Eternal Zero - Flight of no Return

The Eternal Zero, just had it all, it is masterfully executed. The visual effects during the combat scenes are pretty spectacular. It's deeply touching story and amazing acting.

It's about time we see things from the Japanese perspective when it comes to the WW2. I'm tired of all the americanfied WW2 movies. Nothing beat the Japanese film making when it comes to dramas they make, they are simply the best at it. This movie is no exceptions and will leave you the viewer with heavy emotions and a lasting impression. It is simply Japanese film making at it's best.

I can highly recommend this movie, to anyone that is interested in Japanese drama. Specific to war movies buffs that want to see how it was on the other side.

I love Eternal Zero. I watched it twice, and I still think this movie is great.

As I'm watching it, I thought about what really makes this movie interesting for me. Is it the wonderful drama, the exciting dogfights, or the personal point of view from those war pilots? The answer: all of it. I respect war veterans, because having gone into war at a fairly young age was one of the hardest duty, not to mention how risky and full of torture it was. A kind of duty no one should undertake, because ego and greed will only lead to human destruction.

Eternal Zero gives a different perspective of war. How the main character is in all conscience not willing to die for his country. An unexpected confession, seeing how common it was for survivors to have their brain washed, so they can be patriotic in all sense, fight until the very last breath to conquer the enemy, not to holding on for dear life so they can reunite with their beloved family at home. It was pretty touching to see.

I highly recommend it, because truthfully, Eternal Zero is about human, and a view about the importance of life.

This is an involved and engaging love story using Japan's involvement in WW2 as a back drop. It starts and ends with I believe a replicated scene that was based on actual footage that I remember seeing when I studied the history of the Second World War in the Pacific.

There was nothing I didn't like about the film. I liked the characters, the plot and the CGI. Nothing overpowered any other part of the film.

It is a long film at nearly 2.5 hours but I found it totally engrossing.

A week after I saw it I watched it again with my daughter (who knows very little if anything of the Japanese involvement in WW2) and she enjoyed it also. She rated it 8/10

I found it to be a refreshingly different portrayal of the other side in that conflict.

Last Friday night a group of friends came around for dinner. During the meal I was asked if I had seen any good films lately. So after dinner we watched The Eternal Zero. Harry gave it 7/10, Vicky 8/10. If anyone else rates it then I will update this post.

This movie was a big hit in Japan which is good because it is essentialy an anti war film. The military detail is outstanding, right down to camoflage changes to aircraft and ships throughout the war. The Impirial Japanese Navy did start the war th the best pilots and best plane (Mistubishi Zero) as quoted in the movie. A lot of Japanese pilots were already veterens of the war in Manchuria (China). In the long run as Admiral Yamamoto feared the US became unbeatable once their industrial and economic power ramped up. Without a doubt the fact the allies cracked the Japanese naval code contributed to the allied victory (at Midway especialy). The nuclear bombs and then the Soviet Union declaring war on Japan forced the Japanese surrender saving countless lives no doubt. As a side note, Japan and the Russians are technicaly still at war and have land claims against each other.

Despite being one of the better films hiding among the titles on Netflix, 'The Eternal Zero' doesn't seem to have attracted much attention in the west. Given that it's a film that casts a sympathetic look at Japan's kamikaze pilots though that's not exactly surprising. It's already been subject to a wealth of controversy by critics in Japan and abroad, especially as there's one pivotal scene that compares them (favourably) to modern day suicide bombers.

This is a shame because at it's heart, 'The Eternal Zero' is a defiantly anti-war movie and a genuinely moving one. Beginning at a funeral, it focuses on siblings Kentaro and Keiko Oishi and their quest to find out more about the Grandfather they never knew. They soon discover that their relative Kyuzo Miyabe was a fighter pilot that died in a kamikaze attack on an aircraft carrier but throughout the war, he was almost universally hated by his fellow pilots. They meet with several veterans who all accuse Miyabe of cowardice for avoiding combat at any cost and after being shouted at by several angry old men, are understandably keen to throw in the towel. Then they decide to go for one last interview and things start to get more complex.

From there, the film unfolds Citizen Kane-style through interviews and flashbacks. It turns out Oishi was in truth a brilliant pilot, but one who also desperately wanted to live and return home to his wife. This made him thoroughly unpopular in a culture which at the time venerated the honourable sacrifice, but it also makes him something of a cypher character. Nobody in their right mind would want to smash themselves into a warship in a burning jet plane after all, so how does someone come to be persuaded to do that? And could it happen to any of us or was it something that only Imperial Japan could convince it's people to do?

What follows is a moving story of courage disguised as cowardice and a man who firmly believed in life at all cost rather than pointless deaths. There's a few brilliant scenes where characters juggle certain death against uncertain life, not least where Oishi convinces a fellow pilot not to turn back for a suicide run, only to wind up suffering an even worse fate because of it.

On a technical level too the film does a great job in recreating aerial combat through CGI (a practical necessity given the lack of functioning Zeros nowadays). The focus isn't on the combat though and anyone expecting constant dogfights will be disappointed. The Battle of Midway scene for example ends all too soon and often, we see the aftermath of battle rather than the battle itself. It makes up for it though in the human drama and when Oishi finds himself flying escort to his own students and has to watch them squander their lives pointlessly, it's both visually impressive and moving.

Anyone who still harbours resentment for the Japanese and their actions during WW2 however will still hate this movie. There's no mention of the atrocities of Nanking or the mistreatment of POWs for example, but then they're not the focus of the film. This is about impressionable young men being brainwashed into throwing their lives away and their ancestors struggling to come to terms with it. In that sense, Kentaro and Keiko are representative of modern Japan itself; they don't have to approve of their own history in order to sympathise with it. This is a great film, but it'll provoke a heated argument or two, a fact which it foreshadows in a night out that goes disastrously wrong.