HIFF Review: Wings of Defeat
Image courtesy Edgewood Pictures
“Wings of Defeat” (2007)
United States/Japan, 89 minutes
Reviewer’s rating: Three and a half stars
Review by John Berger
jberger@starbulletin.com
A Japanese-American woman’s curiosity about her uncle’s wartime service – and survival – as a kamikaze pilot becomes the catalyst to a thought-provoking look at the cultural mind-set of wartime Japan, and the men who became one of the war’s most terrifying weapons, in director Risa Morimoto’s fascinating documentary, “Wings of Defeat.”
Morimoto’s uncle never talked with her about the war, and he had already died by the time she started work on the project, but a trip to Japan turned up four other men who had been assigned to kamikaze units.
Through luck and fortunate circumstances they also had survived the war and were willing to talk about their experiences.
Much of what they have to say won’t surprise anyone who has read “The Divine Wind” (a history of the naval kamikaze pilots published in the United States in the mid-1950s) or who saw Japanese playwright Masayuki Imai’s historical drama, “Winds of God,” when it played Honolulu eight years ago, but even so, hearing former pilots and air crew talk about their feelings as they awaited certain death in suicide missions adds another dimension to the story.
Anyone who is unfamiliar with the Japanese side of the kamikaze experience will find “Wings of Defeat” an eye-opener for several reasons.
Morimoto uses wartime Japanese newsreels and contemporary interviews with other Japanese who lived through the war to give Americans an insight into the culture of national self-sacrifice that permeated Japanese society in the final years of the war. American combat footage and interviews with American sailors who survived successful kamikaze attacks complete the story.
All that’s missing is mention of the fact that while almost all kamikaze pilots and air crew were indeed young and relatively low in rank, at least two high-ranking naval officers involved with the kamikaze campaign chose to follow their men in death.
One led a kamikaze mission on the last day of the war; another committed seppuku after Japan surrendered.
“Wings of Defeat” contains occasional bits of crude vocabulary but deserves a G rating. I give it 3-1/2 stars.
“Wings of Defeat” screens at 3 p.m. Wednesday at Dole Cannery.
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