It's late, so I'll make this short. This evening, I went to an early screening of Letters from Iwojima, the Japanese installment of Clint Eastwood's Iwojima story. I was worried that I'd have problems understanding what characters were saying in detail. I had that problem, but so did everyone else in the venue. It wasn't a movie theater and as such, the sound system was crappy and muffled. No one could understand a word Ken Watanabe's character said. I still cried like an injured infant and came out of the movie deeply moved, so I can only imagine that understanding the details will take this movie up from being excellent to superb.

It was much more emotional than the American story. The majority of the movie revolved around the actual battle with sufficient lead-in and flashbacks. To me, the most incredible thing was the sense of humanity versus nationality, that everyone is a person, regardless of national differences, borders, moral conflicts, and that loss and sorrow are something appreciated by all people. Maybe I'll explain later how it relates to the story. Right now, it's time for me to go to bed.