GERMANY: Japanese cast of 'Letters from Iwo Jima' sing praises of director Clint Eastwood at the Berlin Film Festival

Record ID: 737727

  • Title: GERMANY: Japanese cast of 'Letters from Iwo Jima' sing praises of director Clint Eastwood at the Berlin Film Festival
  • Date: 15th February 2007
  • Summary: BERLIN, GERMANY (FEBRUARY 11, 2007) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) ACTOR KEN WATANABE SAYING: "Before shooting I imagined him as tough and strong and legend of Hollywood, this kind of king or emperor or something but he is not strong, he is really generous and kind and is a lot like a figure, like a father for us."
  • Embargoed: 2nd March 2007 12:00
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  • Location: Germany
  • Country: Germany
  • Reuters ID: LVA4WD7EYYC6M9P0HYDGBOVQQ1U2
  • Story Text: The Japanese cast of 'Letters from Iwo Jima' sing praises of director Clint Eastwood at the Berlin Film Festival.
    Director Clint Eastwood brought his Oscar-nominated World War Two drama to the Berlin Film Festival on Sunday (February 11).
    'Letters from Iwo Jima' follows the U.S. attack of the island of Iwo Jima from the point of view of the Japanese soldiers and stars Ken Watanabe, Tsuyoshi Ihara and Kazunari Ninomiya as those among the outnumbered Japanese soldiers in a hopeless situation.
    Speaking at a news conference, the 76-year-old veteran director said he wanted to make a movie that would show the human side of war. With 'Flags of Our Fathers', which follows the events from the U.S. point of view, and 'Letters from Iwo Jima', with its Japanese perspective, Eastwood wanted to show more than a simplistic, morally one dimensional view of the war.
    "I grew up with war pictures in the 1940s when everything was propaganda, I saw movies that we were the good guys and everybody else were bad guys and I just want to tell two different stories where there were good guys and bad guys everywhere and just tell something about the human condition," he said.
    The Japanese cast of the film praised the director for being able to get under the skins of the Japanese soldiers, saying Eastwood had proved to understand the Japanese better than they expected and was able to overcome language and cultural barriers on set.
    "Clint was a Japanese director. But he couldn't speak Japanese well," Watanabe told Reuters on Sunday.
    "Before shooting I imagined him as tough and strong and legend of Hollywood, this kind of king or emperor or something but he is not strong, he is really generous and kind and is a lot like a figure, like a father for us," he added.
    Ihara, who stars as Olympic Gold Medalist equestrian Baron Nishi in the movie said he learned to see his home country with new eyes while making the movie. He also said the film, which went to number one in Japan with sold-out screenings in many cinemas, was good for educating the Japanese as well as foreigners.
    "When I am abroad I develop my love for my home country. If you are abroad and then find you don't know your own country, you don't know Japan, then you can't explain what kind of a country Japan is, and because I try to explain Japan, and to make it plausible, then that is how my love for my country developed. And not just me but my generation of Japanese people have had similar experiences in the last two or three years. So I think love for one's country is also developing slowly in Japan," he said.
    'Letters from Iwo Jima' is screening out of competition at the Berlin Film Festival.
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