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Letters from Iwo Jima portrays the World War II Battle of Iwo Jima from the perspective of the Japanese soldiers and is a companion piece to Flags of Our Fathers (2006), which depicts the same battle from the American viewpoint. Both films are directed by Clint Eastwood. The movie focuses on a platoon of Japanese soldiers, commanded by Lieutenant General Tadamichi Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe), under orders to defend to their deaths Iwo Jima's Mount Suribachi from U.S. attack.

Letters from Iwo Jima is based on a screenplay by Japanese-American screenwriter Iris Yamashita. She based her screenplay on two nonfiction books: (1) "Gyokusai Soshireikan" no Etegami [Picture Letters from the Commander in Chief] (2002) by General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, and (2) So Sad to Fall in Battle: An Account of War (2005) by Kumiko Kakehashi.

To understand it? No. Both films can be viewed as standalone movies. However, it's better to watch them both (no matter the order), because the point of making them was to show different points of view of one event.

Iwo Jima (now Iwo To) is a volcanic Island in the northwest Pacific Ocean south of Japan and east of Taiwan.

Although sparsely inhabited, Iwo Jima was the site of several airfields that hindered U.S. bombing missions to Tokyo. Once the bases were secured, it was believed that the U.S. would use the bases for an invasion of the Japanese mainland.

It was filmed mostly in Barstow and Bakersfield in California. A skeleton crew was allowed only one day to make on-location shots on Iwo Jima, and that was only after being given special permission from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, because more than 10,000 missing Japanese soldiers still rest under the soil.