Fast-Paised review: 'Letters from Iwo Jima'

Second time's the charm for Clint Eastwood's WWII movies

By Matt Pais

January 11, 2007

With "Flags of Our Fathers," director Clint Eastwood approached WWII's Battle of Iwo Jima from the American perspective. He chronicles the same time from the Japanese perspective in "Letters from Iwo Jima," featuring Ken Watanabe ("Memoirs of a Geisha," "The Last Samurai").

Big question: Is "Letters from Iwo Jima" a better war epic than "Flags"?

Catch it: There's a big space between knowing you have to kill yourself to die with honor and actually doing it, and "Letters from Iwo Jima" humanizes the Japanese soldiers through this incredibly difficult choice. "Flags" improves when paired with "Letters," but the latter stands proud on its own.

Skip it: If you're considering a pretend case of dysentery in order to leave work early. Seriously, those are symptoms you don't even want to fake.

Bottom line: A few characters (including an innocent, good-natured American fighter) seem like examples of soldiers rather than specific men, and Eastwood still hesitates to totally uncover the unspeakable horror of war. But featuring gorgeous photography and a heartbreaking performance by Ryo Kase as a reassigned soldier, "Letters from Iwo Jima" is more affecting than the majority of war films, presenting fighters as scared men with a purpose and letters as love you can hold in your hand.

Bonus: It's great to win an Olympic medal in the sport of horse jumping as Baron Nishi (Tsuyoshi Ihara) does, but you decide if it's a little odd to bring a picture of the horse around with you as if it were a child. Ponies grow up so fast these days

Matt Pais is the metromix movies producer.

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'Letters from Iwo Jima'

Directed by Clint Eastwood; screenplay by Iris Yamashita, based on Tadamichi Kuribayashi's book "Picture Letters from Commander in Chief"; cinematography by Tom Stern; edited by Joel Cox and Gary D. Roach; production design by Henry Bumstead and James J. Murakami; music by Kyle Eastwood and Michael Stevens; produced by Eastwood, Steven Spielberg and Robert Lorenz. A Warner Bros. Pictures release; opens Friday. Running time: 2:21. MPAA rating: R (for graphic war violence).

Gen. Kuribayashi - Ken Watanabe

Saigo - Kazunari Ninomiya

Baron Nishi - Tsuyoshi Ihara

Shimizu - Ryo Kase

Lt. Ito - Shidou Nakamura