People suffer during war...get over it

Rating: 2/10 (30 August 2007)

In an opening scene, the Americans are firebombing a Japanese wooded city. One of those made of wood buildings and so this is one of the great war crimes. Far worse than dropping of nuclear weapons in terms of the number of people killed.
One Japanese women in the movie asks "Why?".
Of course the Kamikaze campaign, the torture of prisoners and civilians alike, the tendency for Japanese soldiers not to surrender even in defeat causing huge loss of life on the part of the US and Allied forces, combined with the near bankruptcy of the US government and the fast approaching, vastly superior military might of the soviets (who actually won WWII, at least in Europe) meant that the US were doing whatever they could to force the Japanese to surrender.
But such things are not examined in this "we are not really the bad guys" version of Japan's history.
Such a retelling of history was so jarring to me that I turned off this movie. Maybe it is a great movie, and yes the innocent suffer greatly during war..but without showing the same suffering outside of Japan the movie ends up lacking balance, it is like a bully crying to a teacher when someone hits them back.