With Flags of Our Fathers, Clint Eastwood took the iconic raising of the stars'n'stripes over a Japanese island and weaved around it an expansive story of American heroism and military opportunism.

Switching to the enemy's vantage point, this pared back, contracted narrative simply tells the story of the men facing the gigantic oncoming American fleet.

Through the eyes of a gallery of characters - particularly Kazunari Ninomiya's conscripted baker and Ken Watanabe's veteran commander - we follow the ill-fated preparations before they lock horns with Uncle Sam.

The grim fact was that the Japanese soldiers charged with defending the godforsaken strip of volcanic sand did so in the knowledge that they faced almost certain death.

Ninomiya's character Saigo is a cheery soul determined to see his newborn daughter whereas Watanabe's Lt General Tadamichi Kuribayashi is a career soldier with a rare insight into the approaching US forces.

Frantically carving bunkers out of solid rock and equipping them with a ragtag assortment of howitzers and machine guns, the Japanese war effort was already a doomed enterprise.

Nevertheless, driven by the imperial cult which dictated blood loyalty from the troops, they persevered in the face of enormous odds against an unbeatable war machine.

Written by Iris Yashamita and Paul "Crash" Haggis and spoken by the actors in their native tongue, this winningly plays like a cross between Tokyo Story and All Quiet On The Western Front.

Cutting through the myth of Japanese soldiers as emotionless automatons, Letters reveals the grunts as little different from their American counterparts streaming towards them up the beach.

There is a reference to the - on the face of it - bizarre customs that define them when a group of ultra-loyalist troops commit suicide by detonating grenades held to their chests.

However, what comes across strongest is the sheer humanity of the men whose beliefs may differ... but whose basic essence was identical to their foe.

Tim Evans