It is probably fair to say that there is a general consensus...

[essie07.livejournal.com]

that Nino is kicking ass as a supporting actor in Letters from Iwo Jima.

There was a post a few weeks ago pertaining to pre-movie screening reviews of the film, so I wanted to add my local newspaper's input.  And my local newspaper isn't just for like a population of a few thousand, I live in a place where the city population is in the millions, so I think this review will have at least a little more pull with how they've chosen to praise Nino.

From The Vancouver Province:
"Grunt private Saigo (Kazunari Ninomiya, who should get a supporting-actor Oscar nomination) grumbles while digging a ditch on the Iwo Jima beach in anticipation of the American attack.... Saigo, a baker, is conscripted late in the war by a clerk who fatuously congratulates the baker's weeping, pregnant wife."
- Glen Schafer, The Vancouver Province, 2007.01.12.

Glen Schafer is one of BC's most well-known and trusted movie critics and he rated this move an A-... which is pretty darn good since I haven't seen any movies in the past few months that have earned such high acclaim (looks like B/B- is standard).  I'm really pleased to see that Nino's talent is recognized internationally and that he's not just some boyband singer who's acting just because everyone else is doing it.  The fact that he gets to be directed by Clint Eastwood and work alongside Watanabe Ken is probably the biggest milestone a 23-year-old talent can achieve, especially coming from a foreign country.  Let's cross our fingers and hope that he's considered for an Oscar nomination.

I did some additional searching and found from another Vancouver paper, The National Post, that Letters from Iwo Jima won the Best Picture Award from the National Board of Review (Bob Thompson, The National Post, 2007.01.11).  If you click the link, you'll get directed to the Awards page and right at the top for best picture is Letters from Iwo Jima.  This is actually old news (as of December 6, 2006), but I thought it might be unknown by some people.