Men of the Yamato Review
Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2006 9:50 am
I went and saw the japanese film "Men of the Yamato" (男たちの大和）in OV, and let me tell you, it wasn't bad at all.
WARNING: Spoilers and plot endings follow. This should not dim your enjoyment of the movie should you decide to see it, but I just thought you should know.
First, when I got into the cinema room, I was a little surprised, about 90% of the audience was over 50! Unlike the large grossing american war movies who appeal mostly to the younger audience, this film (despite the best efforts of the director to make it more appealing to the younger crowd), like all japanese war movies before it (few as they are), still caters more to an older audience.
Now, one must know that this is a special movie in that it is the biggest budget japanese film of all time. I didn't have high expectations for the film, expecting it to not be much more than crying over the dead japanese soldiers and trying to justify the japanese point of view in world war two, and subsequently the yasukuni visits, the disputes with the chinese, etc etc. Well, let me tell you it was a lot better than this.
The opening scenes are a little long; they start well, with a narrator telling you when the wreck yamato was found (sometimes in the 1980s), and then showing us very nice footage of the wreck etc. It then shifts to a museum, in the present, and a young woman (who we learn later is the daughter of one of the secondary characters who dies on the yamato)is searching for someone to take her to the place where the yamato sunk. She ends up finding one, an old fisherman, who we learn was an anti-air gunner on the yamato. This old man becomes the main character, and it is mostly through his memories that we see the story unfold. The movie returns several times to the present, but I really found it did little in the way of helping the story along. It breaks the pace of the flick, adds a good 20 minutes to an already very long (almost 3 hours) movie, and mostly just serves to remind us of "why" we should take an interest in these things, because real people did die, because it isn't all just a pretty story for our enjoyment, etc etc. Maybe this was necessary for japanese audiences, but for me, a canadian who does the remembrance day parade every year, it was just added, mostly uninteresting, and most of all LONG fluff.
The real story begins in 1942, just a few months after japanese declared war on America. A young 15 year old fisherman boy from the region of Hiroshima rushes home to happily tell his family(sister and grandmother, father is off to the war) that he is joining the navy, and going as a deckhand on the yamato. The focus then shifts on the newly built Yamato and on the new crew of deckhands that have been selected to man it, all mostly 15 and 16 years old. For 20 or so minutes the movie escorts us around the ship, and shows us the daily life of a sailor on the Yamato (cooking, drilling, judo and kendo training, the bunks, etc etc). This was an extremely enjoyable part of the movie, as we also got to know a few of the secondary characters (there are a lot!) better.
The first battle in which the Yamato took part, midway, is done entirely through historical footage and narration. The pace then accelerates, going through the whole of 1943 in a few minutes, with other historical footage and narration of the death of admiral Yamamto, and a strategic map showing the japanese retreat from the islands of the pacific. The battle of the marianas is pretty much entirely skipped over, even though the yamato took part in it. We then find a few of the deck hands on permission back home, in 1944. The situation at the fisherman home in Hiroshima is deteriorating. The boy's father has since died, and the grandmother and daughter are having problems making ends meet. From there, the boys are told they will be going to fight at leyte.
The battle of leyte is adequately done, and lasts about 7-8 minutes. It shows aircraft swooping down on the yamato, anti air batteries and their gunners frantically unloading round after round into the sky, medics and firemen piling chaotically on the deck... all in all very bloody. Coming back from the battle, the situation in japan is deteriorating even further. From then on the movie is unbelievably sad. The upon returning home, the boy goes praying at the family altar. The sister then comes in crying. We learn that the grandmother has died protecting her during an air raid. She is now going to work in a factory in Hiroshima city.
Okinawa, the main battle of the movie, is very very well done, and preceded by a lot of interesting dialogue between the characters. About 20 minutes long (a tad too long in my opinion), it was one of the hardest battles to watch, mostly because you know they will lose in the end. When compared to an american film in which, through courage, discipline and hard work the GIs overcome, it was hard to watch all this courage and hard work NOT pay off, because they just didn't have the equipment to do it!
The boy ends up surviving (this we know since he is the old man recounting the story), to go home to hiroshima. Ah, thank god, even though we cried a lot, saw ALL of the secondary characters (without exeption) die horribly, the boy survives and will be able to go home to his sister to live a somewhat normal life. Does it end like this? No... this was one of the most shocking parts of the movie for me. Upon coming back home, he finds that an atomic bomb exploded in hiroshima, and his sister is slowly dying of radiation..and ends up dying under his very eyes. my god this was hard to watch. It has really been a long time since any war movie made me cry this much.
Overall:
Soundtrack: The music is exellent, exept for the last song "close your eyes", which is a piece of shit so total it actually hurt my ears listening to it. The japanese singer (named Yamato by the way)'s english pronounication of close your eyes sounds like "crowse your rise" and i couldn't figure out what he was saying until I saw the song title written in the credits. (AAHH!! cLose your eyes!) 8/10
Cinematography: Very good, but the "present" scenes are just a little bland and feel unrefined when compared with the "past" scenes... a little more look at the other ships would have been nice. Most of the shots seem directed TOWARDS the yamato, and very little "from it"... this left me sometimes wondering about the airplanes circling over and around it. A few of the larger CG shots didn't look 100% convincing, but the battles scenes are amazingly intense and bloody, reminiscent of the first 20 minutes of "saving private ryan". 8/10
Script: Amazing. Made me cry in a few places it was so dramatic. Just a little long at points, seems like they could have cut out a good 15-20 minutes (mostly the present scenes) out of the film without hurting it too much. 9/10
Actors: Not the best part of the film. The main actor is good, but some of the secondaries leave just a little to be desired. still, an adequate, if not outstanding, performance. 8/10
Final Opinion: Great film. If you have any interest in another point of view on the war, see this. You won't find much "self-justification" in it, there is only 1 scene about 5 minutes long in this entire movie that i could qualify of "a-historical justification", the rest is caters very very strictly to historical justifications. That is, only 5 minutes of a 3 hour movie... not bad. It has been a long time since a war movie made me cry this much, I usually don't cry at movies. Extremely moving. Defintely a must see, but don't see it without subtitles unless you speak good japanese. the characters mostly come from hiroshima and the surrounding area, and therefore speak a dialect different from the standard "tokyo" japanese, which sometimes made it hard for me to understand what they were saying... need more study!
final: 8.5/10 Go see it. Its long, but it's definitely worth it. Just DON'T listen to the generic music at the end. (crooooowwsse your rrrrriiiiiissssseee[:@])
WARNING: Spoilers and plot endings follow. This should not dim your enjoyment of the movie should you decide to see it, but I just thought you should know.
First, when I got into the cinema room, I was a little surprised, about 90% of the audience was over 50! Unlike the large grossing american war movies who appeal mostly to the younger audience, this film (despite the best efforts of the director to make it more appealing to the younger crowd), like all japanese war movies before it (few as they are), still caters more to an older audience.
Now, one must know that this is a special movie in that it is the biggest budget japanese film of all time. I didn't have high expectations for the film, expecting it to not be much more than crying over the dead japanese soldiers and trying to justify the japanese point of view in world war two, and subsequently the yasukuni visits, the disputes with the chinese, etc etc. Well, let me tell you it was a lot better than this.
The opening scenes are a little long; they start well, with a narrator telling you when the wreck yamato was found (sometimes in the 1980s), and then showing us very nice footage of the wreck etc. It then shifts to a museum, in the present, and a young woman (who we learn later is the daughter of one of the secondary characters who dies on the yamato)is searching for someone to take her to the place where the yamato sunk. She ends up finding one, an old fisherman, who we learn was an anti-air gunner on the yamato. This old man becomes the main character, and it is mostly through his memories that we see the story unfold. The movie returns several times to the present, but I really found it did little in the way of helping the story along. It breaks the pace of the flick, adds a good 20 minutes to an already very long (almost 3 hours) movie, and mostly just serves to remind us of "why" we should take an interest in these things, because real people did die, because it isn't all just a pretty story for our enjoyment, etc etc. Maybe this was necessary for japanese audiences, but for me, a canadian who does the remembrance day parade every year, it was just added, mostly uninteresting, and most of all LONG fluff.
The real story begins in 1942, just a few months after japanese declared war on America. A young 15 year old fisherman boy from the region of Hiroshima rushes home to happily tell his family(sister and grandmother, father is off to the war) that he is joining the navy, and going as a deckhand on the yamato. The focus then shifts on the newly built Yamato and on the new crew of deckhands that have been selected to man it, all mostly 15 and 16 years old. For 20 or so minutes the movie escorts us around the ship, and shows us the daily life of a sailor on the Yamato (cooking, drilling, judo and kendo training, the bunks, etc etc). This was an extremely enjoyable part of the movie, as we also got to know a few of the secondary characters (there are a lot!) better.
The first battle in which the Yamato took part, midway, is done entirely through historical footage and narration. The pace then accelerates, going through the whole of 1943 in a few minutes, with other historical footage and narration of the death of admiral Yamamto, and a strategic map showing the japanese retreat from the islands of the pacific. The battle of the marianas is pretty much entirely skipped over, even though the yamato took part in it. We then find a few of the deck hands on permission back home, in 1944. The situation at the fisherman home in Hiroshima is deteriorating. The boy's father has since died, and the grandmother and daughter are having problems making ends meet. From there, the boys are told they will be going to fight at leyte.
The battle of leyte is adequately done, and lasts about 7-8 minutes. It shows aircraft swooping down on the yamato, anti air batteries and their gunners frantically unloading round after round into the sky, medics and firemen piling chaotically on the deck... all in all very bloody. Coming back from the battle, the situation in japan is deteriorating even further. From then on the movie is unbelievably sad. The upon returning home, the boy goes praying at the family altar. The sister then comes in crying. We learn that the grandmother has died protecting her during an air raid. She is now going to work in a factory in Hiroshima city.
Okinawa, the main battle of the movie, is very very well done, and preceded by a lot of interesting dialogue between the characters. About 20 minutes long (a tad too long in my opinion), it was one of the hardest battles to watch, mostly because you know they will lose in the end. When compared to an american film in which, through courage, discipline and hard work the GIs overcome, it was hard to watch all this courage and hard work NOT pay off, because they just didn't have the equipment to do it!
The boy ends up surviving (this we know since he is the old man recounting the story), to go home to hiroshima. Ah, thank god, even though we cried a lot, saw ALL of the secondary characters (without exeption) die horribly, the boy survives and will be able to go home to his sister to live a somewhat normal life. Does it end like this? No... this was one of the most shocking parts of the movie for me. Upon coming back home, he finds that an atomic bomb exploded in hiroshima, and his sister is slowly dying of radiation..and ends up dying under his very eyes. my god this was hard to watch. It has really been a long time since any war movie made me cry this much.
Overall:
Soundtrack: The music is exellent, exept for the last song "close your eyes", which is a piece of shit so total it actually hurt my ears listening to it. The japanese singer (named Yamato by the way)'s english pronounication of close your eyes sounds like "crowse your rise" and i couldn't figure out what he was saying until I saw the song title written in the credits. (AAHH!! cLose your eyes!) 8/10
Cinematography: Very good, but the "present" scenes are just a little bland and feel unrefined when compared with the "past" scenes... a little more look at the other ships would have been nice. Most of the shots seem directed TOWARDS the yamato, and very little "from it"... this left me sometimes wondering about the airplanes circling over and around it. A few of the larger CG shots didn't look 100% convincing, but the battles scenes are amazingly intense and bloody, reminiscent of the first 20 minutes of "saving private ryan". 8/10
Script: Amazing. Made me cry in a few places it was so dramatic. Just a little long at points, seems like they could have cut out a good 15-20 minutes (mostly the present scenes) out of the film without hurting it too much. 9/10
Actors: Not the best part of the film. The main actor is good, but some of the secondaries leave just a little to be desired. still, an adequate, if not outstanding, performance. 8/10
Final Opinion: Great film. If you have any interest in another point of view on the war, see this. You won't find much "self-justification" in it, there is only 1 scene about 5 minutes long in this entire movie that i could qualify of "a-historical justification", the rest is caters very very strictly to historical justifications. That is, only 5 minutes of a 3 hour movie... not bad. It has been a long time since a war movie made me cry this much, I usually don't cry at movies. Extremely moving. Defintely a must see, but don't see it without subtitles unless you speak good japanese. the characters mostly come from hiroshima and the surrounding area, and therefore speak a dialect different from the standard "tokyo" japanese, which sometimes made it hard for me to understand what they were saying... need more study!
final: 8.5/10 Go see it. Its long, but it's definitely worth it. Just DON'T listen to the generic music at the end. (crooooowwsse your rrrrriiiiiissssseee[:@])