Letters from Iwo Jima

Directed by the great Clint Eastwood, starring Ken Watanabe, Kazunari Ninomiya, Ryo Kase, Tsuyoshi Ihara and Shidou Nakamura.

A companion piece to Flags of Our Fathers. Told the story of the battle of Iwo Jima, during the WWII. Contrary to Flags, this one is viewed from the Japanese's side. All the cast were Japanese and the language is also Japanese.

You thought Clint's golden days were during the Dollar series, but this certainly proved, again, that's he's still very much 'alive'. I really loved Million Dollar Baby and man, how I love Iwo Jima! It had so much soul, with stellar performances by the cast which was quite a surprise for me. I never had any doubt that Japan has many great actors and Ken Watanabe is, of course, great. But I was so surprised to see Kazunari Ninomiya and Tsuyoshi Ihara. I always saw them in more comical roles and now, they aced it. Especialy Kazunari Ninomiya. The only downside was that his looks didn't really suit the age of his character. But other than that, he delivered a great performance. The story isn't 100% true, parts of it are fictional, including the lead character (Ninomiya). And I really couldn't care less about the historical facts. I mean, if it's a great film, then it's a great film. It's not a documentary anyway. I liked Shimizu's (Ryo Kase) story the best. Brief, yet it got me. The cinematography was beautiful and I just loved the story and how humane each character was. Great film. Way better than Flags.

9 / 10.