Hiroshima: Out of the Ashes

If you watch this film you would have no idea of the huge number of military casualties form the Hiroshima naval base where the bomb inflicted 44,000 military casualties (10,000 Japanese soldiers and sailors dead, 33,000 inured). As a military target, Hiroshima was a major army base that housed the headquarters of the Japanese 5th Division and the 2nd Army Headquarters. It was also an important port in southern Japan and a communications center. Hiroshima naval base was home port to a huge number of Japanese Navy vessels, and where the bombing of pearl harbor exercises and testing took place. You would also not know from this film that new peer reviewed work in Korea and China show that if the surrender had been delayed another four months, an additional five million persons would have died in Japanese army occupied China, Korea, Philippines, south Asia and Oceania. And how is it we see the "daily lives" of the Hiroshima civilians without seeing that nearly 50% were directly working in war economy production, including munitions production??

This film gives a very good description of what it might have been to be in a city a see it being completely destroyed. It shows the anguish of searching for your loved ones and the despair of finding them dead. It's a good movie to show what war should not be like, that is, attacking innocent people instead of having an army versus army battle.

Obviously being years later its made an impact. Its an important lesson on what America has done during "wartime." I do feel that wartime in America is an excuse to do so many atrocities.... Much like Nazi Germany.... Only thing that separates us is we won.

This film concentrates more on the character development of several key figures, rather than on the actual bombing itself. That is the strength of the movie. The moral dilemma of whether to drop a bomb on a city that would kill at least 100,000 people, or but not doing so, initiate a conventional invasion of the Japanese mainland that would have taken several MILLION lives (both American and Japanese seems to logically point to less damaging alternative. However, some naive individuals, including one reviewer, believe losing the millions of lives would not have been an atrocity. All war is an atrocity.

The film is well-directed and the players produce non-hysterical performances in a narrative that covers several key characters simultaneously. One is a doctor with thousands of victims, no hospital supplies and no other doctors around, another is a student at a boys school, one is a Japanese woman who admires American culture, and others include a priest and American POWS. Max Van Syndow gives a moving performance. This movie makes The Day After and others in the genre look like trips to Disneyland.

This is a partially historically accurate account of the Hiroshima bombing. The only flaw was it was a bit slanted against America, making the bombing out to be a war crime, and yet under the circumstances it was certainly less so than, for example, the rape of Nanking.

Had America not dropped the bombs and instead invaded Japan, many more people would have died, probably over 500,000 including at least 100,000 Americans.

The direction was a bit sloppy by times with too many repetitive scenes. There could have been some better character development, or if there was not enough time leave out one of the sub-plots and pay more attention to the others.

Overall it was a fairly good history lesson, with some talented actors such as Max von Sydow and Tamlyn Tomita.