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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| Battleship epic reignites anger over Japan's wartime excesses |
| 2005-12-16 |
| A major Japanese film about the dramatic sinking of a battleship in the second world war has provoked anger among Japan's former enemies because of its sympathetic portrayal of the ship's crew. Yamato: The Last Battle, which is expected to pack cinemas across Japan when it goes on general release next weekend, tells the story of the biggest battleship ever built, which was sunk by the Americans in 1945 with the loss of all but 300 of its 3,000 crew, most of whom were teenagers. More than 260 metres long and weighing 64,000 tonnes, the Yamato was commissioned days after Japan attacked Pearl Harbour. It was equipped with a formidable array of weapons and was touted as imperial Japan's saviour in the face of the allied onslaught in the final months of the war. When it left port for the last time on April 6 1945, its brief was to destroy the American forces off Okinawa and prevent an invasion of mainland Japan. But the Yamato never got near its target. By this stage, Japan's leaders knew the war was all but lost. The vessel even left port without enough fuel for the return trip. Soon after being spotted by US submarines south of the Japanese mainland, it came under ferocious attack by 390 US planes. Within a few hours it listed, exploded and sank off the coast of Kyushu in southwest Japan. The ship and its hapless final hours have a certain resonance in the Japanese national psyche. For some that final mission was the epitome of youthful sacrifice, while others viewed it as an act of unforgivable folly by a leadership that already knew the war was lost. But elsewhere in Asia the $25m film risks evoking bitter memories of the war and accusations that Japan refuses to recognise the costs of its wartime experiment with ultra-nationalism. The film, one of the most expensive in Japanese cinematic history, barely mentions the origins of the war or the events leading up to the ship's doomed final mission. The makers of the film make no apologies for their positive portrayal of the crew, whom producer Haruki Kadokawa calls the war's "nameless victims". The director, Junya Sato, urged people outside Japan not to confuse sympathy for the Yamato's crew with support for Japan's wartime policies. "[They should] focus on the thinking of the time and show that those who take power through force will lose it in the same way, that these were young and innocent people sent to their deaths, and that it is clear those who bore the responsibility for that were the political leaders," he said. Mr Kadokawa said he was aware that the film had sparked anger in China even before its release. "[There were] even erroneous reports that we were actually building a full-size, real Yamato," he said. "I feel very strongly that the anti-Japanese demonstrators were acting without knowing about Japan and it was the result of government propaganda." He said he hoped that when Chinese and Korean viewers watched the film they would better understand Japanese culture. "My message is about people's courage to live, and I want people to start thinking again about how to live with self-awareness and pride as Japanese," he said. "We don't label it an anti-war film, but the message is very clear. We are depicting the events of 60 years ago to get across the idea that we never want to go to war again." The film is expected to be a massive box-office hit in Japan. About 400,000 people have already visited a scale replica of the ship's deck that was used for filming, and Kadokawa says he believes as many as 10 million people will go to see it. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #26 Oops. I was writing from work. |
| Posted by: Eric Jablow 2005-12-16 17:45 |
| #25 Breaking news. Here is the ultra-secret scenario for "Yamato, the last battle". A girl has enlisted in the Navy in order to follow her lover. They are assigned to the Yamato. Thie ship is sent in a desperate mission to Okinawan waters, she fends off the attacks of a gazillion American planes, then the two lovers have a scene where they "play plane" at the bow of Yamato. But in his eagerness to bring to the emperor news of the great Japanese victory, Yamato's captain sets the Yamato at full speed and the ship sinks after hitting an iceberg. |
| Posted by: JFM 2005-12-16 16:03 |
| #24 Or, Dude, you only thought you were playing Chicago Rules. |
| Posted by: Matt 2005-12-16 15:28 |
| #23 Penguin's right about Last Stand. One of the small episodes in the book tells how, in an earlier shore bombardment mission, one of the tin cans killed a sword-waving Japanese officer with a shot from a 5-inch piece of naval artillery aimed at the officer individually. The American Way of War. |
| Posted by: Matt 2005-12-16 15:20 |
| #22 Eric is referring to Hornfischer's book The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors Which is one of the best books about the naval war in the Pacific. It would make a great present for any Rantburger. As far as a movie, it would have to cover both the battle and the tragedy of the American crews waiting to be rescued as they floated in rafts and life jackets for days in the ocean. |
| Posted by: Penguin 2005-12-16 13:22 |
| #21 Patrick, The Battle off Samar would make for a great movie too. Somebody should film Hornsberger's book. Imagine the scene on the sinking Samuel Roberts with the dying Paul Henry Carr begging for help to fire the last shell from his wrecked gun… |
| Posted by: Eric Jablow 2005-12-16 12:52 |
| #20 Somebody let Kadokawa out of jail? He was doing time for trying to smuggle nose-candy through a Japanese airport last time I checked. He used to be a semi-decent anime producer - specialized in hour-long films based on popular fantasy novels or manga & aimed almost exclusively at the actual fans of those original works - the movies themselves were mildly indescipherable to the casual viewer who hadn't read the novels or comics in question. Very, very pretty movies, though. Full of aesthetic merit. And I've seen about all I'd ever care to see about the sodding Yamato and its famous suicide run. Wonder if Kadokawa's finances are being floated by right-wing political money these days, instead of petty coke deals? |
| Posted by: Mitch H. 2005-12-16 11:20 |
| #19 The ship still sinks at the end, right? Yes, after hitting an iceberg. |
| Posted by: JFM 2005-12-16 11:00 |
| #18 When you get down to it, the combat record of the 'Yamato' is a joke. My personal favorite is the way it contributed almost nothing to the Battle of Samar Island -- the 'Yamato' ran from a spread of torpedoes launched from an American destroyer and that essentially took it out of the fight. |
| Posted by: Patrick Phillips 2005-12-16 09:47 |
| #17 At least they didn't rewrite history and have Godzilla awaken due to global warming spawned earthquakes and sink the ship. |
| Posted by: BrerRabbit 2005-12-16 09:42 |
| #16 Japan and China are similar in many regards. They don't have a problem with war. They just hate losing. You won't find any Chinese critiques of its imperial wars - they were all fought in China's defense. Japan's the same way - there's no real critique of 1895 as this land grab of Korea and Taiwan. Meanwhile, stateside, we have guys slamming the whole idea of a European presence in North America, Manifest Destiny, the war with Mexico, the war with the Spanish empire, etc. Even the most unreconstructed conservative American accepts that what we carried out were land grabs. The Japanese and the Chinese just gloss over it altogether. To them, winning isn't everything, it's the only thing. With the Chinese, it's worse - a peace treaty at the end of hostilities is just like a Muslim hudna (a ceasefire) to them - their term is "unequal treaty". This means that they reserve the right to reverse the defeat at some later time, even though the original peace treaty involved foreign concessions in that China's opponent agreed not to make further inroads into Chinese territory. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2005-12-16 08:53 |
| #15 I'll wait till I see it. Yhen I'll judge. |
| Posted by: Deacon Blues 2005-12-16 08:05 |
| #14 A repost without the typos Another important point is that this is not really an anti-war movie. Those types of movies usually highlight good men on both sides of the conflict Yeah, I remind a movie whose title I don't remember but it starred Robert Mitchum and was made in the sixties (that detail has its importance). It depicts a regiment of Rangers being ambushed and anihilated in the weeks before the taking of Rome. At the end of it, Mitchum and another soldier chat about "men who are sent to war and why? For no special reasons". Of course, last time it came on TV the French |
| Posted by: JFM 2005-12-16 07:49 |
| #13 Another important point is that this is not really an anti-war movie. Those types of movies usually highlight good men on both sides of the conflict Yeah, I remind a movie whose time I don't remember but who starred Robert Mitchum and was made in the sixties (that detail has its importance). It depicts a regiment of Rangers being ambushed and anihilated in the weeks before the taking of Rome. At the end of it, Mitchum and another soldier chat about "men who are sent to war and why? Fotr no special reasons". Of course, last time it came on TV the French the |
| Posted by: JFM 2005-12-16 07:29 |
| #12 Note: When I said that the Japanese didn't fel defeated after Midway I should have said "at junior officer level" meaning that the importance of carriers had still not wholly impregnated the IJN. It is evident that Yamamoto did feel defeated since he withdrew but it is not less evident that if he had really grasped the importance of carriers and that their fate would determine the outcome of the action and perhaps of the war then he would have sailed on the Akagi or the Hyriu instead of on the Yamato. |
| Posted by: JFM 2005-12-16 07:09 |
| #11 First point:I enjoyed the movie"Sink the Bismark"can't see why this couldn't be a good movie too. 2nd,Leading up-to and during WW2 there were Battleship Warriors who couldn't come to grips with the idea that Battleships were no longer King. |
| Posted by: raptor 2005-12-16 06:29 |
| #10 Another important point is that this is not really an anti-war movie. Those types of movies usually highlight good men on both sides of the conflict and depicts what is felt to be the squandering of their lives in senseless conflict. My impression is that this movie will say that the war was bad because Japan lost, and thus wasted the lives of its young men. The moral here seems not to be that war is bad, but that it is bad when Japan loses. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2005-12-16 05:37 |
| #9 JFM: It looks like after entering the war the Japanese industry became pathetically unefficient in about every area: merchant ships, war ships or planes. Even if we account for Japan's problems into shipping raw materials from Indonesia or China to Japan it still looks Japan was not efficient. I think that's still true today - at the strategic level, Japan is still inefficient, which is why it has not been able to overtake the US at the GDP per capita level. Japan has a lot of fine companies in individual industries, but at the level of strategy that makes up comprehensive national strength, they're just not there yet. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2005-12-16 05:33 |
| #8 JFM: Hum the Yamato transported Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto during the battle of Midway. You're right - I misread the passage. I thought the movie was referring to the Musashi, which was launched against the USN before its armor was ready, and sunk by a sub. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2005-12-16 05:28 |
| #7 Almost four years to build a ship, and they were the ones who kicked off the war. Hum the Yamato transported Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto during the battle of Midway. The significative fact is that during the war Japan was only able to launch a battleship (Musashi, Yamato's ssiter ship) and a couple major carriers. It looks like after entering the war the Japanese industry became pathetically unefficient in about every area: merchant ships, war ships or planes. Even if we account for Japan's problems into shipping raw materials from Indonesia or China to Japan it still looks Japan was not efficient. BTW: it should have been clear that battleships were no longer the capital ship and that what was needed was carriers, carriers, carriers and the planes to equip them. Not Yamatos or Musashis. But apparently the Japanese were very slow to unsdertand that it was the carrier who was now important. Look at Midway: Yamamoto is on a battleship at hundreds of miles of his carriers and keeping radio silence so he is completely unable to help, lead or even advise Nagumo. And I once saw an interview of a Japanese survivor: the Japanse didn't feel defeated. When we think about it: they only lost four "unimportant" ships and not a single battleship. |
| Posted by: JFM 2005-12-16 05:05 |
| #6 The Japanese love any story about people sacrificing themselves for the group. They especially love the Yamato. They made a cartoon show about some people who dredge up the Yamato, buff it out, and make it into a spaceship(wtf?). I don't get it, either. I'm glad that the Yamato met such an inglorious end, otherwise we'd never hear the end of it. |
| Posted by: gromky 2005-12-16 05:00 |
| #5 Article: More than 260 metres long and weighing 64,000 tonnes, the Yamato was commissioned days after Japan attacked Pearl Harbour. Almost four years to build a ship, and they were the ones who kicked off the war. Rummy was right - you go to war with the military you have, not the one you would like to have. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2005-12-16 03:58 |
| #4 I believe one sailor's comment in the movie amount to "Postwar Japan's prosperity is predicated on us getting pwn'ed." Paraphrased, of course, but seriously. |
| Posted by: Edward Yee 2005-12-16 03:56 |
| #3 I'd rather see a movie on the sinking of the Shinano. Much more entertaining cat-and mouse game between Shinano, her three escorts and the USS Archer-Fish. Great read by the Archer-Fish CO, Enright. |
| Posted by: Rory B. Bellows 2005-12-16 03:17 |
| #2 Well sort of, they secretly convert the ruin of the Japanese battleship Yamato into a massive spaceship, complete with a new, incredibly powerful weapon called the "wave motion gun". |
| Posted by: Grinesing Slererong3182 2005-12-16 01:41 |
| #1 The ship still sinks at the end, right? |
| Posted by: JAB 2005-12-16 00:12 |