Clint Eastwood's companion piece to 'Flags of Our Fathers' retells the brutal 1945 Battle of Iwo Jima entirely from the Japanese perspective, following General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, played by Ken Watanabe, as he prepares an outmatched garrison for a defense he knows is doomed. Shot largely in Japanese with a desaturated, almost monochrome palette, the film treats its soldiers with the same humanity Eastwood extended to the American side, refusing easy villainy or heroism on either front. Watanabe's performance grounds the film's meditation on duty, futility and honor under impossible orders. A rare Hollywood production to center a WWII enemy's perspective with genuine empathy, it earned an Oscar nomination for Best Picture.