Letters from Iwo Jima (2007)

Director: Clint Eastwood (Unforgiven, Flags of our Fathers)
Stars: Ken Watanabe (Batman Begins, Memoirs of a Geisha)
Some Japanese people you've never heard of
YesNoSoso: 2

The companion piece to Letters from Iwo Jima, Flags of our Fathers, was a steaming pile of boring shit so I was less than optimistic about this one. But it was actually quite good. Perhaps it was the mere fact that it offered a stark departure from the classic (and vastly overdone) WWII film in that it was told from the perspective of the Japanese soldiers. Clint provides some very in depth character development (par for the course) all while doing (almost) the entire movie in Japanese with English subtitles. After seeing this and Apocalypto I actually considered that maybe it is easier to develop in-depth characters in a language other than the viewers native tongue. Then I realized that was a stupid theory. I think these movies stand out and seem like they have such amazing characters because they are developed DESPITE being in a foreign language. Like someone who can juggle knives is pretty impressive, but if you can juggle knives while riding a unicycle that's something special. Also there's a Lion.
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