Ore wa, kimi no tame ni koso shini ni iku (aka For those we love, aka Kamikaze)

Ore wa, kimi no tame ni koso shini ni iku (literal translation “I will die only for you”) is a big budget (18 billion Yen) Japanese production from 2007. It followed the success of “Yamato”. The story is told through the eyes of Tome Torihama, she was a real life person who owned a restaurant in the town of Chiran during WW2. Tome Torihama cared a lot for the young Kamikaze Pilots who were trained at a nearby Airbase and visited her restaurant frequently. She became known as the “Mother of Kamikaze”. The focus of the movie lies on the time before actual combat but in contrast to “Fly boys, fly” there are some (great) combat scenes. The movie itself is quite good, at times very sad and a bit cheesy, somehow a weird mix of glorification, melancholy and criticism. Hard to describe but interesting to watch. Most special effects look good, there are some crappy bits but all in all it looks quite nice. If you are into the Hayabusa fighter plane i am sure you will be happy 😉
At the moment the movie is only available in a dubbed version, which once again is simply terrible. Many obvious translation errors and bad voice acting ruin the viewing experience. Maybe in the future someone will have the mercy to release this in a decent subtitled edition.

The real Tome Torihama:

~ by m1pencil on July 7, 2010.