Posted on 12/13/2014 5:00:31 AM PST by Hostage
TOKYO — Angelina Jolie’s new movie “Unbroken” has not been released in Japan yet, but it has already struck a nerve in a country still wrestling over its wartime past.
The buzz on social networks and in online chatter is decidedly negative over the film, which depicts a U.S. Olympic runner who endures torture at a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp during World War II.
Some people are calling for a boycott of the movie, although there is no release date in Japan yet. It hits theaters in the U.S. on Dec. 25.
Others want the ban extended to Jolie, the director — unusual in a nation enamored with Hollywood, and especially Jolie and her husband Brad Pitt, who have reputations as Japan lovers.
The movie follows the real-life story of Louis Zamperini as told in a 2010 book by Laura Hillenbrand. The book has not been translated into Japanese, but online trailers have provoked outrage. Zamperini, played by Jack O’Connell, survived in a raft for 47 days with two other crewmen after their B-24 bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean, only to be captured by the Japanese and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp.
Especially provocative is a passage in the book that accuses the Japanese of engaging in cannibalism of POWs. It is not clear how much of that will be in the movie, but in Japan that is too much for some.
“There was absolutely no cannibalism,” said Mutsuhiro Takeuchi, a nationalist-leaning educator and a priest in the traditional Shinto religion. “That is not our custom.”
Takeuchi acknowledged Jolie is free to make whatever movie she wants, stressing that Shinto believes in forgive-and-forget.
But he urged Jolie to study history, saying executed war criminals were charged with political crimes, not torture.
(Excerpt) Read more at reviewjournal.com ...
The brutality of the japs during WWII is very well documented, as is their reconstruction as a powerful and productive ally to the United States.
Everything will depend on how the movie portrays the combatants and what message is conveyed.
>>They should be THANKFUL we used the a-bombs on them.
>>Those two bombs SAVED the lives of TENS OF MILLIONS of Japanese.
Spot on. Anyone who knows the details of the battle of Okinawa understands this. Most are ignorant, especially those who still attempt to excoriate the USA for dropping the two bombs.
That’s interesting to see another film was released outside the USA early 2013 that seems quite similar. Kidman is quoted as saying she was drawn to acting in the film due to its theme of forgiveness; so similar to ‘Unbroken’.
It is also reported that ‘Unbroken’ de-emphasized Christianity having to do with Zamporini’s redemption with his approval as it would boost the universality of the story. I don’t like that but I imagine some distributors refuse to market widely a Christian film so, it looks to have been a business decision. But I sense from reading about the making of the film and about Jolie’s embracement of Christianity during the filming that the message of Christ filters through and should in any event attract many people to learn more and hence will learn that Zamporini had pledged his life to Christ.
Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman are two heavyweights in the world of film but I read the reason ‘The Railway Man’ may not have had the same pre-screen chatter is because it was launched with the Cannes Film Festival in sight and without a USA distributor lined up. I read it was 40% funded by government subsidies of Australian art grants. Whereas ‘Unbroken’ is managed by Universal Studios with the Academy Awards in sight and already has USA distribution lined up to release it.
But the reviews for The Railway Man are good and I am going to see if I can do an instant purchase online. Thanks for the tip.
I agree that the movie is not about the Japanese per se. It’s about how past trauma can kill a person going forward unless they find a way to let it go via forgiveness and in the case of Louis Zamporini, giving one’s life to Christ.
The setting just happened to be the backdrop of Imperial Japan and it is a shame and perhaps a danger that they have not yet faced fully what was allowed to happen in their history. Americans are pretty aware of Sherman’s March to the Sea during the War of the States. There’s no hiding it although it was less severe than what was documented about what the Japanese imperial forces did to people.
The movie is timely as it is places itself in the public eye at the same time that the liberal press is trying to gain traction with a report of ‘US Torture’ of Muslim combatents. Young thinking Americans who are relatively unexposed to historical accounts of state-sponsored torture should be able to draw a clear distinction between recent American ‘Enhanced Interrogation’ events versus the diabolical and unthinkable torture of prisoners at the hands of WWII Japanese tormentors.
I saw it in theater here in Toronto. It goes back and forth between present day and the war. I rate it 7 out of 10 or 3 out of 4 stars. It is moving but his forgiveness would have made more sense if you knew of his faith.
Worth noting the difference between the Japanese and the Americans, in that the former don’t seem to suffer the irrational, paralyzing racial guilt over past wrongs that the latter seem to. Also worth noting is the apparent disparity in the incidence of racially-encouraged riots in the two countries.
The Japanese are lucky we developed the nukes.
War weary soldiers entering Japan and seeing what the Japs did to their breathren? Well, we killed Nazi guards after we saw what they did to the prisoners. After seeing what the Japanese did to their brothers in arms, I don’t think unit discipline could hold them back from wiping out the Japanese.
The Japanese got lucky that we nuked them.
Only 2/3 of PoWs held by the japs survived.
I am grateful that Japan is now an American Allie but the truth is the truth and historical facts are facts indeed. All one has to do is research "The Rape of Nanking" and read about the horrific brutality and atrocities regularly carried out by the Japanese in China and EVERYWHERE their troops conquered territory. All one has to do is go on to YouTube and there are a multitude of videos and video documentaries that vividly present actual video of the crimes against humanity carried out by the Japanese throughout WWII and before going back to the mid 1930's.
This generation of Japanese can deny the truth and the reality of their barbaric ancestors brutality all they want but it will not change the facts of the truth of history.
The tragedy is that most of those directly responsible for Japanese crimes against humanity in the 1930's and 40's were never held accountable (in this life); never tried, prosecuted or punished/put to death. As a direct result of this utter miscarriage of justice we have had vocal Japanese deniers of the horrific crimes perpetrated by the Japanese since nearly the end of WWII.
After 6 months as a POW, the president of the Philippines that the Japs appointed, was a good friend of my father. They were both MASONS. He took it upon himself to write a release for all of us, and we spent the next 3 years in the jungle. On Feb, 1945, they captured my father. He was tortured and thrown in the oven. They were on the retreat, and they had to hide their crimes. Then the KEMPETAIS (JAP GESTAPO) started seriously looking for us, We hid in the sugar cane fields and lived on sugar cane for three or four days. We were dying. Then, one morning on the third or fourth day, a fleet of DC THREES -, they were called “DAKOTAS” flew over us and they dropped the 11th airborne division right on top of us. That’s why I’m still alive and have reached my 80th birthday
I think only two prominent Japanese were executed for war crimes - Prime Minister Tojo, and General Yamashita for the rape of Manilla. I seem to recall reading that Yamashita was something of a sacrificial lamb because he was a commoner, and getting too far into the Samurai class and the nobility would involve the imperial family, and we needed the Emperor on our side if we were to have a successful occupation.
If you had gone around in 1912 telling people that in 30 years the Germans would be shoveling people into incinerators by the trainload, you would have gotten a life sentence in an insane asylum.
Yep. All very sad.
Leads me to think intelligence, or education, or “culture” are no inherent innoculation against evil.
All having them means is that if you fall into evil you are likely to perform it in intelligent, educated or cultured ways.
This is, BTW, a huge swipe at leftism, which assumes without any evidence at all that any human problem can be solved by “more education.” Kind of like “more cowbell.”
Soon after the war, the Allied powers indicted 25 persons as Class-A war criminals, and 5,700 persons were indicted as Class-B or Class-C war criminals by Allied criminal trials. Of these, 984 were initially condemned to death, 920 were actually executed, 475 received life sentences, 2,944 received some prison terms, 1,018 were acquitted, and 279 were not sentenced or not brought to trial. These numbers included 178 ethnic Taiwanese and 148 ethnic Koreans.[136] The Class-A charges were all tried by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, also known as “the Tokyo Trials”. Other courts were formed in many different places in Asia and the Pacific.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes#War_crimes_trials
The point I made I first saw made by (I think) Thomas Sowell in “Black Rednecks and White Liberals” ... the point he was making was that if it could happen in Germany, it could happen anywhere.
Japan has never come completely clean about its war crimes, unlike Germany. And as a non-white nation, they will not be asked to (except by other non-white nations).
You mean "West Germany", East Germany hid a lot of facts from their people about what the Nazis did other than the fact they killed Ernst Thaelmann for being a Communist.
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