The movie starts off in the present day, with a Japanese man trying to learn more about his grandfather Kyuzo Miyabe, who died as a kamikaze pilot in WWII. TL DR - if you’re an aviation geek, then The Eternal Zero is worth a watch.Īs you might guess, the movie focuses on Japan’s famed Zero fighter. Year released: 2013 | Japanese title: 永遠の0 (Eien no Zero)įirst off - if you want to dive into the gritty details of this movie, check out the review I wrote for it a little while back. Furthermore, director Hayao Miyazaki expressed his pacifist views in an interview about the movie, chastising Japan’s militarists for their “foolish arrogance” and assailing the Shinzo Abe government for trying to revise Japan’s pacifist constitution.įind The Wind Rises on Amazon 9. The film has a decidedly anti-militarist message it admires the Zero’s beauty but laments its usage in war.

Honestly, if I were to re-title the movie, it might be “Jiro dreams of airplanes” (no, not sushi). With wistfully beautiful animation, The Wind Rises chronicles Horikoshi’s life from 1918 to 1945.Įven though The Wind Rises was a massive commercial success, it did generate some criticism in Japan, especially from the political right. Interested in learning the backstory behind Japan’s famed Zero fighter? The Wind Risesis a highly acclaimed film from the world-renowned Studio Ghibli ( My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, etc.) about Jiro Horikoshi - the guy who designed the Zero. Year released: 2013 | Japanese title: 風立ちぬ (Kaze Tachinu) With this list, I’ve tried to include a broad selection of time ranges, settings, and military branches (Navy, Army, Air Force). Interested in learning more? Check out this list of eleven WWII movies from the Japanese perspective. After all, Japan wasn’t just fighting against America during WWII - it invaded China, fought the Soviet Union, and suffered greatly on the home front near the war’s end. Beyond those two excellent movies, there’s a plethora of Japanese WWII movies made by Japanese studios, primarily for Japanese audiences.īesides being more directly reflective of Japan’s public discourse, these Japanese-made WWII movies cover an even wider range of topics than American co-productions. I’m not just talking about Letters from Iwo Jimaor Tora! Tora! Tora! - which were American co-productions. Want to learn more about World War II from a different angle? Well, there are quite a few Japanese WWII movies, which depict the war from Japan’s perspective.

World war 2 navy movies list