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is Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima the same movie?

Yes - one from Allied side & one from Japanese.

Nope. The first is from the US point of view and deals in large part with the flag raisers--including their stateside bond drives. The latter is an all Japanese cast, showing the fighting from their side. And is the better "war" movie.

Flags of our fathers is more a flash back movie.  The movie it self is about the flag raisers as pointed out above and is told through flash backs of soldiers on the stateside bond drive.   Letters is a telling of the Japanese side and mostly follows a single soldier.  My  view falls in line with Pratzen as letters is the better war movie.

By about 17000 miles.

ORIGINAL: Terminus

By about 17000 miles.

Quite good, and sad imo.

Clint Eastwood made "Letters from Iwo Jima" so to get Japanese Governmental approval to film "Flags of our Fathers" actually on Iwo Jima. From what I have read, he did both films almost back to back in filming so as to save money and use the same extras.

My understanding was that he filmed both movies in Iceland.

Wikipedia says the film was mostly shot in Barstow & Bakersfild CA. There was a one day trip to Iwo Jima for some on location shots. Special permission by the Japanese Government was required.

ORIGINAL: foliveti

My understanding was that he filmed both movies in Iceland.

Letters is very good. Havn't seen Flag......but if it's Clint....it MUST be good. [:)]

Getting permission from the Japanese Government is standard practice for any trip to Iwo Jima. I have a coworker who is doing some post graduate research on Peleliu and one of her trips included a trip to Iwo Jima. She brought back some black sand from the invasion beachs which sits in a glass bottle with two American flags planted in it on my desk at work.