This is a bad sign.
Isn't that special?
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.
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.
Et tu, Clint?
"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?
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.
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.'
Hey Clint, do you feel lucky? Do you?
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.
Brokeback Iwo huh? Nice.
The problem is that when you're dealing with people who accept the fact that their lives are meaningless; when you're dealing with a totalitarian mind that sees the opponent as not worth living if he surrenders and who has a racist perception; when this enemy sees his leadership as Godly; when this person grows up in a society that does not have a lot of room for individualism- Well, it'll be curious how Clint try's to give this enemy a "human" twist. But I guess in revisionist and relativistic Hollywood it can all be possible.
A good book to read: Behind Japanese Lines by Ray Hunt.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0813109868/102-7870769-1122514?v=glance&n=283155 Of course this will not be the story that Clint tells. But it gives a little insight as to how the Japanese operated.
"The 30-day battle for Manila had begun.
The devastation that followed was not on the scale of the Rape of Nanking in China. But at least 50,000 Filipinos died, many in acts of deliberate atrocity by the Japanese.
Of the 20 million people living in the Philippines at the start of the war, an estimated 1 million were killed during the Japanese occupation. "
http://www.iht.com/articles/1995/02/03/edwarn.php
I doubt Clint will mention in his movie that what caused most of the Japanese dead in Iwo Jima was their culture of death (not that different from today's muslims) which preferred death to being captured. The crime against humanity that they committed was convincing the local Japanese civilian population that if they were captured by Americans they were going to be tortured, raped, and killed. Thousands of them committed suicide instead. Shame on Clint.
Look.....the US was attacked we DID NOT ATTACK JAPAN!!
In the 'simpler' world that I grew up in that MEANT JAPAN was the BAD GUY and the US was the GOOD guy.
Nationalism and patriotism ASIDE, each country fights to survive.......but to paint the portrait that WAR is NEVER WORTH the suffering on both sides, diminishes both the INTITIAL ATTACK and the SUBSEQUENT victory as so much garbage.
I am so sick of the Politically Correct crap coming out of Hollywood that I could PUKE!!!
So much for the CONSERVATIVE Eastwood.
I don't think a movie from that perspective shows disrespect for the invaders. I look forward to seeing the movie from the US perspective. I likley won't see the other, even if it has sub-titles.
I have read a thing or two about General Kuribayashi, who was the Japanese commanding officer. Anything I have ever read about him suggests that telling the story from his perspective would be a tremendous compliment to the invaders. The way he commanded that battle suggests he certainly respected them.