Yamato (2005)Katsumi Kamio (Tatsuya Nakadai) is a 78 year old fisherman who spent the last 60 years

Yamato (2005)

Katsumi Kamio (Tatsuya Nakadai) is a 78 year old fisherman who spent the last 60 years sleepwalking through life, not knowing why he is the only one who survives the war while his family and friends have died.

One day, he came across an odd lady at the harbour who tries to talk to every boat captain into taking her to a specific location which he realises by the coordinates given, is the place where the battleship Yamato was sunk.

He learns that she is the daughter of his fellow shipmate who survived the sunken Yamato and died recently. His last wish was to dispersed his ashes at the place where the ship was sunk to be laid rest with his fellow shipmates.

The story then takes back and forth between the present and the past, mostly the past, showing Kamio younger days (Kenichi Matsuyama) with his family and friends, from the time he joined the Navy till the time he survived the war.

It shows the harshness of the working conditions and training regime on board the Yamato in order to get the best out the sailors, and the strong camaraderie formed among the sailors through hardship and the horrors of war.

How the civilians such as Kamio’s mother who resented the war and Kamio’s childhood crush who doesn’t really know what is happening became victims of war due to the crimes and cruelty of their own military governments.

It reminds me of Hollywood’s Valkyrie (2008) starring Tom Cruise about a few good men who opposed the war by Hitler and those who disagreed with the Furher but did not dare to voice out for fear of being executed.

It’s as good as the WWII films of Isoroku (2011) which is about Admiral Yamamoto, Tora Tora Tora (1970) which is about Pearl Harbour, (Midway 1976&Midway 2019), which is about the critical war that turn the tide of the Pacific War and The Great War of Archimedes (2021) which is about the conspiracy surrounding the design and development of the Yamato battleship.