Otokotachi no Yamato the movie
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This is what I found on the film, images and some article!
Famed battleship Yamato `rebuilt' for upcoming movie
05/14/2005
By KATSUHISA SAITO The Asahi Shimbun
Sixty years after the end of World War II, a large section of the great battleship Yamato is being resurrected at a shipyard in Onomichi, Hiroshima Prefecture.
The once fearsome battleship is being rebuilt for the movie-in-progress, ``Otokotachi no Yamato'' (Yamato).
This is no ordinary movie prop, however. Its dimensions match those of the actual ship, the pride of the wartime Japanese navy, sunk in April 1945 on its suicidal mission to destroy U.S. naval forces supporting the invasion of Okinawa.
The actual Yamato was 263 meters from stem to stern and 40 meters wide at the beam. Construction of the model being built for the movie began in December and is substantially complete from its main gun battery to the bridge, a distance of 130 meters.
The bow, bearing the ship's chrysanthemum emblem, will add 60 meters. Earlier this month nearly two-thirds of the ship-the stern excepted-was completed at a cost of 600 million yen.
The sailors assigned to the Yamato in the last year of the war were amazed at their new ship. I myself was equally astounded at the size of the model.
Never had I seen such a huge film prop. The noise of the guns as the war scenes were being filmed-anti-aircraft guns, machine guns, and the huge 46-cm main guns boasting a range of 42 kilometers-was so overwhelming I had to keep my hands pressed to my ears in order to stand it.
Why, one wonders, in this age of computer graphics, is a full-size model necessary?
``Computer graphics wouldn't give you a genuine feeling of the Yamato's enormous size,'' says producer Haruki Kadokawa, who has numerous hit movies to his credit. ``You couldn't get the reality of it across with computer graphics. On the big screen the difference would be obvious at a glance. A movie rises or falls on how real its make-believe seems, so we do everything we can to simulate reality.''
``Titanic'' director James Cameron used a near life-size model of the ship whose doomed voyage his film recreated. The film's box-office success provided further evidence of the power of realistic cinema.
The Yamato, fresh from the shipyard, left port in April 1945 bound for Okinawa, only to be sunk in the East China Sea by American warplanes.
There were about 3,000 sailors aboard. Most of them died. The movie depicts the loves and deaths of these young people.
Why a movie about the Yamato now?
``Because,'' explains director Junya Sato, as he surveys his enormous model battleship, ``we need to think about what needs to be done so that Japan doesn't go to war again, and instead serves the cause of peace. Making a film about the Yamato is a step in that direction.''
* * *
``Otokotachi no Yamato'' stars Takashi Sorimachi and Shido Nakamura. Filming is due to be completed in October. The movie is to open nationwide in December. Plans call for the life-size model used in the film to be preserved in Onomichi.
The Yamato Museum opened April 23 in nearby Kure, Hiroshima Prefecture, where the actual Yamato was built. On display, besides photos, are fragments salvaged from the sunken battleship, comprising about one-tenth of the entire ship. These remains were used in filming.
The museum's admission charge is 500 yen for adults, 300 yen for senior high school students, and 200 yen for elementary school students. For further information contact the museum at 0823-25-3017.(IHT/Asahi: May 14,2005)
Here's a link to it all in Japanese;
http://www.yamato-movie.jp/index.htm
http://www.yamato-movie.jp/info_001.html
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This will be from the Japanese point of view. 
