The story said that the man pulled his body away from the window to show an armless sleeve. Both films are provocative and eminently serious, and their challenge doubles when they are viewed side-by-side. Kuribayashi was placed in charge of Iwo Jima’s defenses in the summer of 1944. Exhausted and demoralized, Saigo is picked up by Marines but, outraged when one soldier takes the Colt 45 as a souvenir, is knocked out before being taken to a medical unit. As it happens, moreover, both can be paired with intimate and accessible books. Eastwood also directed and co-produced a 2006 film about the battle of Iwo Jima from the Japanese perspective, Letters from Iwo Jima, based on the books Picture Letters from the Commander in Chief by General Tadamichi Kuribayashi and So Sad to Fall in Battle: An Account of War by Kumio Kakehashi. Letters From Iwo Jima Philip French: Eastwood's pictures of the 1945 battle for Iwo Jima are masterpieces of humanist cinema, forming a magnificent diptych. Therefore the Imperial Japanese Army is desperate to prevent it from falling into American hands and providing a launching point for an invasion of Japan. Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) Plot Summary (2) The story of the battle of Iwo Jima between the United States and Imperial Japan during World War II, as told from the perspective of the Japanese who fought it. Tags: Battle Iwo Jima Summary Iwo Jima Analysis Japan United States The companion film Letters from Iwo Jima was released in Japan on December 9, 2006, and in the United States on December 20, 2006, two months after the release of Flags of Our Fathers on October 20, 2006. The island of Iwo Jima stands between the American military force and the home islands of Japan. Letters from Iwo Jima. Eastwood’s Letters from Iwo Jima: Remarkable, in many ways. Therefore the Imperial Japanese Army is desperate to prevent it from falling into American hands and providing a launching point for an invasion of Japan. The island of Iwo Jima stands between the American military force and the home islands of Japan. Battle of Iwo Jima (February 19–March 16, 1945), World War II battle fought between the United States and Japan over a strategically important island some 760 miles (1,220 km) south of Tokyo. Edit Report This. At the heart of this story is the maverick general Tadamichi Kuriyabashi, devoted family man, brilliant leader and the first man on the island to know they were all going to die. Throughout the film we hear passages from letters written by Lt. General Tadamichi Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe), as well as a more humble soldier, the baker Saigo (Kazunari Ninomiya). Clint Eastwood's companion piece to Flags of Our Fathers.. After Flags of Our Fathers underperformed at the box office, Paramount Pictures swapped the United States distribution rights to Warner Bros., who had the international rights. Because of the brutality of the fighting, and the fact that the battle occurred fairly close to the end of World War II, Iwo Jima – and those who lost their lives trying to capture the island – retain a great deal of significance even today, decades after the fighting stopped. Her explanation was that she would not sit beside a draft dodger who was a Negro as well. Daring and significant, it presents a picture from life's other side, not only showing what wartime was like for our Japanese adversaries on that island in the Pacific but also actually telling the story in … In his sequel, Letters from Iwo Jima, Eastwood took on the remarkable challenge of seeing the same battle through imagined Japanese eyes. Actors: Ken Watanabe. Though Lt. Gen. Tadamichi Kuribayashi knows he and his men have virtually no chance of survival, he uses his extraordinary military skills to hold off the Americans as long as possible. Sequel to Flags of Our Fathers, which was also directed by Clint Eastwood, providing a Perspective Flip to Imperial Japan, the antagonists of the first film. "Summary Sixty-one years ago, US and Japanese armies met on Iwo Jima. Letters From Iwo Jima, takes audiences to a place that would seem unimaginable for an American director. The Americans won the battle of Iwo Jima at the cost of 6000 dead and 17 000 wounded. Letters from Iwo Jima Movie Review Summary. Letters from Iwo Jima. Letters from Iwo Jima, however, sticks mostly and grimly to the action on the island itself, pictured in a grainy near-monochrome, supposedly summoned up from a cache of troops' poignantly unsent letters unearthed there by 21st-century researchers many years later.