That was enough to get Katsusuke Ihara, the mayor of Iwakuni, on the train to Tokyo in a bid to reopen talks about realignment, and revive the suspended subsidies for his city's fancy new municipal-government building.

ECONOMIST: The local politics of ��realigning�� America's bases

Both the defender of the island, General Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe), and his friend and fellow-officer Baron Nishi (Tsuyoshi Ihara), an Olympic equestrian before the war, are such idealized figures modest, gentle, and gallant that they lose any serious interest as characters.

NEWYORKER: Letters from Iwo Jima