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Eastwood attacks Japan war myths
The Observer (U.K.) ^ | 05/28/06 | Justin McCurry

Posted on 05/27/2006 7:18:26 PM PDT by Pokey78

Two new movies based on a bloody 1945 battle are stirring up memories and forcing both sides to re-examine their history


More than 60 years after it became one of the bloodiest battlefields of the Second World War, Iwo Jima's tragic history retains the power to overwhelm. As his plane prepared to land on the isolated Japanese island last month, the actor Ken Watanabe found he could not hold back the tears. Accompanying Watanabe, who shot to stardom playing a feudal warlord opposite Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai, was another hard man of Hollywood whose time on Iwo Jima would lead to something of a professional epiphany.

When Clint Eastwood's two films about Iwo Jima, one of the darkest periods of the Pacific War, reach cinemas this year, audiences could be excused for forgetting the man behind them was once the trigger-happy Dirty Harry.

The 75-year-old director has promised Flags Of Our Fathers and Red Sun, Black Sand will attempt to show for the first time the suffering of both sides during 36 days of fighting in early 1945 that turned the island into a flattened wasteland.

(Excerpt) Read more at observer.guardian.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Japan; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: fivemarinesonesailor; flagraising; flagsofourfathers; iwojima; marinecorps; marines; mtsuribachi; redsunblacksand; threeflagraisers; usmc; wwii
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1 posted on 05/27/2006 7:18:29 PM PDT by Pokey78
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To: Pokey78

This is a bad sign.


2 posted on 05/27/2006 7:19:53 PM PDT by Petronski (I just love that woman.)
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To: Pokey78

Isn't that special?


3 posted on 05/27/2006 7:22:09 PM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (Freedom or a baloney sandwich? A DemocRAT will ALWAYS choose the baloney sandwich.)
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To: Pokey78

Perhaps we can look forward to seeing a movie about how hard it was on holocaust guards next.

Japan was the agressor nation. If we hadn't stepped in it would have ruled the Asian Pacific. It would have sooner or later turned it strength against our west coast.

I don't give a flying figg about the Japanese hardship on Iwo Jima and it is an embarassment that anyone does.


4 posted on 05/27/2006 7:22:11 PM PDT by DoughtyOne (Hey Senators, what have you done with those Conservatives we sent to Congress? (CyberAnt Inspired))
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To: Pokey78

My Dad was a WW II vet, may the Lord rest his soul. He said a lot of guys in his neighborhood never made it back home. Let's remember the staggering American death rate in WW II and stop trying to be politically correct about this topic. More Americans would have died, out fathers and grandfathers possibly among them, if America hadn't made an all-out effort to defeat Japan's war of aggression.


5 posted on 05/27/2006 7:23:09 PM PDT by Ciexyz (Let us always remember, the Lord is in control.)
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To: Pokey78

Et tu, Clint?


6 posted on 05/27/2006 7:23:11 PM PDT by dfwgator (Florida Gators - 2006 NCAA Men's Basketball Champions)
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To: Petronski

Not necessarily so - I've read some other articles about the film depicting the Japanese as showing very accurately the cruelity and degrading treatment the soldiers endured. I don't see anything wrong with showing what it was like for the Japanese as long as it doesn't try to rewrite Japan's history vis-a-vis WWII in a favorable light.


7 posted on 05/27/2006 7:24:30 PM PDT by Romanov
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To: Pokey78
...that turned the island into a flattened wasteland.

First of all, it didn't. Or at least several years later it wasn't; maybe the mountain regrew before we went there for several FCLP detachments.

Second: Please tell me this isn't going to be some sort of anti-war flick from Eastwood. The battle is legendary. I'd hate to see it become belittled somehow.
8 posted on 05/27/2006 7:24:58 PM PDT by tongue-tied
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To: Pokey78
Based on the 2000 bestselling book of the same name, it focuses on the six US soldiers captured in AP photographer Joe Rosenthal's iconic and controversial photograph, as they raised the Stars and Stripes at the summit of Mt Suribachi.

"Controversial"? What's Controoversial about it? It's one of the most moving photos of all time. Do I give a rat's ass if the agressor nation doesn't like it?

9 posted on 05/27/2006 7:25:10 PM PDT by Graybeard58 (Remember and pray for Sgt. Matt Maupin - MIA/POW- Iraq since 04/09/04)
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To: Petronski
A lot of innocent people get sacrificed. It's not about winning or losing, but mostly about the interrupted lives of young people. These men deserve to be seen, and heard from.'

Wrong, Clint! It is ALL "about winning and losing"!

And, because we won, instead of them, you are free to think such drivel and produce accordingly.

Big time loss of respect here...

10 posted on 05/27/2006 7:25:36 PM PDT by okie01 (The Mainstream Media: IGNORANCE ON PARADE)
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To: DoughtyOne

But we've already had plenty of films showing how "tough it was" on simple German soldiers...


11 posted on 05/27/2006 7:25:42 PM PDT by Romanov
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To: Pokey78

Any rational government in Japan's position would have surrendered after the fall of the Mariannas. You just didn't need to be Albert Einstein to figure it out at that point.


12 posted on 05/27/2006 7:25:59 PM PDT by tomzz
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To: Graybeard58

It's a brit newspaper, so I don't pay such words any attention! They still teach their schoolchildren they "let us have" the "colonies" because we had become a burden to them.... ;)


13 posted on 05/27/2006 7:26:57 PM PDT by Romanov
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To: Pokey78

The Japanese were every bit as genocidal as the Nazis, and were even more brutal and inhuman on the battlefield. It sounds like Eastwood's doing a 'Munich.'


14 posted on 05/27/2006 7:27:18 PM PDT by atomicpossum (Replies must follow approved guidelines or you will be kill-filed without appeal.)
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To: DoughtyOne

"Perhaps we can look forward to seeing a movie about how hard it was on holocaust guards next."

LMAO


15 posted on 05/27/2006 7:27:34 PM PDT by Arpege92 (If you don't stand behind our troops...please feel free to stand in front of them!)
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To: Pokey78

Hey Clint, do you feel lucky? Do you?


16 posted on 05/27/2006 7:28:04 PM PDT by Paleo Conservative
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To: Pokey78
Hey Clint let's remember a few other things like the invasion/annexation of Korea, the invasion of Manchuria, the Rape of Nanjing, Peal Harbor, Singapore, Corregidor, Bataan, the Death March,...yeah we should have sympathy -- NOT!!!
17 posted on 05/27/2006 7:28:51 PM PDT by SandRat (Duty, Honor, Country. What else needs to be said?)
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To: Pokey78

Maybe he has Alzheimer's or something, because this seems very strange coming from him. I was disgusted by his pro-euthanasia position in "Million Dollar Baby" but this is deplorable. We were only fighting Japan because they attacked us.


18 posted on 05/27/2006 7:28:59 PM PDT by wagglebee ("We are ready for the greatest achievements in the history of freedom." -- President Bush, 1/20/05)
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To: Petronski

When there are no more standards or absolutes, the rape of Nanking becomes no different than the bombing of Berlin. That's where this looks like it's heading. Lately, in recent documentaries about that war, I have caught the occasional whiff of relativism - little things that I can't precisely pinpoint but that leave me with a bad taste in my mouth. Sometimes it's nothing more than a tone of voice or the selection of a particular adjective. Some time ago, the Smithsonian got into all kinds of trouble with their display about the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If my memory serves me, they failed to give proper credit to the prevailing wisdom - at the time, and since - that so many lives (Japanese and American) were spared by the forcing of the surrender. The Japanese were prepared to defend the home islands to the last man, woman and child. I think it matters that they started the whole thing. Call me silly ... Makes me want to go back and reread Ernie Pyle's description of London in flames in December of 1940.


19 posted on 05/27/2006 7:30:33 PM PDT by C2ShiningC
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To: Pokey78

Brokeback Iwo huh? Nice.


20 posted on 05/27/2006 7:31:22 PM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (Freedom or a baloney sandwich? A DemocRAT will ALWAYS choose the baloney sandwich.)
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