| Overall Grade: |
A+ |
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| Story: |
A+ |
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| Acting: |
A+ |
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| Direction: |
A+ |
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| Visuals: |
A+ |
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We sometimes forget.
by Yahoo! Movies User (movies profile)
Dec 26, 2007
13
of
14 people found this review helpful
I was born in Nanjing fifteen years ago - and my grandparents knew all too well the brutality of the Kwangtung militia. Seeing as such, sephiroth, it offends me in the extreme that you have the nerve to complain about an assault an an unprepared military base. 2,400 soldiers died at Pearl Harbor. 350,000 civilians died brutally in Nanjing.
But - sometimes we forget, that for all the brutality of the military... it was not the military who suffered. The people of Japan suffered as much, perhaps more than, any other nation in the war. From the repeated firebombing of the Tokyo Bay which is the premise of this film, to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki which continues to claim innocent lives to this day, terrible wrongs were wreaked across the mountainous island chain.
The story of Seita and Setsuko is the tragic tale which was all too common: more than half the survivors of Kobe were under twelve years old. The hope and determination they had against the overwhelming odds was nothing short of inspiring, and their death was the only moment in any media that brought tears to my eyes. One has to hope with them as they catch fireflies in jars to light their way... and first feels the nagging doubts when they bury the dead insects the next morning.
To those who would denounce this as anti-American, I have nothing but contempt for you. The message is one of peace. Just answer me this, sephiroth: is it a crime to dislike war? To comment on the past? To note that people suffered horribly? |
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