Iris Yamashita : Scriptwriter talks about Japan hit 'Letters'

Mark Schilling has an interview with Iris Yamashita on Letters from Iwo Jima, at The Japan Times (01.03.2007) :

Japanese comment that "Letters" plays like a Japanese film. That is, they feel that it is an "inside" view that does not exoticize the Japanese characters. Did you have any feeling that you were writing for a Japanese audience?

Yes, as I was writing "Letters" I did try to think through my Japanese side. For instance, Paul Haggis had some suggestions that would have been great if an American were saying those words but didn't sound right to me for these characters, and once I explained this, he understood. In particular, I looked into a lot of first person accounts of WWII from the Japanese perspective of not only soldiers but civilians as well.