YMMV / Letters from Iwo Jima

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Lt. Ito. Some characters think he was a Dirty Coward, but he was genuinely trying to ambush a tank. It just so happened that none came his way.
• Fridge Horror: The American soldier, "Sam", wounded by Lt. Okubo then brought in is clearly scared shitless. He would have no doubt heard stories (all of them true, unfortunately) of Japanese soldiers brutality towards POW's (or seen the results first-hand), but Freeze-Frame Bonus reveals he is also a flamethrower operator. In the Soviet-German and Japanese-American theatres, extraordinarily few flamethrower-men were ever taken prisoner.
• He Really Can Act: Did you know Saigo is played by Kazunari Ninomiya of the boyband Arashi?
• Magnificent Bastard: General Kuribayashi is an experienced officer in the Imperial Japanese Army who firmly believes in the principle of My Country, Right or Wrong. As a worldly Officer and a Gentleman who unlike many of his colleagues has actually visited the United States, Kuribayashi is firmly aware of the awesome American industrial and military strength and consigns himself to defending the island of Iwo Jima in a Last Stand. He also fully acknowledges that he has no hopes of repelling the Americans and will be defeated sooner or later, but decides to fight to the last drop of blood anyway, reasoning that if it means his homeland and his people will be safe for a few days longer, he's up to the task. Kuribayashi's defensive tactics by utilizing Mount Suribachi's cave network and forbidding his soldiers from killing themselves or engaging in suicide attacks ends up causing disproportionately high casualties among the invaders. Fatally wounded after Kuribayashi and his last men charge the Americans, he instructs a peasant soldier he befriended during the battle with hiding his body from the enemy. Despite fighting for a losing genocidal empire, Kuribayashi retains an astonishing sense of dignity and military cunning.
• Nightmare Fuel: If you had nightmares from Flags of Our Fathers, you ain't seen nothing yet. The most horrific scene? Some of the Japanese soldiers commit suicide by holding their active grenades to their bodies.
  • The scene in which the captured Marine (possibly Iggy) is bayoneted repeatedly isn't any better.
• Tear Jerker: The whole thing. The main theme music also works, and there's the "Song for the Defense of Iwo Jima", sung by the children of Nagano. Even General Kuribayashi sheds a few tears listening to it, and the audience.
  • The scene in which Shimizu and another Japanese POW are executed by two Marines simply because they don't feel like watching over them, and when Saigo finds their bodies.
  • The entire film, when it's not being horrifying and realistically depicting War Is Hell, has the air of inescapable tragedy as most of the main characters come to terms with their situation, mortality, and the ultimate futility of everything.
  • When the movie is nearing to an end and Japanese resistance is all but crushed, General Kuribayashi has a poignant flashback of his visit to the United States prior to war. He met his American friend, who presented him with a gift — a custom-made, beautifully crafted M1911 pistol with ivory grip which the General is still carrying to this day. During dinner, they consider the possibility of Japan and USA being involved in open war and Kuribayashi expresses his firm belief that they would fight in it as loyal allies. When asked directly by his friend's wife what he would do if they were enemies instead and Kuribayashi met her husband in the battlefield, the General (still an ordinary officer at the time) bluntly and honestly replies that he would fulfill his duty as a soldier and shoot him. His friend's wife takes it in a joking manner, laughing and telling her husband he's already dead. Kuribayashi fervently claims that is never ever going to occur... then we've got a cut to present, where a war scenario between Japan and United States is exactly what happened. This perfectly underscores how nonsensical this entire war is and how people who could've been friends end up as enemies because of somebody else's sick ambitions.
  • Near the ending where Saigo cried when General Kuribayashi committed suicide, after telling him that the section of Iwo Jima was still considered Japanese soil.
  • After Sam's death, when his mother's letter is read to the cave soldiers, reminding them that their enemy is as human as they are.

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