Review – Letters from Iwo Jima

Here we have the other half of Flags of Our Fathers, the story of the battle for Iwo Jima told from the Japanese perspective. Overall this one’s the better of the two. It’s a straightforward war-is-hell account of the doomed efforts of a small handful of soldiers to defend positions in the face of overwhelming odds. Of course we also get plenty of cliché hapless-soldiers-versus-cruel-officers stuff. But overall this is a reasonably touching production, a nice blend of big budget and personal storytelling. Mildly amusing