Firstly, it's beautifully, expertly made. It is sad, and I knew it would be, but it's taught me a lot and opened up something which I understood very little about. Particularly interesting is the way that the film evokes the Japanese sense of honour not just as something to aspire to, but something to attain at all costs. It's a hard thing to understand the seppuku ideal as a westerner, but it comes across in a very heartfelt and sensitive way exactly what it meant to the Japanese. The feeling of duty being all important is clear. The feeling of lack of individual choice also comes across really powerfully. The stories of the protagonist and the commander were put across extremely well, and both actors were superb. Eastwood picks his symbolism well too. The gun, the dog...
There was a lingering sense, though, of this being propaganda for an American audience who might not have started out feeling too compassionate. This is where the honourable Mr Eastwood comes slightly unstuck for me. The commander? He'd been in America, was sympathetic to America and just found himself in the Wrong Place At The Wrong Time - but we can like him, because he liked America! The main character guy - he was forced to fight, he only really cared about his wife and unborn child, and he only wanted to survive and make a good life for them - like an american born in the wrong place really! What's not to love? And of course the least American, most japanese Japanese constitute the bad guys of the film.
I'm picking holes. Essentially the film is about what being in a war and being faced with the choice of giving your own, personal, valued life to serve often dubious national ends does to human beings - that's done brilliantly. I'm always going to respect a movie that does such a good job of exploring this territory.
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