“The whole point of the book was Zamperini’s conversion at a Billy Graham crusade and his redemption and the message of hope in Christ.
So what is the point of the movie?”
Basically, the movie was comparable to most of the Hollywood WWII war films made before PC took over, such as ‘Bridge Over the River Kwai’, and others.
I thought that it was very unusual for Hollywood to portray Japanese soldiers as sadistic in today’s PC world.
Angelina Jolie’s ‘Unbroken’ stirs resentment in Japan
Kirk Spitzer, Special for USA TODAY 9:28 p.m. EST December 23, 2014
TOKYO – Nationalists in Japan are denouncing Hollywood filmmaker Angelina Jolie’s new movie about an American airman brutalized in Japanese prison camps during World War II as anti-Japanese propaganda and are calling for a boycott of the film and its star director.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/12/23/japan-unbroken/20803301/
Looks like a good movie. Not every movie can be everything we want it to be. I enjoyed the book but probably won’t read it again. I’m a rereader. I read classics multiple times. nuff said.
As a nation, Japan has never come to grips with its actions during World War II, or its occupation of Korea (which began 30 years earlier), and Manchuria, which started in the early 1930s.
The legacy of Japanese militarism is one of torture, rape and genocide—pure and simple. Louis Zamperini was a lucky man; most of the Allied POWs who were captured by the empire of Japan were executed or died in captivity. You can easily find photographs of Japanese officers beheading captured Allied pilots and aircrew members. Conditions at POW camps in the Philippines (and elsewhere) were beyond barbaric.
In his superb book “Ghost Soldiers” Hampton Sides detailed the suffering of American soldiers who survived the Bataan Death March, only to wind up in the Cabanatuan POW camp. More than a year into their ordeal, the remaining American and Filipino prisoners finally celebrated “Zero Day,” the first day a prisoner didn’t die from starvation, disease or torture.
I’ve been told that many Japanese textbooks essentially whitewash the World War II period as an “unfortunate era” or something along those lines. The rape of Nanking, the treatment of Korean “comfort women” and other crimes receive almost no attention.
MacArthur was anxious to establish peace and transquility in post-war Japan, so he took a fairly liberal policy on punishing war criminals. A number were prosecuted, but many escaped or got off with relatively mild sentences. One of the most brutal guards at Canbanatuan, for example, served in the Diet in the 1950s; never renounced his past and finally disappeared in Vietnam in the 60s (here’s hoping the CIA got him). Likewise, one of the men who tortured Louis Zamperini refused to meet with him when the former POW offered forgiveness.
“I thought that it was very unusual for Hollywood to portray Japanese soldiers as sadistic in today’s PC world.”
Yes; very good point. It was good that this was shown. Too many people are not aware of that; or have forgotten.
People shouldn’t complain that the movie wasn’t essentially a documentary.
Movies based on real events; NEVER show the entire life story from start to finish.
I was pleased that it was even made; and it showed what it did.
It will get people curious and they will read the book.
I did as well. The honesty of the brutal treatment surprised me greatly.