Let's not discuss accents, not sure where some of these people were supposed to be from but that aside it was a watchable if flawed film and a little lacklustre. As always with Ridley Scott some beautifully shot scenes and I liked the dark, muted, earthy colours he'd given it but he didn't win over my empathy with the characters or get me feeling involved or really caring about their stories. There was potential for a lot more fleshing out…

From the moment this film began I was hooked by the rhythm and poetry of the conversations to and fro between the characters. It was set in Kagoshima in 1945 and in Kyushu dialect. (Sadly the subtitles didn't quite reflect rhythm or poetry much of the time and lost quite a lot of the nuance of the language but not always easy to achieve). The characters personalities and situations were set up beautifully and I really felt drawn in to…