This widely-praised film, directed by Clint Eastwood, portrays one of the more famous campaigns of WWII from a perspective that most Americans are unaccustomed to seeing. Of course, we've known at least since Tora, Tora, Tora that the Japanese are people too, but what Eastwood does here is depict in stark detail how, thanks to a bellicose Japanese leadership, the lack of adequate supplies, and the weight of a samurai warrior culture, for most soldiers--and even the field commanders-- life essentially became a long, drawn-out exercise in slow, excruciating mass-suicide.

Obviously this is not a suitable flick for the kiddies, but it is an instructive (and even entertaining) study of the futility of war.