Capsule Review, Minimal spoilers (in green):

Bought the movie Yamato (2005) and watched it recently. It’s yet another Japanese movie about the Yamato, and its demise. It is definitely better than The Great War of Archimedes, which I saw recently. Part of the movie takes place in 2005, the 60th anniversary of the sinking of the mighty battleship. A woman approaches the harbormaster, who’s trying to convince an old ship captain to attend the memorial service, for once. When she talks to the harbormaster, she just gives out the coordinates, and the captain perks up, but walks away. No one will do it, as it’s a 200KM trip. Later, she convinces the captain to take her. Yes, he’s a survivor of its last battle.

This triggers a lot of flashbacks to the time of war. Kamio (the ship captain) remembers his time as a young ensign, who volunteers for the navy while underage, and gets assigned to the Yamato, where his older brother serves. New cadets are treated severely, beaten for mistakes, but Kamio finds a way to make it through. It’s a harsh life. The story unfolds over time, and it’s part drama and part war. There are strong connections to the sailors’ families at home, and occasional times on shore, as the sailors return to family as they are permitted. There is a connection between the woman and the captain. It’s a good film, a bit light on the combat, but the finale is quite brutal and gory.

The film uses a lot of CGI, and this is where I was underwhelmed somewhat. Granted, the CGI of 2005 is nowhere near as good as the CGI of now (or even within a low res game of WoWs), but even the animation of the planes was a little unbelievable. This was a DVD release, so that may have affected what I saw when scaled up to my 4K big screen. Look at the cover art for the movie below, and you can get an example of the CGI. Not great, but passable.

What I did find impressive was about the main set, and here’s the copy from the Wikipedia page, “Filming for Yamato took place from March to June 2005 at a closed-down shipyard of Hitachi Zosen Corporation in Onomichi, Hiroshima Prefecture. Approximately JPY 600 million was spent in building a 1:1 scale set of the forward section and the portside anti-aircraft guns. ” The set really looked good, and they could not have done it any justice with CGI.

So, if you like a bit of drama along with your war film, this one’s worth checking out. It’s funny, I think (and I’m probably wrong), but I was thinking that the opening of The Great War of Archimedes used some of the scenes on the deck.