From the Chinese perspective... ...

Rating: 10/10 (4 June 2009)

This is a very good film, because the characters are so human. Unlike most Communist / American war films where the protagonist is a saint, in this film you get the feeling each character is a real person rather than some stereotype. All of the characters are imperfect, and make mistakes, and do bad things. The love portrayed in this film is just so real, I think any human being can relate to it.
I was trying really hard to hold my tears back all the way through the film, especially in the playground scene. But when Seita brought the water melon back, and it became so obvious what was about to happen, my tears just came streaming down. Despite knowing right at the start of the film they were going to die, it's just... ... The humanity of it all.
As for the Chinese perspective, I think it is obvious that after 60 years of falsifying history in both China and Japan, we have a very different understanding of the war. Japan still holds the view "We did nothing wrong during the war", and likes to portray the war as inevitable. While China holds very strong views about Japanese war crimes and atrocities. This is very much underlying the huge defence budget increases in both countries since the 1980s, and that's likely to lead to the next war... ... Which is why I like this film so much, because it is films like this that makes you remember, it does not matter whether you are Chinese, Japanese, or American, if you are human, then you need to eat, you need to drink, and you are flesh and blood. At the end of the day, we are all the same, so why spend all that money on trying to kill each other?
I hope to see more films like this, from RoC (Taiwan), PRC (China), Korea, America, as well as Japan. And I hope such films can be distributed freely in all of our/their formal enemy countries.