Rengô kantai (1981)

Rengô kantai: Directed by Shûe Matsubayashi. With Susumu Fujita, Hiroshi Hasegawa, Akihiko Hirata, Tôru Ibuki. A lavish retelling of the true story of the final voyage and ultimate destruction and sinking of the battleship Yamato, Japan’s greatest flagship during the Second World War.

“This was on TV one night after I checked into my hotel in Tokyo for a business trip. I started watching about half way through to the end. No subtitles, but it didnu0026#39;t really need any. The expressiveness of the actorsu0026#39; faces and voices gave you a good idea of what they were saying. The action and photography were first rate. Most of the scenes are below deck, but the scenes of the air attacks are well done. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eI would compare it to u0026quot;Das Bootu0026quot; or u0026quot;Stalingradu0026quot; as far as realism and getting an idea of how the crew actually felt given their circumstance. Not an apology or revisionist history, just lots of great action telling the story of a crew trying to save their ship.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eOverall, this was superior to u0026quot;Yamatou0026quot;, which came out 20 years later.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eNow if I could only find a copy on DVD!”