How to solve a language problem like that?

Well, yes. You and I might well imagine doing that, sitting here all warm, well fed and comfortable at our computers. In their situation it's all they can do to come to an agreement not to kill each other just yet.

Plus they are two extremely stubborn, determined characters; they have to be, to survive. I think what's delightful about the story is the extent to which they manage to communicate without any common language at all.

"You're not listening!"

Kambei of the Descending Gormful Bedafter Gumi.

The ending is based on the wrong premise.

My father was drafted in ’43, posted to an antiaircraft artillery battalion in Panama. Went to Louisiana in ’44. The unit moved to Texas and California in ’45. Was posted back to Texas in July ’45 to train for the possible invasion of Japan. He came home with a notebook of his classes while in the service.

On this notebook he had basic German commands. Sit down. Come here. Stop. The numbers from 1 to 10. On this notebook he had names for maps in Italian. He had Japanese characters for maps. If the training had gone on as scheduled, I believe he would have had more Japanese language classes. The A bombs intervened, his training ceased and his battalion was disbanded soon after they were dropped.

It stands to believe that although the military would not have trained a real-life Marine in this situation to be a Japanese conversationalist, he should have had some basic Japanese. There were a lot of Japs which attended Western universities before they were in the military. So again it stands to reason that a real-life Japanese officer in this situation would have been able to communicate.

But I guess that if Hollywood would follow real-life rules we would not have many thought-provoking films.

I understood the ending yet I still did not like it for reasons I posted above.
This is a reply I posted on another thread...

sake would work too.



A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.