Men of Letters

Eastwood film packs a brutal, emotional punch | John Dawson

Letters from Iwo Jima's Golden Globe victory for best foreign language film does not begin to tell how powerful a film director Clint Eastwood has made. Originally set to be the Japanese companion piece to Eastwood's American portrayal of the battle for Iwo Jima (Flags of Our Fathers), Letters easily surpasses Flags in terms of storytelling and emotional depth.

The film (which is in Japanese with English subtitles) primarily follows two heroes: Western-educated Japanese Lt. General Tadamichi Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe), whose real-life letters about the battle help form both a personal and historical perspective, and young baker-turned-soldier Saigo (Kazunari Ninomiya), who tries to keep a promise to return to his wife despite cultural pressures to die fighting or commit suicide.