... the broader strokes of what's happening in the battle by focusing on the quiet internal struggle going on inside individuals in Kuribayashi's doomed forces. The movie's central character is a former young baker named Saigo (Kazunari Ninomiya), impressed into service by the Emperor and ripped away from his wife and unborn daughter to die on Iwo Jima's distant shores. When everyone around him is looking for a way to die, he's looking for a ...

..., trying to shoot U.S. Marines, who return fire. Nishi is badly wounded and blinded. Comrades try to bind his wounds, but finally Nishi commits suicide with his rifle. Boy band singer and actor Kazunari Ninomiya as Private First Class Saigo.Shimizu divulges to Saigo that he had been dishonorably discharged from the Kempeitai after five days' service because he refused to obey a superior's order to kill a family's barking dog....

..., he looks, trying to shoot U.S. Marines, who return fire. Nishi is badly wounded and blinded. Comrades try to bind his wounds, but finally Nishi commits suicide with his rifle. Boy band singer and actor Kazunari Ninomiya as Private First Class Saigo.Shimizu divulges to Saigo that he had been dishonorably discharged from the Kempeitai after five days' service because he refused to obey a superior's order to kill a family's barking dog. He...