In 1943, as Japan's WWII effort falters, a vice-admiral proposes training squadrons of "volunteer" flyers to crash their armed planes into Allied warships. Yarn follows the lives of kamikaze pilots, as remembered by an aging Kyushu restaurateur who cherishes their memory. Honoring the dead and multiple military anthems may stir the soul of some Japanese, but elsewhere auds will make a one-way trip for exits. Battle scenes are well-executed and script delivers some memorable scenes, but overall competent helming and thesping are powerless over writer-cum-Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishiara's repetitive storytelling. A post-war postscript adds considerable length to an already over-extended narrative. Tech credits are good quality.
Genres:
Satoshi Tokushige as Kapitän Nakanishi
Yosuke Kubozuka as Leutnant Bando
Michitaka Tsutsui as Leutnant Tabata
Keiko Kishi as Tome Torihama
Mikako Tabe as Reiko Torihama
Yasuyuki Maekawa as Kaneyama
Tomoya Nakamura as Soichi Kawai
Dai Watanabe as Staff Sergeant Kato
Noboru Kimura as Second lieutenant Abe
Ren Hulk as Sergeant first class Matsumoto
Yuji Miyashita as Staff sergeant Ishikura
Shinichi TANAKA as Araki
Katsutaka Furuhata as Shigeo Oshima
Noriko Nakagoshi as Ichieda Tsuruta
Sachiko Sakurai as Hisako Bando
Naho Toda as Ryoko Tabata
Yoshiko Miyazaki as Kawai's mother
Minori Terada as
Kanae Katsuno as Mioko Torihama
Ryohei Abe as
Tohru Emori as 田端由蔵
Ken'ichi Endô as Colonel Azuma
Masatô Ibu as Vice Admiral Takijiro Onishi
Satoru Matsuo as
Tohru Emori as
Dennis Falt as American naval officer
Cleve Gray as Bloodied Sailor
Ichiro Hashimoto as
Renji Ishibashi as Shojo Tsuruta
Hiroshi Katsuno as Colonel Azuma
Keisaku Kimura as
Keiko Kishi as Torihama
Mikage as
Haruku Ren as
Suzunosuke Tanaka as Shimizu (as Suzunosuke)
Yoshida Ayano as
Takeo Nakahara as Military police
Hiroyuki Nagato as Oshima's grandfather
Koji Matoba as Navy captain Yukio Seki
Takashi Inoue as
Shinichiro Matsuura as kamikaze pilot
Chieko Iinuma as
Naoki Yukawa as
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