesting. If true, the film is misleading.

[Enterprise]

I'll reword it. I didn't accept a point of view that they were just like us.

[California Patriot]

That's what I saw, too. Maybe there should have been less of a focus on the younger, nicer guys -- if it's true, as one poster says, that the Iwo troops were really hard-asses. But in any case, a good movie. Strict historical accuracy, although both desirable and achievable, is very rare in movies. However, there are worse things than inaccuracy. I believe Eastwood made not only a riveting film, but a basically honest one.

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

but rather conveyed the increasing pointlessness of Japanese resistance, and the human side of the Japanese soldiers.

When I watched it, I kept thinking it would be a good double bill with "Downfall", the German movie about the last days in Hitler's bunker. Both had that sense of "we're all going to die."

[Borges]

I don't think that's the point of view the film put across. The relationship of those soldiers to their Officers and to their job was copmletely different from the way it's depicted in American war films about Americans.

[MPJackal]

The Japanese were not portrayed as saints. And the Americans weren't portrayed as phonies......... And I don't believe the Americans actually were saints, either.


I was referring to how he portrayed them in Flags of our Fathers. And while I would agree that we had our share of cruel and vicious men, that is a BIG difference from a culture of evil that existed at that time. Same with the Germans. I don't know if it is mob mentality or Satan's influence, but there are times when evil is very powerful and aggressive. And we live in one of those times. Unfortunately we are all to enlightened to recognize it.

[miliantnutcase]

Yeah, there is a lot of similarities to the muslims. Except the majority of the jihadis are cowards opposed to the Japanese military who were filled with blood thirsty psychopaths.
Both used propaganda to whip up the blind followers, although just one had the fighting skills and a formidable military behind it.

[California Patriot]

Any such point of view would definitely be wrong.

Personally, I didn't pick up that sense of "just like us." But I do think it's true that their better features were stressed -- in most, though not all, major characters.

[Enterprise]

At one point, they read a letter from home from the soldier who was captured. It mirrored some of the words of the soldiers who had written to their own homes. A comparison was being made that the Japanese soldiers were like the American soldiers.

[California Patriot]

I agree. Many American soldiers were far from admirable, but this is utterly different from the "culture of evil" that (you rightly say) had a powerful role in the Axis militaries.

I did not see "Flags of Our Fathers" because I figured it might well be unfair to our boys -- our fathers.

[California Patriot]

In this limited respect, though, they may have been very similar.

[Zionist Conspirator]

The liberal attitude towards WWII is downright bizarre. On the one hand, it's the only "good war" because it was against European bigots (and that's apparently all that matters; never mind the mass slaughter--it's the bigotry that had to be punished!). On the other hand, it was just anothr ee-vil white western war against a "quaint" non-western people who simply cannot be judged by western standards. Ain't it awful that the Left of the time didn't realize that the war against Japan was "unjust" and "uncalled for?"

The real reason the libs hate the Nazis is not because of the Holocaust but because they stabbed their good buddies the Commies in the back, after using the security achieved by the Hitler-Stalin Pact to launch the war in the first place. For years and years and years and years we've heard about how the poor Russians bore the brunt of Nazi brutality and did the job while ee-vil racist America was fighting quaint, non-western Japanese. They don't seem to recall how the wonderful, beautiful commies split Poland with the Nazis and used the Pact to conquer the Baltic countries, not to mention wage a war of aggression against Finland. And if Hitler hadn't stabbed Stalin in the back, the Commies would have probably spent the entire war as his allies.

If the atomic bomb had been dropped on Germany, or been dropped by FDR (whom liberals conveniently forget hated the Japanese, just like his cousin Theodore), we wouldn't hear a word about it.

[unkus]

It has been a while since I read the book, but Iwo Jima was the last outlying bastion the Japanese had before the "Home Islands" and it was very important that they hold it. It is spelled out by James Bradley, but I can't remember the details. I do remember the details of what the Japanese did to the poor American Medic they caprured and tortured for 3 days. Sickening, to say the least.

[California Patriot]

I've never heard of "Downfall." Do you recommend it?

[Borges]

That was a terrible scene that should have axed. It's atpyical of the film as a whole though.

[California Patriot]

Yes, I liked "The Great Raid" too. One friend (of our same political views) thought it was awful, but I strongly disagree.

[California Patriot]

I suspect you're right -- few liberals (some, but few) would have complained about use of the A-bomb on Germany. Most are real hypocrites.