Yamato - The Last Battle

Movie
German title	Yamato - The Last Battle
Original title	男たちの大和; Otoko-tachi no yamato
Country of production	Japan
original language	Japanese
Publishing year	2005
length	145 minutes
Age rating	FSK / JMK 16
Rod
Director	Junya Satō
script	Junya Satō
production	Noriko Koyanagi, ; Haruki Kadokawa
music	Joe Hisaishi
camera	Yoshitaka Sakamoto
cut	Takero Yoneda
occupation
	Ken'ichi Matsuyama : Katsumi Kamio (15 years old); Tatsuya Nakadai : Katsumi Kamio (75 years old); Shido Nakamura : Mamoru Uchida; Takashi Sorimachi : Shohachi Moriwaki; Yū Aoi : Taeko Nozaki; Jundai Yamada : Masao Karaki; Kenta Uchino : Tetsuya Nishi; Koyoka Suzuki : Makiko Uchida; Sosuke Ikematsu : Atsushi; Hiroyuki Hirayama : Tamaki; Tetsuya Watari : Seiichi Itō ;

Yamato - The Last Battle ( Japanese 男たちの大和 , Hepburn Otoko-tachi no yamato , The Men of Yamato) is a Japanese war film from 2005. The theme of the film is life on the battleship Yamato during the Pacific War and the last Battle and sinking of the ship in the East China Sea . Yamato - The Last Battle was released in Japanese cinemas on December 17, 2005 and is the most successful film in Japan to date , with a production budget of 2.5 billion yen and box office income of 5.11 billion yen (approx. 40 million euros ).

action

The film essentially deals with the time that gunner Katsumi Kamio spends as a recruit in the Japanese Navy. The stylistic device of flashback is used for this.

At the beginning, a young woman, Makiko Uchida, is shown who in contemporary Japan requests a transfer to the Yamato sinking point in a fishing port. They are turned away, it is insane to go there and it is also very dangerous. Most recently she made the acquaintance of the old fisherman Katsumi, who served as a recruit on the Yamato in his youth and participated in her last battle. When Katsumi learns that she is an adoptive daughter of his former superior, corporal Uchida, and that the latter had even survived the sinking of the Yamato (he had thought all his friends were dead), he agreed to take his fishing boat to Ms. Uchida Bringing the sinking site of the Yamato. Katsumi obviously has a split relationship with the events on board the Yamato and had previously refused to take part in the annual event to honor the Yamato in front of the harbor master.

During the subsequent trip, Katsumi tells his companion and his 15-year-old assistant Atsushi the story of the Yamato. The flashback shows how, at the age of 15, following his brother, he volunteered for the Navy. Meanwhile, his mother and girlfriend Taeko guard and care for the family's fishing boat. The father died in the war and the mother mourns every day at a small house altar in the tokonoma of her poor house. Katsumi and Taeko plan a future together, Katsumi talks about getting their own fishing boat.

Katsumi is embarked directly on the Yamato because of the greatly shortened recruit training. There he quickly met a few comrades who all had their own war stories with them. Together they indulge in patriotic oaths of loyalty that they would give their life in the spirit of Bushidō and fight to the last drop of blood. The superiors are a bit more sober, Corporal Uchida and Sergeant Moriwaki often measure their strength in judo , but there is no clear winner. In this phase, the film often deals with the various aspects of the Bushido spirit of the time, such as the man's attitude towards the team. Moriwaki wants to know the culprit who put his team at risk when he left a door open at night. Eventually one of the recruits comes forward to take the blame and is badly beaten. Uchida is supposed to continue the punishment, refuses in the same spirit and thus comes under punishment himself. In the end, he fights with Moriwaki, which could be an act of mutiny. When the young recruits bring the two adversaries together again, they all recognize the real purpose of camaraderie and become something like friends. In another scene, a sailor serving on the bridge asks the captain about the differences between chivalry and bushido .

The first battle in the film is the sea and air battle in the Gulf of Leyte . Here the Yamato is attacked by American dive bombers, and it is only by luck that Yamato gets away with a black eye. During the battle, the protagonists are used as gunners of the light anti-aircraft batteries. When the gunner of the battery (consisting of the swallow nests on the starboard flank of the citadel) is injured, Uchida immediately jumps into the breach, and after a few kills he is hit too and loses his left eye. His left shoulder is also injured.

The battle is being worked up: the dead are buried at sea, Uchida is sent to the hospital in Kure . Here Moriwaki visits him and brings him his Keikogi . Although he apparently happily congratulates Uchida on his home shot , he asks him between the lines not to forget him and the others in the coming battles. This visit and also a low-flying attack on Kure, which the hospital inmates have to watch idly by, causes Uchida to infiltrate the Yamato again as it runs out for the final stand.

A deep war weariness is slowly emerging among the Yamato crew. Soldiers quarrel about the range of defeats (occupation of Saipan by the Americans, etc.). But you motivate yourself against your better judgment with oaths of loyalty and expressions of confidence. Moriwaki's caring side comes to the fore more and more, as head of the kitchen he keeps giving the soldiers treats so that they have something to be happy about.

Then the expiry date for the last use of the Yamato approaches. The soldiers are given another shore leave. The officers and men visit relatives, bring and receive gifts, and Katsumi learns from his friend Taeko that his mother was killed in a low-flying attack. His brother died at Leyte and he is now the last survivor of his family. Taeko says she will go to Hiroshima and work in an ammunition factory there.

In the officers' mess the officers are informed of the Yamato's new mission. One should support the coastal batteries in the defense of the Battle of Okinawa . The soldiers' counter-questions reveal that there is no air support and that only one destroyer squadron is available to escort the Yamato. It is clear to everyone present that this is a suicide mission with no prospect of success. The counter-question whether this is a kamikaze mission is answered clearly, since all of Japan is on a kamikaze mission and the great sacrifice of the Yamato will announce the sacrifice of 110 million and show the enemy that an invasion is completely impossible . The next counter-question is where the commander-in-chief is with the self-sacrifice, after all, the mission has been announced as the last operation of the Japanese Navy. This question is of course cynical, challenging and accusatory: the common soldiers are going to a symbolic suicide battle, and their commander in chief is supposed to lead the operation from the bunker ashore. Even so, the question is answered truthfully and sincerely.

The next morning the Yamato runs out. During the night, the soldiers said goodbye to life in a festival. At lunchtime, the ship, which is still zigzagging for confidentiality purposes, is discovered by flying boats and is now heading straight for Okinawa. A gigantic battle ensues in which the anti-aircraft soldiers try to keep the torpedo and dive bombers at a distance. Already at the beginning the fire control center received a direct hit, and now the guns stood by themselves in order to fend off the attackers without coordination. Although attackers are repeatedly shot down, the number of failures is increasing. Soldiers are brought to the hospital, which can no longer withstand the onslaught of the injured until it is finally destroyed. The wounded are now only brought below deck and placed in quarters. The fast and agile ship still manages to avoid a few torpedoes, but ultimately the water ingress is too great and counter-flooding has to be carried out to maintain the neutral position. Here, regular ship sections have to be submerged, as the trim cells can no longer be checked after a hit in the port damage control. The Yamato is now much deeper in the water and hardly makes any speed. Now many torpedoes hit in quick succession. The unauthorized Uchida on board has gone to “his” battery and supports them in the defensive battle. After all, only Moriwaki, Uchida and Katsumi are still alive on their No. 4 gun. The deck is littered with dead bodies and severed limbs. Soldiers lose their minds or suicide with their officer's dagger.

When the Yamato can no longer be held, the commanding Vice Admiral gives the command to abandon the ship. He thanks his bridge team in all dignity and calls what he experienced a “huge embarrassment”. Then he withdraws to take his own life. Moriwaki and Uchida are now wounded themselves and force Katsumi to leave the ship. As a souvenir, Katsumi receives the Uchidas dagger, which he was awarded by Admiral Yamamoto for his services when the Yamato was the flagship of the fleet. You can see how the badly wounded Moriwaki and Uchida are still emptying their magazines; then an explosion sweeps them from their seats. The Yamato capsizes and explodes.

Katsumi's friend Taeko is killed in the attack on Hiroshima and he visits the mother of a comrade. She bought a rice field from the wages her son had sent her before leaving for the last battle and is no longer poor. It breaks her heart that she put her son up for adoption because of her poverty. Katsumi believed he hated his mother for adoption and joined the Navy because it allowed him to get rid of her.

In the end, Ms. Uchida scattered the ashes of her recently deceased father over the Yamato, and they set off on their way home. It is learned that the name of Katsumi Kamio's fishing boat is the one Taeko suggested on her deathbed .

Emergence

Overall view of the model

View of the model

For the film, the front half of the surface ship was reproduced as a 1: 1 model at the Mukaishima shipyard in Onomichi . This model, accessible to visitors for a short time in 2006, ended above the command post and has some other differences to the original ship. On the Yamato, for example, the external staircase on the bridge tower in the center of the picture did not exist, while it is used several times in the film.