Letters From Iwo Jima doing well in Japan

It seems like this movie is really affecting people in Japan.

About halfway through a showing of "Letters From Iwo Jima" - Clint
Eastwood's epic about Japan's futile stand during the World War II battle - a
30-something Japanese salaryman takes off his glasses to wipe
away the tears from his eyes. He does this several times during the movie, the
first time after a young American soldier dies.

It is odd that Clint Eastwood, a non-Japanese guy, is putting humanity into the portrayal of Japanese soldiers. I would think that Japanese filmmakers would be doing this for years but not according to this article. In fact the last Japanese movie about Iwo Jima was made in 1972. I guess all that emphasis on ignoring what happened in WW2 is why there are not so many war movies made in Japan.

In the US WW2 is about as popular as ever before with hundreds of video games, series, and movies being made about it. I guess Abe (with some help from Dirty Harry) is out to change that by making it cool to be patriotic again.