The film concerns about General Kuribayashi(Ken Watanabe)who takes command of the troops on the island of Iwo Jima, he's responsible for the defense of the island from the US army , one of the most difficult campaigns of the Pacific theater. While a young soldier named Saigo(Ninomiya) faces the war horror. When the battle starts , both Kuribayashi and Saigo encounter courage, bravery, and honor.The picture is magnificently directed by Clint Eastwood(Flag of our fathers),and his son Kyle Eastwood realized an atmospheric musical score. Appropriate and colorful cinematography by Tom Stern. Spectacular production design by Henry Bumstead in his last film , he usually worked for Alfred Hitchcock and Clint Eastwood. Splendid screenplay by Paul Haggis(also producer along with Steven Spielberg). Rating : Above average, well worth watching.

Adding more details over the largely described on the movie, the events happened of the following manner: Iwo Jima is a tiny island of volcanic rock and black sand. It has no natural water supply and covers just 8 square miles. Its capture was vital to the US war effort , however. It was one of the inner ring of islands protecting mainland Japan. It also lay almost halfway between the Japanese home island and the Marianas which had been occupied by US forces in mid-1944. The island was defended by 21.000 Japanese. The commander , Major General Kuribayashi had worked hard to add to the natural defenses , especially around Mount Suribachi and in the North. He had built one of the most formidable defensive complexes of the war. It had miles of tunnels and trenches , hundred of underground emplacements, antitank ditches and mini-fields. Kuribayashi knew that the garrison had no hope of any outside help and could not withdraw from the island. He ordered his men to fight and die in their trenches. They should kill as many enemy as possible, using the network of tunnels to get destruction squads, joining a squad meant almost certain death. Kuribayashi chose not to oppose the initial landings on the beaches. He would lure the US troops inland into the web of defensive positions in the interior. The US invasion was code-named operation detachment. When US bombers began attacking was bombed every day in what was the longest and heaviest aerial bombardment of the whole Pacific war. The landings involved 800 warships, manned by a total of 220.000 crew. About 110.000 troops were to take part in the initial assault of follow-on landings. The landings themselves were responsibility of three Marine Divisions under the command of Major General Harry Schmidt. US Marines took cover from Japanese fire on a beach of volcanic sand, March 5,1945 and Mount Suribachi rises behind them. The island was declared secure on March 26, the 36 days of fighting had taken a terrible toll on both sides. Some 5.931 Marines had been killed and 17.372 wounded. There were also about 2.800 naval casualties. The precise number of Japanese dead is not known. Only 216 men surrendered during the fighting, although another 900 or so surrendered later. The rest of the 21.000 troops died. The intensity of the fighting for Iwo Jima worried US commanders and politicians. The Japanese had been willing to die almost to a man to protect a tiny part of their homeland. They had inflicted severe losses on the US forces.

It was worth it for producer/director Clint Eastwood to tackle on a second part to his now two-part duo of Iwo Jima movies. With Flags of Our Fathers Eastwood tried for very ambitious ground in covering what it's like for Americans to fight a war worth fighting for but with life's value undermined in the scope of preserving the 'grander' scheme of things like the flag on the mountain. Unfortunately, the screenplay with that film was also muddled and denied Eastwood's usually assured hand as a storyteller and conveyor of proper moods. But with Letters From Iwo Jima, a slightly radical departure from the usual American-directed war picture by showing the action totally from the side of the "other", there's a stronger sense of what it meant for the Japanese to fight this war, and the nature of sacrifice and what it means to oneself in relation to one's society, national pride, and to one's mind-set. And, this time, the screenplay doesn't do TOO MUCH of a jumping-around method with the narrative. It's visceral in scope and personal in tone, and there's always an assured hand in dealing with the performances and characters.

We're also shown, unlike in other war films, how the home-field advantage doesn't always yield positive results. Even though the Japanese had Iwo Jima, and had the capabilities to defend it for a little while, without reinforcements it would be all for not (this is compounded with some of the most tragic irony when towards the end the General Kuribayashi listens to a radio broadcast of children singing a song meant for hope of success in a battle that those on the mainland have already abandoned). No matter what though Kuribayashi believes in his men, no matter how in spots morale is already low when the digging on the beaches begin. Saigo, a lowly peasant, is a part of the fight, and for chunks of the film we see the battle from where he stands, even as he doesn't look on it too optimistically. Plans are made, the General orders for tunnels to be dug in the center of the island against advisement (though under good thought to do so),and then even before the ships and huge fleet of troops land comes the bombs from the air. The desperation, as the battle continues and trudges on, becomes almost too crushing for the weakest of the soldiers, and soon all thoughts of cohesion within the ranks breaks apart.

It's in many of these scenes that Eastwood garners his most dramatically charged moments in either one of the Iwo Jima movies. Maybe it's almost too easy though- when seeing this movie, taking out of context what was shown in 'Flags', one might think that the Americans had the battle on a silver platter. But taken back into context there's a greater sense of loss on the enemy side, not just of life but of what it means to fight for a cause that is never totally explained, to an Emperor practically all of these soldiers wont see or meet, and that to kill oneself is a brave act against the odds. The scene where many soldiers in the cave kill themselves with grenades- and then with two of the soldiers finally deciding that this is insanity and fleeing from the bodies- is very affecting. Then added to this, we see the letters being written, how the humanity of these people can never be denied no matter how hopeless their situation seemed to get. Sometimes we're also provided with flashbacks for some of the characters (some, like a man talking to his unborn child in his wife's womb, are too atypical, but there is one that leaves a very lasting impression involving the murdering of a dog- a scene that left people in the theater gasping even after so much battle carnage already happened).

Though mostly we're stuck in these caves and tunnels with these soldiers- one of the exceptions of this, Shimizu, was in said scene with the dog- there are other small vignettes, like the lieutenant who decides to break away to strap some explosives on himself to blow up an enemy cannon, only to fall asleep, and once awakened forgetting the whole act. And, of course, the ones who could not think of any other way- in fact seeing it treasonous otherwise- than to not sacrifice oneself for the homeland. All the while the acting is always competent, sometimes even ranging into the brilliant, and with Ken Watanabe delivering some of the finest notes of emotion (and also holding back emotion or hiding a real emotion) that I've seen from him thus far. And as far as the technical side, Eastwood and his crew have created an appropriately very dark looking picture, with the color desaturated so as to look like it's not really black and white but as if the life has been sucked out so as to look terminally gray (if that makes sense),with the battle footage somehow even more convincing than in 'Flags'.

So in the end, the two Iwo Jima movies bring up a lot to ponder about what it is to fight in war, what it means to be akin to the varying degrees of nationalism, and how it affects the psyche of people who were plucked from very normal lives into circumstances of perpetual death and, if one lives, the memories. While one doesn't really need the framing of it being 2005 at the end and beginning of the film, there's enough here to mark it as a significant, fascinating achievement for the filmmaker.

The companion film to "Flags of Our Fathers" shows the battle of Iwo Jima from the Japanese point of view. Starting with the building of fortifications, hiding from relentless bombardment, and fending off an equally strong attack as American troops land on the island.

"Letters from Iwo Jima" just like "Flags of Our Fathers" is a first rate war movie with a relevant message with its critical nature. "Flags" showed the selling of war and "Letters" does the same, albeit with a different mind-set. Japan was an empire governed by a monarch back then so the military mentality was quite different, but it is also important to note the similarities. Especially at the base of the social pyramid where it is quite apparent that people are people no matter where you go.

Virtually all of the uber-patriotic tendencies that were rampant in Imperial Japan during WWII were also in Nazi Germany and, as both "Flags" and "Letters" demonstrate in the United States as well. People were used for the purpose of the government and were fed propaganda just the same. Maybe a different in a different form, but in the end it is all the same.

Ken Wantanbe is the film's highlight as a military man torn between his sense of duty and his inner feelings. As commander of the island he sees amongst his men the fanaticism, the pacifism, the "just do our job" crowd, and many other configurations of thought in between and mixed with the others. Even strange that some men initially want to fight and are proud to serve in the military and what's shocking is that some of their wives and mothers believe the same.

That paints a landscape of war as something amidst all of the stereotypes that have been made of it. Since that is where the truth usually lies, amidst all the gray matter. --- 9/10

Rated R: war violence/carnage