Philip Mackenzie I bought this film not knowing anything about the history of the Japanese battleship Yamato, The film portrays the Japanese as proud young men with the same fears and trepidations of any nation involved in warfare , It is probably the propaganda of the Hollywood type films always showing the Japanese as warmongering warriors with only one thing on their minds that is to destroy the enemy at all costs in the name of the Emperor, This film deals with a lot of issues on different levels and I think with a bigger budget could have become a war classic, In my eyes the battleship represents Japan with its great industrial and military capability In the beginning the crew feeling like they are invulnerable to attack and so exude a great confidence in their vessel However as the Americans get nearer, their superior air power proves to the crew that they are now facing their own mortality and just like Japan itself looking at the jaws if defeat. The film also deals with the issue of Kamikaze and what the reality of these decisions meant for the crew who yet again actually protest rather than blindly following the orders from their superiors,I see in the Yamato apparently the biggest warship ever built a relic of naval strategy .Sure it must have been a terrifying sight when at sea but it had been superseded by the Aircraft Carriers .The ship needed to have air support to properly defend itself against these new vessels.Yet again just like Japan it was falling behind and was a monument of the past and so paid the ultimate price.to the superpower that America with its overwhelming technological superiority had become The film also deals with the human side of things and becomes very emotional ,how do you explain to a mother that her son died an honourable death ,in her eyes her son is dead that is all that matters to her I do not want to spoil the film but if like me you like the War genre type of film then this should definitely be on your list,

paso-leati I finished watching this film just a few hours ago and decided to take a look what does the IMDb say about the film. Some commentators have claimed that the film has little to offer for non-Japanese viewers. I have to disagree for at least I, a Finn, found the film very close to my heart. Perhaps the fact that both Finns and Japanese have always been forced to fight enemies much larger than our own nations have given us similar courage to fight in spite of all odds. The sailors on Yamato and their calm courage before and during the battle reminds me of our own warriors waiting for another mass attack by Bolsheviks intent on wiping out my nation.What took me by surprise is the outright arrogance of some reviewers when issuing moral judgments from a very shaky ground. After all, should a representative on Communist China really condemn Japanese atrocities and dictatorship when his own regime killed over 50 million of its own citizens? Or how short a memory do those Americans have who are ready to condemn Japan for activity that pales in comparison with the ruthless genocide of American Indians? Or representatives of those European countries who practiced very brutal colonialism for many centuries.As for the film itself, the effects are not particularly great. As is quite typical of CGI, attacking enemy aircraft are unrealistically agile in their movements. But, music was excellent, as was acting. And a big bonus for not succumbing to the political correctness and victors' arrogant brainwashing re-educational propaganda that ruins e.g. modern German war films in particular and historiography in general and which is unfortunately present on so many other reviews.

Mark I guess the ambition of this film is to show the personal drama taking place alongside the big drama of the last ditch demise of the great "Yamato", and from this point of view the film performs well but expectable. There is the tragedy of young lives being lost for a lost cause, the psychological wounds of the survivors that never heals. There's also the mandatory journey to the spot of the disaster made on an anniversary by one of the survivors and a daughter to another, maybe inspired by J. Cameron's "Titanic". Factually, though, the film is a failure. It would of course be impossible to make a replica of the ship, so it has been recreated digitally, and to excellent effect in the few scenes you actually view the whole ship, or most of it, making its way through the seas. Those moments alone are worth the price of the ticket. But the budget didn't cover much more than that. The mock-up of certain parts of the ship look just like mock-up, we don't even get to know about one light cruiser and several destroyers that followed "Yamato" to disaster (most of them were also sunk) and we don't see one single US ship (aircraft from at least 12 American aircraft carriers participated in fending off the Japanese). What's worse, we are not told how the battle developed or what tactics were used by the Japanese task force nor by the US air squadrons. The great battleship was eventually sunk after being hit by many torpedoes and several big, armor-piercing bombs, but most of what we see is low flying US aircraft strafing the crew and hitting the decks with small caliber ordnance, causing incredible carnage. The strafing did take place on several occasions during the day, the ship was also hit by small rockets from F4U Corsair fighters, but it all had marginal effect. The huge 456 mm guns are seen firing away towards the approaching aircraft, and while this in fact did happen, one couldn't stay exposed on deck, as the enormous blast would probably kill or at least severely injure you, so crew were forbidden on the outside on such occasions. All in all, the never-ending screams of dying seamen don't make up for the lack of most of other angles of this last major battle of WWII. All in all, some 3000 Japanese lives were lost on the "Yamato" alone, plus more than a thousand more on the accompanying ships, without disturbing the US Okinawa operations in any way. Some figures are mentioned in the film but the tragedy of this sacrifice in not fully pointed out. During the day the US lost 12 airmen and 10 airplanes.

shusei I will write this review as a researcher of film culture(mainly, Russian, but not only). Apparently,this film is made as a "War Anniversary film". At the same time, it is made as a blockbuster,by which the company TOEI intended to redeem its status of Japanese Major film company(2500 million yen is not at all a normal budget for contemporary Japanese cinema.Kurosawa's "Ran" was made with almost the same budget 20 years ago,when the the situation of the industry was still better, as a co-production with France).In spite of such risky budget,TOEI didn't think of world sales at all. If compare with "Sun(Solntse)" by Alexander Sokurov,from the beginning international product and a "festival film", this risk seems incredible--10 times higher cost and gamble-like dependence on domestic consumption.We must keep in mind that such "War Anniversary films", even in Russia,where the government gives donation to filmmakers maximum to 70% of the budget,with intention of participation in world market and festivals, rarely can be "correct" from political point of view. I'm talking about "SVOI"(2004),which failed to participate in Canne and "Zvezda"(2002),which seems too pathetic and patriotic to be international. Japanese government never donate to any films more than 30% of the budget,which is rather cruel condition for non-Hollywood national films.So the task of director-writer Junya Sato, I think, was very, very difficult. He must have expected the reactions of all generations of Japanese nation,and make the film's "correctness" level as high as possible, not invoking any misunderstanding from any political organizations. And of course,as a veteran craftsman director,his film must have surely return the money to production company.As a results this film is a little eclectic;the story clearly tells the meaninglessness of the huge battleship strategy and meaningless death of many people, but some scenes are accompanied by heroic march,solders and officers seem at first naive militarists, after some time turn into absolutely sincere lovers, sons and brothers, who, in the end clearly know the nonsense of the last attack.The craftsmanship, with which Sato achieved expected results, is worthy of admiration. The idea of the film, and the conditions of its production, from the first didn't guarantee any well-made war film. He made his best, and we can see that the tension in directing is very high.