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Clint Eastwood's 'Letters' Iwo Jima film resonates in Japan

Hiromasa Murakami went to see Clint Eastwood's "Letters from Iwo Jima" to find out if an American could tell the Japanese side of a battle that became a symbol of U.S. patriotism, but for Japan was a bitter memory of defeat.

After viewing the film on Saturday when it opened it Tokyo, Murakami thinks Eastwood got it right.

"It was marvelous," the 50-year-old carpenter said as he emerged from the theater. "How should I express it? It was the same for both sides, for them and us. Everyone was a victim."

Named best film of 2006 by the National Board of Review last Wednesday, "Letters from Iwo Jima" is the second of two Eastwood films about the 1945 battle, engraved in U.S. memory by a photo of six servicemen raising the flag on the island's Mount Suribachi.

The first, "Flags of Our Fathers", is the tale of three of the Americans who raised the flag and later became propaganda tools in a campaign to sell U.S. war bonds.
Read entire article at Reuters