Otoko-tachi no Yamato (2005)

The movie follows 3 Japanese friends from embarking on Yamato, the world's largest battleship, until it's sunk 3 1/2 years later on April 7, 1945 on it's way to Okinawa to stop American advance at the end of WWII.

Director:

Jun'ya Satô

Writers:

Jun Henmi (novel), Jun'ya Satô (screenplay)

Stars:

Takashi Sorimachi, Shidô Nakamura, Kyôka Suzuki

6 wins & 7 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Takashi Sorimachi	...	Shohachi Moriwaki
Shidô Nakamura	...	Mamoru Uchida
Kyôka Suzuki	...	Makiko Uchida
Ken'ichi Matsuyama	...	Katsumi Kamio (15 years old)
Yû Aoi	...	Taeko
Dai Watanabe	...	Toshio Date
Kenta Uchino	...	Tetsuya Nishi
Hiromi Sakimoto	...	Sumio Tsuneta
Ryô Hashizume	...	Yoshiharu Kojima
Sôsuke Ikematsu	...	Atsushi (as Sosuke Ikematsu)
Jundai Yamada	...	Masao Karaki
Kazushige Nagashima	...	Usubuchi
Noboru Takachi	...	Kawazoe
Hiroyuki Hirayama	...	Tamaki
Takashi Morimiya	...	Omori

Storyline

On April, 6th 2005, in Makurazi, Kagoshima, Makiko Uchida seeks a boat in the local fishing cooperative to take her to the latitude N30, longitude L128, where the largest, heaviest and most powerfully armed battleships ever constructed Yamato was sunk on April, 7th 1945; however, her request is denied. She meets by chance the captain Katsumi Kamio of the fishing vessel Asukamaru and discloses that she is the stepdaughter of Officer Nagoya Uchida and Kamio immediately accepts to take her in the risky journey. While traveling with Makiko and the fifteen year-old Atsuchi, Kamio recalls and discloses the story of Yamato and his close friends that served on board of the battleship until the final suicidal mission in Okinawa. When they reach the spot where Yamato was sunk, he considers that he finally reached the end of the Showa era.

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Plot Keywords:

japan | japanese history | 1940s | imperial japan | japanese navy | 

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Genres:

Drama | History | War

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Did You Know?

Trivia

Part of the foredeck and port side of the Yamato were reconstructed to full scale for the exterior scenes. As the Japan Building Standards Act interfered with re-creating the ship's entire superstructure, images of a one-tenth scale model of the Yamato at its namesake museum in Kure were used in post-production.

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Goofs

At least one attacking US plane in the film has the fat black and white "three stripe" pattern on the wings and body. While it is an authentic period detail visible on many old images, it wasn't used in the Pacific. Wrong side of the world! The high-visibility black-white pattern was used during the D-Day invasion to make it easier for Allied pilots and antiaircraft crews to avoid firing upon "friendly" aircraft. (The more discreet chevron mark on Coalition vehicles during Gulf War I had a similar purpose.)

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Quotes

Mamoru Uchida: [Kamio tries to get back to his gun as Yamato starts to sink, Uchida stops him] Kamio! Orders are to abandon ship. Get away.
Katsumi Kamio (15 years old): But they're still attacking!
Mamoru Uchida: Forget it. The battle's over.

User Reviews

Good war film that questions the need to fight to the end while paying tribute to fallen comrades

Huge scale tale of the battleship Yamato and its crew. from 1942 to its sinking. Told in flashback as memories are provoked in a survivor by a woman, the daughter of another survivor, wanting to visit the final resting place on the 60th anniversary of its sinking. This is a story of youthful idealism tinged and changed by the course of war and a culture that celebrates death in battle as something glorious. It examines why men fight and what can we hope to get out of war.

This is a very good and moving film. For all of the clichés (is there a well worn plot device it doesn't have?) it does manage to touch the heart and the head. We really do care about the characters we see up on the screen, and what happens to them, death in a foolish adventure, moves us. At the same time we get to see the waste that is war and was the Japanese war effort in the final days of World War Two. Its made clear that the fight to the end mentality leaves no room for tomorrow. Its best expressed in a simple scene on the bridge of the ship. One of the officers is asked to explain the difference between chivalry, the Western code of war, and Bushido, the Japanese code. Bushido, he says is preparing for a death with no reward, Chivalry is trying to live a noble life. Its a difference that all of the men can see but which very few ever get the chance to live by. Even the survivors, the old man essentially telling the story, is haunted by the fact that he lived and everyone else died.As the film asks plainly, if we all die, who's going to be around to take advantage of our sacrifices? Its a question that needs to be asked in this age of suicide bombers. There is a great many other thematic threads running through this film that lift it out of the typical war movie pile.

The cast is top notch. They manage to take what is often a clichéd script and to infuse it with the power of reality. Modern sequences aside, you care for these people and you are moved by what happens to them. The tears that well up in the final modern scenes come from the fact that the cast of the war sections is so good that you carry over the emotion. I wish that the modern sequences had given the actors something to do other than simply push the story into action.

Technically the film is very impressive. The Yamato, is monster of a ship and its plain to see that great care was taken in recreating it. Its a beautiful movie to look at with the entire film having a wonderful sense of place and time. The two battle scenes are graphic in a way that I've never seen in a naval war film (if you don't like blood you may want to look elsewhere.) This is going to be something to rattle the windows with on DVD.

If the film has any real flaw thats its length. The film is about two and a half hours long and to be honest it probably could have been shorter. I was getting fidgety during some of it. Its not that its bad, its just that the films pace allows you too much time to dwell on some of the by the numbers construction of the plot so you just want the film to get to the next bit (what another tearful goodbye?). It doesn't kill the film, it just makes it hard to truly get lost in the story.

If you like war films, or good movies this is one to keep an eye out for. Just be ready to do a little digging since I'm not sure if this is going to get a regular release outside of Asia.

Details

Official Sites:

Official site [Japan]

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Release Date:

17 December 2005 (Japan)

Also Known As:

Otoko-tachi no Yamato

Filming Locations:

Kure, Hiroshima, Japan

Box Office

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$39,287,114

Company Credits

Production Co:

Asahi Shimbun, Chugoku Shimbun, Hiroshima Home TV

Technical Specs

Runtime:

145 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1