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I'm still at work, so I don't have the time to craft a full reply to all of that . . .
Lord, imagine what a rejoiner I'd have gotten if you only had time!
You raise some good points and, like I said, I don't mean any of this as a put-down of Eastwood's film, which I haven't seen. But I am bothered by the implication of some movies today that World War II was all just soldiers on both sides doing their duty. If you read any history at all, you know it was very much a war of aggression by the Germans, Italians and Japanese aimed at extending their dominance over other countries. If you don't like what's happening in the Middle East today (and I assume by the remark about the Bush administration that you don't), then you would have really been upset by what the Axis powers were doing in the 1930s, long before the US ever got into the war. Moreover, the general populations of Germany, Italy, and Japan embraced the claims of their superiority over other peoples as Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo were coming to power, so they bear some responsibility for what happened.

To say an individual Japanese soldier couldn't feel these things because Japan as a NationState or whatever percentage of its officers and soldiers were guilty of war crimes strikes me as silly. I'm not saying that's your argument, just wanted to make that clear.
No, I don't mean that all Germans, Japanese, and Italians were evil nor do I claim all of the Allies were faultless. The British, French, and Dutch empires in the Pacific and Africa were already under attack by native resistors before the war and those wars of freedom continued after World War II ended. Our own record in the Philippines was far from spotless, yet given a choice most filippinos sided with the US against Japan. In fact the Japanese commander of the Philippines after the war was convicted and executed for not stopping the atrocities that his men inflicted on the native population. He didn't order it, but he didn't try to stop it, either, which still made him a war criminal.

I haven't seen Fires on the Plain either, but I gather from your description that the cannibalism it portrays is among starving soldiers trying to stay alive. Well, that's happened before in desperate groups--shipwrecked sailors, snowed-in immigrants in the Old West, even a South American soccer team whose plane crashed in the mountains. But that's not what I'm talking about--an insane act by men driven insane by conditions beyond their control.

The type of cannibalism I'm talking about is a ritualistic cannibalism of enemy soldiers by Japanese officers who still had access to normal food and drink. The idea here is not survival but the assertion of superiority over defeated foes. This is well documented from the war and is described in the book Fly Boys about Marine and Navy pilots who were shot down over an island adjacent to Okinawa, I believe (don't think it was Iwo Jima). The book talks about maybe a half-dozen pilots and aircrew who were shot down and captured by the Japanese held for several weeks, then eventually killed on orders of high ranking officers who then ordered some body parts cooked and served at ceremonial dinners. Soldiers were ordered to remove a liver or strips of meat from the torso for that purpose. One officer insisted his other officers eat this, although few actually wanted to.

Anyway, the fact that the Axis had SS murder squads killing civilians in Russia and Italian aircraft were straffing and bombing native villages in Ethiopia and the Japanese were using live targets for their soldiers to shoot and bayonet--in other words systematically involved in attrocities on an large and organized level, I do think the Allies had legitimate claim to a somewhat higher moral ground in that conflict.

Here's one of the clearest examples I know: I once saw a TV program in which an old Japanese man who had been a boy living with his family on Okinawa told of the Japanese soldiers telling the large Japanese civilian population on that island to kill themselves to avoid being tortured and horribly murdered if captured by the American soldiers about to invade that Island. This old man told how he and his brothers used rocks to beat their mother to death to spare her such a fate. Later he was captured by the Americans and of course was not tortured and not killed. But he had to live his whole life knowing that his own army had caused him to murder his own mom for no reason.

At that same time and on the American side of the battle line, there was a young Marine, a Mexican American from the barrios of Los Angeles who had been taken in and raised by a Japanese-American family and who used his knowledge of Japanese language and customs to go out alone and talk enemy soldiers and civilians on Okinawa into surrendering. Risked his own life to save the enemies of his nation. He was credited for bringing in thousands of Japanese soldiers, which is why Okinawa was the only island in the Pacific where the Japanese didn't fight to virtually the last man.

Now to me, that illustrates the basic difference between the American and Axis armies, particularly the difference between Americans and Japanese in that war; I've yet to find a documented account of a Japanese soldier saving Allied soldiers. That's why it bothers me when a movie like Memphis Belle opens with a dedication to "all airmen" of World War II as though there was no difference between us and Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.

Years ago, I did read a book--don't know if it were a novel or an actual journal (but I suspect it was a novel) translated from Japanese about a Japanese doctor who was drafted into the Imperial Army and sent to a Pacific island during World War II. He too was a humanist, not a soldier, and the book contained many entries about home and country and honor and the men with whom he was stationed and the officers that commanded them. It put a human face on the Japanese soldier in an interesting and enteraining way although it didn't ignore the differences between US and Japanese culture at that time and the brutal ways in which Japanese soldiers were trained and treated. It's well documented that pre-war indoctrination and training of Japanese soldiers started at a very early age and was extremely brutal. Enlisted men could be beaten or killed by their own NCOs and officers. They in turn were brutal to anyone they got under their control. It was a definite mind-set that too many people today ignore in assigning a blanket "they were all soldiers doing their duty" forgiveness to both sides. There are some "duties" that just shouldn't be done.



Actually, it's not exactly the same subject although both involved Zulus. The made-for-TV Shaka Zulu was about the warrior of that name that essentially built the Zulu's into a fighting force to be reckoned with. The tribe was relatively weak until he came along with his idea for a short spear used for stabbing, not throwing, fast mass movements of troops, and a military formation of a bull's head in which the "head" body of troops would engage and occupy the enemy while the "horns" circled to each side to flank and engulf the enemy troops. One method of encouraging his warriors was to award the best-looking women to his best warriors, usually older experienced fighters. His idea was that the bravest warriors would also father brave sons. He built the Zulus into such a fighting force that they systematically took on tribe after tribe through out South Africa, killing them off or running them out until the southernmost area of South Africa was essentially uninhabited whe the Dutch and later English began settling that area. I don't think Shaka himself ever went up against European troops--the English-Zulu war including the battle of Roarke's Drift occurred some years after his death when I think one of his sons was then chief of the Zulu.

Based on what I read about Shaka Zulu, the film didn't even begin to tell how cruel and crazy he really was. He was extremely fond of his mother and after she died he ordered an extended period of mourning. Anyone caught smiling, laughing, marrying, having babies or otherwise seeming to enjoy life during the mourning period was instantly killed. According to one story I read, something like a year after the death of his mother, Shaka ordered the Zulu men and women to dance naked together. Any man who indicated a certain physical reaction to the naked women was dragged from the dance line and speared.
Your historical knowledge of the subject is admirable but did you appreciate the realism and the photography of this excellent tv series, and on the subject of period piece tv series, I was just as impressed (if not more) with Rome.

Top war films in my order are below, im sure you will have a different view of the best war films ever made.
There has not been a war film post like this for over three years, unless my date is wrond on my computer, it said the last one was 2003, so it needed to be done. The best war films of all time are:

Saving Private Ryan
Band of Brothers – not a feature movie, but a lengthy movie style account.
The Great Escape
A Bridge Too Far
Black Hawk Down
Gladiator
Apocalypse Now
Schindler's List
Battle of Britain
Spartacus
Brave Heart
Pearl harbor
The Longest day
Troy
300
Lawrence of Arabia
The Last samurai
Kingdom of heaven
The Bridge on the river Kwai
Gone with the Wind
The Thin Red Line
We were soldiers



Not there are these two films, I haven’t included them in the war list, but they deserve a mention as they are based around conflict, and war enough for me to mention them as a side order – legends of the fall and The last of the Mohicans. Oh and i almost forgot - Escape To Victory - Slvester Stallone and Pele, it is based on war time europe so i had to mention it.
How Can you leave out Full Metal Jacket and Deer Hunter and what about Platoon, Hamburger Hill, Iron Triangle, The Siege Of Firebase Gloria, 84 Charlie Mopic, From Here To Eternity, Korean movies: Shiri and Taguki.



Saving Private Ryan is my favourite. I also love the Band of Brothers series



My Top War Films Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers, Gladiator, Troy, 300, The Last Samurai, and Kingdom of heaven......anyway it's just me!!!....




my short list:
300
Basic
Braveheart
Days Of Glory
Enigma
Firefox
Gladiator
Proud
Saving Private Ryan
The Last Samurai
Top Gun Movie
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All those listed were great movies but I think Brave Heart
and Private Bryan outstand among the rest.



For me, it is Saving Private Ryan. I have a fascination for Spielberg's films.



Saving Private Ryan, Glory, Gladiator are mine!



Gods and Generals!



for me it's Saving Private Ryan and the Great Raid.



Your historical knowledge of the subject is admirable but did you appreciate the realism and the photography of this excellent tv series, and on the subject of period piece tv series, I was just as impressed (if not more) with Rome.
Yes, I generally liked the Shaka TV series, although the storyline was toned down and glossed over in many instances and the production quality wasn't up to Big Screen standards. There are many good histories of South Africa and the Zulu that would give you good insight into that place and period. One is The Washing of the Spears, A history from "the rise of the Zulu Nation under Shaka and its fall in the Zulu War of 1879," written by a guy named Donald Morse with whom I once worked. I also once met and interviewed Mangosuthu Chief Buthelezi, chief of the Zulus in QuaZulu in South Africa. Buthelezi played one of his ancestors, an earlier Zulu chief in the scenes in Zulu where he's hosting the missionary and his daughter in his camp early in that film.



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Saving Private Ryan
300
Alexander
We were men
Black Hawk down



RIP www.moviejustice.com 2002-2010
All Quiet on the Western Front
Paths of Glory

are two of my favorites...

I guess we can add A Very Long Engagement to that list. I tend to like WWI films.

I also enjoy Apocalypse Now quite a bit.
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everyone has mentioned all my choices execpt for the one that i still cry over til this day.

This is a good sentimental choice. The screenplay is awfully hokey and has the gee whiz! sound of an Andy Hardy film rather than of five brothers growing up and going off to war together.

I don't know how to do the spoiler so if you don't want to know the ending look away now.

OK, just those who have seen the film now here?

The movie also played fast and loose with the real facts of the Sullivans. They didn't all die together in a group, as it suggests; it happened at different times and places that same day when the Juneau went down. One of the brothers even got off the ship but died of his wounds before they could be picked up. I'd like to see a more realistic film that doesn't treat the brothers as plastic saints and follows them through boot camp and into service and deals more with what happened to the Juneau.

Still, having lost a son of my own, that last scene of Thomas Mitchell picturing his boys as they once were says it all. You can't put any more heartache into the sight of a father missing his sons.

Another war picture which gives me a similar reaction is Purple Heart, which has the Japanese trying one of Doolittle's bomber crews for murder after the raid on Tokyo. The movie is pretty good as it is, especially the performances of Dana Andrews and Richard Conte. But again, Hollywood ignored the facts. There were two crews captured in China (five from one crew, four from the other after one crewman died in the jump). They underwent a "show" trial in which some puppet or otherwise sympathetic newspapers pretended to take seriously but which other more independent papers and consulates criticized. But unlike the movie that showed all of the one crew going to their deaths, only 3 of the 9 were executed--one pilot, one bombadier, and one gunner who apparently admitted under questioning that he had fired his machineguns at ground targets, which led to him being charged with machinegunning civilians, something that the Japanese did both in China and in the attack on Pearl Harbor. The rest were given long prison sentences, and one died in prison. But the others lived to testify against Japanese officials and guards in the war crimes trials after Japan was defeated.



i was so happy when saving private ryan was released. also when black hawk down went out. i have memorable dates and good times in the theaters



Pearl Harbor is not that good. I find it a bit boring and long. I'd rather prefer Tora! Tora! Tora!...



My top 3 Best War Movies:
Saving Private Ryan
Black Hawk Down
Band of Brothers



Save the drama for your Mama
I don't know that I can call any war movies my "favorite" as I find most of them pretty hard to take.

The first I can remember really impressing me would be All Quiet on the Western Front. The ending is heartbreaking.

The Fighting Sullivans would also be a sentimental choice of mine.

For a long time, the movie that seemed to be shown most often on Tv was The Longest Day, which certainly gave you a moment by moment appreciation for the scope and horror of war.

I also do have a lot of fondness for Patton. More of a biography, and of course a tremendous performance by George C. Scott. A lot of great historical dialog. "Remember, all fame is fleeting."
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