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

As part of the marketing for the film, Tamiya released special editions of scale models of the battleship in conjunction with the film's release. The company also built a special 1:350 diorama of the Yamato wreck.

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Goofs

Most of the 25mm AA guns do not recoil when fired. Neither do the guns of the 5" batteries

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Quotes

Mamoru Uchida: [Firing an AA gun defiantly as the ship sinks] I'm not done yet! My last throw!

User Reviews

A beautiful movie about an immense unnecessary tragedy

The destruction of the giant battleship by overwhelming Allied air power following the destruction from the air of 3 previous giant Axis battleships (Bismarck, Musashi and Tirpitz) was a gigantic tragedy of common enlisted soldiers defending their "fatherland".

The mission accomplished nothing but another one-sided slaughter of "obedient soldiers". This is the real tragedy of men educated for obedience. Germans and Japanese alike.

And they were killed with millions against overwhelming (and technically also superior) powers by an opportunistic and docile dictatorship, leaving behind millions of sorrowing wives and children which never saw much of their fathers.

Otoko-tachi no Yamato shows us the common Japanese soldiers as human beings. No propaganda at all, unlike so many US war movies.

Its counterpart was the German movie "Das Boot". The difference is that in Germany the process of showing World War II as it was started earlier than in Japan. Even the horrendous loss of the Wilhelm Gustloff (10.000 dead)has been shown in a movie on the German television recently. In Japan the horrors of WWII finally are being shown to the public. While Germany feels "very guilty" for many decades, this process in Japan not really has been started yet.

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