I was down in LA last weekend and got a chance to see Letters from Iwo Jima and I gotta say it is one of the best movies I've ever seen and my pick to win best picture- I never saw Flags of Our Fathers but from what I've read Letters is said to be far better. The wide release is in January but if anyone has seen it or plans to see it, feel free to comment

I've heard great things about this but like every other movie I want to see, it's not playing in my area.

Read the book...you might like it more...or less...but check it out

I was surprised. MDB and Mystic River drove home that Clint Eastwood was an overrated director - but this film was extremely well executed, his techniques were unobtrusive (except the framing device and the awful title font - Sand), and the performances were heartbreaking. This is simply an excellent film. The best of the past year, along with Children of Men and Miami Vice.

I also came away with a very positive impression of this film, and was genuinely moved by it. (By the way I live in Japan.) Interestingly though, I was talking to a couple of ADs who work at Shochiku pictures about it, and they seemed to dislike it. They said that the acting outside of the main cast was horrible (actually I noticed this too, though it didn't bother me too much), and that those actors were probably hired locally in the U.S. They also pointed out historical mistakes and oversights in the wording of some of the dialogue, the form of the writing, and some of the props. These guys do most of their work on period dramas, so they have an incredible attention to detail when it comes to such affairs. That said, while I was made aware of some of it's flaws, I still enjoyed the film overall. When the main character turns and looks at the sunset at the end of the film; well, that really got me. Not as a critic or filmmaker, but as a member of the audience – that's just how some movies should be seen.

I'm pretty well-versed on the specifics of period uniforms and props, and everything looked spot-on to me.

The local US actors were seemingly used only for extras or stunt doubles. I heard none of them speak, anyway.

The dialogue seemed pretty close to me as well, based on a comparison to well-regarded and accurate war films from the 1950s and 70s (Ningen no joken, Nobi, Under the Flag of the Rising Sun).

I do concede that the patterning of the narrative was in the classical Hollywood tradition and certainly not the approach a director like Ichikawa Kon or Kobayashi Masaki would have used.

However, the remove from the subject matter inflected the American flashback scenes and the constant peripheral 'Americanness' surrounding Baron Nishi and Kuribayashi made the scene with the wounded American much more powerful. It's ultimately quite difficult for either industry to approach WWII without the product clearly coming from their side.

Some of the specific parts they mentioned included the flashback scene where the main character receives the letter informing him he has been chosen to serve in the imperial army – the woman with that banner-thingy slung around her shoulder overacted, and the lettering on the banner-thingy was incorrect for the time; so all their complaints were pretty nit-picky things. Mind you these ADs are the kind of people who consider things like which hand a samurai should hold a lantern in (the correct answer is his draw hand, since he needs to use his other to grip the scabbard before he pull the katana out). I agree that there was a great effort to be as accurate as possible, and for the most part, they did great job of it. And yes, it does have a American feel... I haven't been able to pinpoint what exactly in the film gives me this impression.

By the way, anybody, would this film be considered a US film or a foreign film in the Oscars?

I still think that Clint Eastwood's best is The Unforgiven though.

The Oscar category is "foreign-language film," not "foreign film," so it would fall under that. Stupid, huh?

That is weird. I wish the oscars had a wider section for foreign-language films too – not just 'best', but like one for all the categories –directing, acting, score, SFX – that the American films are considered for, though I suppose that isn't really the point for the Academy awards...