Kamikaze Okinawa Zero

Little known but impressively detailed and completely uncompromising depiction of the battle of Okinawa from the Japanese perspective. I think it deserves a rerelease or more exposure, because as an antiwar film, it's very impressive, and even ahead of its time.

American war films were still a fair way off from showing war in a truly hellish manner at this point in film history- there's a real misery in this one that prevents any battle scenes from being fun or exciting to watch, even if there is a degree of spectacle due to the relatively high budget.

That sense of doom and inevitable loss, coupled with the savage violence that pulls absolutely no punches (it's comparable to Saving Private Ryan, yet came out over 1/4 of a century earlier) makes it a tough but engaging watch, and it mostly earns its lengthy runtime of 2.5 hours.

And of course, a war film like this shouldn't pull punches. It's generally far better to show war on film as ugly rather than exciting, especially a conflict like the one on Okinawa.

Characters are simple but serviceable, and despite the limited character development, you can feel some sympathy for them as individuals stuck in a conflict, whilst still feeling angry at the whole institution of war itself. The way it occasionally checked in on how civilians were coping was particularly powerful and unique, too.