Yamato

Original title: Otoko-tachi no Yamato

2005
2h 25m

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

The movie follows 3 Japanese friends from embarking on Yamato, the world's largest battleship, until it's sunk 3 1/2 years later on April 7, 1945 on it's way to Okinawa to stop American adva... Read allThe movie follows 3 Japanese friends from embarking on Yamato, the world's largest battleship, until it's sunk 3 1/2 years later on April 7, 1945 on it's way to Okinawa to stop American advance at the end of WWII.The movie follows 3 Japanese friends from embarking on Yamato, the world's largest battleship, until it's sunk 3 1/2 years later on April 7, 1945 on it's way to Okinawa to stop American advance at the end of WWII.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

6.4/10

2.5K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 6 wins & 7 nominations total

Trivia
Part of the foredeck and port side of the Yamato were reconstructed to full scale for the exterior scenes. As the Japan Building Standards Act interfered with re-creating the ship's entire superstructure, images of a one-tenth scale model of the Yamato at its namesake museum in Kure were used in post-production.

Goofs
The ship is seen firing salvos from its main batteries aimed at approaching US aircraft on several occasions, while lots of the crew are visible on deck, manning the light AA guns as well as performing other duties. While the big guns were in fact used fending off aircraft, at least during the last battle off Okinawa, the shock wave from the blast of the nine 460 mm barrels (the biggest ever on a warship) could kill or severely injure an unprotected sailor, it was therefore forbidden to remain on deck on such occasions.

Quotes
Mamoru Uchida: [Firing an AA gun defiantly as the ship sinks] I'm not done yet! My last throw!

User reviews33

Review

Featured review

9/10

A beautiful movie about an immense unnecessary tragedy

The destruction of the giant battleship by overwhelming Allied air power following the destruction from the air of 3 previous giant Axis battleships (Bismarck, Musashi and Tirpitz) was a gigantic tragedy of common enlisted soldiers defending their "fatherland".

The mission accomplished nothing but another one-sided slaughter of "obedient soldiers". This is the real tragedy of men educated for obedience. Germans and Japanese alike.

And they were killed with millions against overwhelming (and technically also superior) powers by an opportunistic and docile dictatorship, leaving behind millions of sorrowing wives and children which never saw much of their fathers.

Otoko-tachi no Yamato shows us the common Japanese soldiers as human beings. No propaganda at all, unlike so many US war movies.

Its counterpart was the German movie "Das Boot". The difference is that in Germany the process of showing World War II as it was started earlier than in Japan. Even the horrendous loss of the Wilhelm Gustloff (10.000 dead)has been shown in a movie on the German television recently. In Japan the horrors of WWII finally are being shown to the public. While Germany feels "very guilty" for many decades, this process in Japan not really has been started yet.