Wings of Defeat (2007)
Once, we were kamikaze.
89 min
Wings of Defeat is a feature-length documentary exploring the human experience of surviving kamikaze pilots. When director, Risa Morimoto, learned that her beloved uncle had trained as a kamikaze pilot in his youth but carried that secret to his grave, she decided to retrace his footsteps and ask surviving pilots about their provocative experiences. Sixty years later, survivors in their eighties tell us about their training, their mindsets, their experiences in a kamikaze cockpit and what it meant to survive when thousands of their fellow pilots crashed to their deaths. Their stories insist we set aside our preconceptions to relive their all too human experiences with them. Ultimately, they help us question what responsibilities a government at war has to its soldiers and to its people.
- Release date
- July 21, 2007
- Country of origin
- United States
- Music
- Hekiro Matsuoka
Cast
- Eugene Brick as Self - USS Drexler Survivors
- Henry Christensen as Self (USS Drexler Survivors)
- John Dower as Self
- Takehiko Ena as Self - Former Kamikaze Pilots
- Joseph Haas as Self - USS Drexler Survivors
- Shigeyoshi Hamazono as Self - Former Kamikaze Pilots
- Fred Mitchell as Self - USS Drexler Survivors
- Kazuo Nakajima as Self - Former Kamikaze Pilots
- Duke Payne as Self - USS Drexler Survivors
- Takeo Ueshima as Self - Former Kamikaze Pilots
Crew
- Risa Morimoto · Director
- Linda Hoaglund · Writer
- Linda Hoaglund · Producer
- Risa Morimoto · Producer
- Hekiro Matsuoka · Composer
- Francisco Aliwalas · Cinematographer
- Maya Stark · Editor