8 | / 10 |
Users | 4.3 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.2 |
The story of the battle of Iwo Jima between the U.S. and Japan during World War II, as told from the perspective of the Japanese who fought it.
Starring: Ken Watanabe, Kazunari Ninomiya, Tsuyoshi Ihara, Ryō Kase, Shidō NakamuraDrama | 100% |
War | 74% |
History | 67% |
Epic | 59% |
Foreign | Insignificant |
Video codec: VC-1
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Japanese: Dolby TrueHD 5.1
Japanese: Dolby Digital 5.1
English, English SDH, French, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Clint Eastwood's Japanese perspective of the battle of Iwo Jima is like a cloud. In shifting shades of foreboding and despondence, the film delivers an account of events with the action of a war epic, the detail of a documentary and the emotional impact of a drama. Collectively, the experience of the Japanese troops takes on many forms. Some characters, including the leader, Lt. General Tadamichi Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe), are too complex to pin down firmly. Others, like the bumbling Saigo (Kazunari Ninomiya), are motivated only to return to their family and care nothing for the war or their superiors. From idealistic honor to bitter defeat to heartbroken fatalism, the spirit of the soldiers is given life decades after the war from the words they wrote on Iwo Jima. Using the troops' handwritten letters as a vehicle for his film, Eastwood attempts to focus his lens on the humanity of a battle that was inhuman.
General Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe), whose charter was to defend Iwo Jima against American forces, finds himself facing a superior military.
Warner's BD-50 features a VC-1 codec and an aspect ratio of 2.4:1. Eastwood
opted for a more subdued look for the film, toning down vibrant colors for a
homogenous feel common to several recent war movies that make use of
computer-generated images, including Flags of Our Fathers. Very few scenes
in either movie included digital images--the landing of U.S. forces on the
island being one notable exception. That scene is dramatic in demonstrating
the scale of the assault, with dozens of battleships offshore and amphibious
assault vehicles coming onshore. The resolution was not only impressive but
absolutely essential in showing the invasion in this brief scene. It harkens
back to the much longer, famous scene in Saving Private Ryan, when U.S.
forces stormed Omaha Beach. Indeed, the film treatment was similar and not
surprisingly Steven Spielberg coproduced the film with Eastwood. NTSC could
simply not resolve the individual U.S. soldierss invading the beach of Iwo
Jima from the camera's vantage point.
Contrast and black level are excellent, and the detail adds to the stark
realism of the production. Much of the action takes place at night and in
dimly lit caves dug into the volcanic rock of Iwo Jima. I noticed no
pixelation or artifacts in black areas of the screen and overall the picture
was remarkably "undigital", as if coming from a projector. During one
of the
most haunting scenes in the film, as Saigo defies the general's orders and
buries the letters rather than burns them, watch the detail and crisp
accuracy of the picture as it ranges from shadow to light--even smoke is
resolved with stunning clarity. The resolution lends itself to microdetail
and Eastwood's characters and landscapes deliver an endless supply of
interesting visual cues. However, if you are looking for reference-quality
vibrance, depth and realism, Letters from Iwo Jima falls short.
With no LPCM track, the film falls short of audio reference quality as well. The Dolby TrueHD Japanese 5.1 delivers convincing, detailed vocals, explosions, small arms sounds and plane engine roar, but lacks that open, ultrarealistic soundstage audiophiles crave. With no English track, the subtitles become especially important, but it is instructive to hear the officers' commands and dialog in Japanese, and the chants of "banzai, banzai, banzai". The audio engineering makes excellent use of surrounds and LFE content.
The special features included on the BD-50 are very impressive. Red Sun Black Sand is a making-of documentary that, like all the supplementary content, also appears on the DVD version. Here it is upgraded to high definition and proves a worthy companion to the film, with important interviews and behind-the-scenes footage. Next is a featurette on the cast, entitled "The Faces of Combat". Rounding out the content is a collection of photographs, the November 2006 world premiere coverage at Budo-kan in Tokyo and the corresponding press conference, as well as a theatrical trailer.
The emotional power of Letters from Iwo Jima lies in its underlying message that Japanese
soldiers and American soldiers were cut from the same cloth. When the Japanese forces take a
wounded American prisoner, a letter from his mother is found in his pocket. General Kuribayashi
translates the letter into Japanese as he reads it aloud to his men. In a moment of disarming
honesty, one of the Japanese soldiers who previously demonized the Americans confides in Saigo
that this letter is exactly what any of their mothers would write. The general even uses the
words of the concerned American mother in guiding his troops near the end.
When the letters of the Japanese troops are finally discovered and dug up by analysts studying
the battle site, we hear a flood of voices earnestly reading the words. The sound of all the
messages merging is overwhelming and Eastwood wants us to realize that each of the men who
died defending Iwo Jima for Japan had a story and a family back home, just like the U.S. soldiers.
The danger of this type of emotional message is the same danger Hollywood runs into whenever
it shows the human side of inhuman battles and forces. Japan committed war crimes so horrific,
China and the Philippines have yet to fully recover. It was in the shadow of this violence that
America made the difficult decision to force Japan to surrender by using atomic bombs.
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