Letters from Iwo Jima

Concentrating on the battle at Iwo Jima, director Clint Eastwood's film depicts the daily grind and worries of the Japanese soldiers that occupied the island, awaiting an inevitable attack by U.S. forces. We see them digging trenches and constructing tunnels for battle, and, at last, waiting to die even as they extol the nobility of their hopeless cause. General Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe) carries an American Colt .45, which makes him suspect in the eyes of more traditionalist officers, including Admiral Ohsugi (Nobumasa Sakagami). Saigo, a young baker recruited against his will, and the general both write letters home, Saigo to his wife and Kuribayashi to his son Taro. Each, in his own way, understands what's coming, and each embodies a certain nobility that is at once familiar from U.S. war movies and unconventional. They question conventional wisdom and look after their fellows, but neither is inclined to the sort of unquestioning obedience displayed by the fierce Lieutenant Ito (Shido Nakamura), who, unable to convince anyone else to follow him, straps mines to his body and heads off into the night, determined to find an American tank and lie beneath it to blow it up.