I saw this movie in Tokyo in one of the pre-showing events. It is such a huge-theme, carefully constructed movie that needs probably a few more times of viewing to fully digest for me, but my first reaction at the end of the movie was "oh, don't stop, I want to keep watching!"
There are many characters in this movie, each with a complicated background and reasons for his/her own acts. Instead of explaining all of them in detail, the movie uses "flashbacks" to imply these past facts. I enjoyed that method, but that requires a lot of imagination, and some people would never get it. Without the depth of these characters, the movie may look just confusing and/or flat. I read some negative reviews about this movie both by Japanese fans and US media, and I thought many of them stumbled on this point.
The acting of all the actors were excellent, especially the main character Sengoku, played by Hiroyuki Sanada ("The Last Samurai", "The Twilight Samurai"). He made the transition of this middle-aged petty officer into a super hero so convincing. Akira Terao made me cry so much especially at the end. Kiichi Nakai was charmingly scary, Koichi Sato was stylish, and the young Ryo Katsuji was so sharp.
I admit the technique used in this movie is not totally familiar with the US audience, who are used to watch easy-to-digest fast-food Hollywood movies. And I admit I felt some weaknesses myself - special effect was not perfect, some story lines are not convincing enough, especially the reasoning of the "traitors". But I could feel the passion of the people who made this movie, including the people at Japanese Self Defence Forces who gave the full-support to the movie shooting, and from the mid-point of the movie, I kept crying till the end. I was simply enjoying watching each scenes and excellent actors and did not want to stop watching.
I hope it will be available for international fans as well to enjoy. It is the movie for grown-ups.
There are many characters in this movie, each with a complicated background and reasons for his/her own acts. Instead of explaining all of them in detail, the movie uses "flashbacks" to imply these past facts. I enjoyed that method, but that requires a lot of imagination, and some people would never get it. Without the depth of these characters, the movie may look just confusing and/or flat. I read some negative reviews about this movie both by Japanese fans and US media, and I thought many of them stumbled on this point.
The acting of all the actors were excellent, especially the main character Sengoku, played by Hiroyuki Sanada ("The Last Samurai", "The Twilight Samurai"). He made the transition of this middle-aged petty officer into a super hero so convincing. Akira Terao made me cry so much especially at the end. Kiichi Nakai was charmingly scary, Koichi Sato was stylish, and the young Ryo Katsuji was so sharp.
I admit the technique used in this movie is not totally familiar with the US audience, who are used to watch easy-to-digest fast-food Hollywood movies. And I admit I felt some weaknesses myself - special effect was not perfect, some story lines are not convincing enough, especially the reasoning of the "traitors". But I could feel the passion of the people who made this movie, including the people at Japanese Self Defence Forces who gave the full-support to the movie shooting, and from the mid-point of the movie, I kept crying till the end. I was simply enjoying watching each scenes and excellent actors and did not want to stop watching.
I hope it will be available for international fans as well to enjoy. It is the movie for grown-ups.