I really enjoyed this film. Finally we got around to watching the recording from Sunday. Still not watched Flags of Our Fathers but that'll get a watching too.

I liked the strange colour palette with the bright reds and oranges and washed out everything else. I wasn't totally sold on how Japanese it was and by that I mean that you could tell that it was made by a western filmmakers - it lacked that true batshit craziness you get when you encounter a truly foreign culture in a film.

I see there were criticisms (somewhat along those lines) when it came out that the two sympathetic and intelligent seeming officers were the ones who'd been to America and knew what it was really like and the implication that the Americans were better, but I think the surrender sequence went against that.

I didn't recognise Ken Watanabe as R'as Al Goul (or however it's spelt) from Batman Begins. I'd love to know how Eastwood directed all his cast. I guess maybe they were pickec because they could all speak good English.