Japan movie honours World War Two kamikaze pilots

TOKYO, Feb 23 (Reuters) Families weep and young girls wave flags or offer gifts of cherry blossom as fresh-faced pilots set off to almost certain death in a new film about Japan's ''kamikaze'' suicide missions during World War Two.

''I Go To Die For You'', set to be released in Japan in May, is something of a dream come true for 74-year-old nationalist writer-turned-politician Shintaro Ishihara, who waited years for financing to get his script produced.

Ishihara, widely tipped to win his third term as Tokyo governor in April, based the film on interviews with Tome Torihama, who ran a restaurant close to Chiran air base on the southernmost main island of Kyushu, where the young men were trained.

The kindly Torihama, played in the film by well-known actress Keiko Kishi, became a mother figure for many of the trainees, most of whom were still in their teens or early twenties when they were sent to their deaths.

Some entrusted her with farewell letters to be given to their families, while one promised to return to her restaurant as a firefly after his death.

''We can't stop them from going. We can't comfort them. All we can do is pray,'' Torihama says in the film.

When she died in 1992, Ishihara called for Torihama to be publicly honoured, but the government spurned the idea, inspiring him to push ahead with a movie based on her memories.

''From her I heard the true voices of the 'special attack' forces,'' Ishihara says in a pamphlet issued with the film. ''I want to leave a record of the beauty of the Japanese people who lived through brutal times.'' HISTORICAL BACKGROUND The movie sets the scene with historical background, as Vice-Admiral Takejiro Onishi announces the desperate strategy of using ''kamikaze'' pilots to fly their planes into US ships when Japan is on the verge of losing the Philippines to US forces.

The first kamikaze attack took place off the coast of the island of Leyte in the Philippines in 1944 and its success inspired Onishi to recruit more young men for suicide missions.

He committed suicide by ritual seppuku the day after Japan surrendered in 1945.

More than 2,000 planes were used and 34 US ships were sunk in Japanese suicide attacks in the last few months of the war.

Other suicide attacks were also launched by manned torpedo, by speed boat and even by divers in the final months of the war.

But the bulk of the film focuses on the feelings of the young pilots facing death.

Before striding to their planes, they toast their mission in sake and cheerfully agree to meet ''under the cherry trees at Yasukuni Shrine'' where Japan's military war dead are honoured in Tokyo.

''Don't come back alive,'' their commanding officer urges them.

Few express any doubt about offering their lives and pity is reserved for those who are not killed -- known after the war as ''failed cherry blossom.'' One character is seen descending into alcoholism after the war.

The 1.8 billion yen production is the latest in a series of Japanese films made with the cooperation of the country's armed forces, which had until recently kept a low profile under the country's pacifist constitution.

Members of the cast spent time at an army training camp and explosion scenes were filmed at another military base.

REUTERS SSC KN1334