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.
Cast
Satoshi Tokushige
Kapitän Nakanishi
Yosuke Kubozuka
Leutnant Bando
Michitaka Tsutsui
Leutnant Tabata
Keiko Kishi
Tome Torihama, Torihama
Mikako Tabe
Reiko Torihama
Yasuyuki Maekawa
Kaneyama
Tomoya Nakamura
Soichi Kawai
Dai Watanabe
Staff Sergeant Kato
Noboru Kimura
Second lieutenant Abe
Ren Hulk
Sergeant first class Matsumoto
Yuji Miyashita
Staff sergeant Ishikura
Shinichi TANAKA
Araki
Katsutaka Furuhata
Shigeo Oshima
Noriko Nakagoshi
Ichieda Tsuruta
Sachiko Sakurai
Hisako Bando
Naho Toda
Ryoko Tabata
Yoshiko Miyazaki
Kawai's mother
Minori Terada
Unknown
Kanae Katsuno
Mioko Torihama
Ryohei Abe
Unknown
Tohru Emori
田端由蔵, Unknown
Kenichi Endo
Colonel Azuma
Masatô Ibu
Vice Admiral Takijiro Onishi
Satoru Matsuo
Unknown
Dennis Falt
American naval officer
Cleve Gray
Bloodied Sailor
Ichiro Hashimoto
Unknown
Renji Ishibashi
Shojo Tsuruta
Hiroshi Katsuno
Colonel Azuma
Keisaku Kimura
Unknown
Mikage
Unknown
Haruku Ren
Unknown
Suzunosuke Tanaka
Shimizu (as Suzunosuke)
Yoshida Ayano
Unknown
Takeo Nakahara
Military police
Hiroyuki Nagato
Oshima's grandfather
Koji Matoba
Navy captain Yukio Seki
Takashi Inoue
Unknown
Shinichiro Matsuura
kamikaze pilot
Chieko Iinuma
Unknown
Naoki Yukawa
Unknown
