The battleship island 군함도

The battleship island 군함도

1.Plot

Under the colonial rule of Japan, 400 or so Koreans who are conscripted into slave labor on 'The Battleship Island', attempt to escape for life. 1944, during the Japanese occupation of Korea, conscripted civilians head out to the Hashima island. Nicknamed 'The Battleship Island' after its resemblance to a war vessel, some are lured by false promises of high wages. LEE, a bandmaster of a jazz bigband and his only daughter, CHOI, a thug, and Mallyeon are among the workers. But upon arrival, they found that the island turns out to be an isolated hell where the workers are forced into slave labor. As the Pacific War nears its end, PARK, a Korean independence activist assigned on a mission to rescue a Korea's spiritual leader from the island. As the U.S. launches massive counterattack on Japan, the Japanese decided to blow up the island in order to bury the truth about their awful treatment of the Korean slave labors. PARK discovers the plan, and conspires with LEE and others for mass escape of all 400 Koreans.

2.Cast

Jung-min Hwang : Lee Gang-ok

Ji-seob So : Choi Chil-sung

Joong-Ki Song : Park Mu-young

3. Comment

It's like when you look forward to your present, but it turns out just nothing in it.

4. What you should watch carefully

When I heard this movie about to release, I thought it must be a good movie saying historical disaster of how koreans were treated. But when it was released, I couldn't hide my disappointment. There is just an action, prison break and WTF romance. 

Hasima island is now approved as a UNESCO World Heritage site in July 2015. But there is no explanation about forced labor.

I cannot help explaining about 'Comfort women' with this movie. It's a heart-aching history of Korea, and it must be put it in the right place.

Comfort women-wiki pedia

Comfort women were women and girls forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army in occupied territories before and during World War II.

 

The name "comfort women" is a translation of the Japanese ianfu, a euphemism for "prostitute(s)". Estimates vary as to how many women were involved, with numbers ranging from as low as 20,000 (by Japanese historian Ikuhiko Hata) to as high as 360,000 to 410,000 (by a Chinese scholar); the exact numbers are still being researched and debated. Most of the women were from occupied countries, including Korea, China, and the Philippines. Women were used for military "comfort stations" from Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan (then a Japanese dependency), Indonesia (then the Dutch East Indies), East Timor (then Portuguese Timor), and other Japanese-occupied territories. Stations were located in Japan, China, the Philippines, Indonesia, then Malaya, Thailand, Burma, New Guinea, Hong Kong, Macau, and French Indochina. A smaller number of women of European origin were also involved from the Netherlands and Australia with an estimated 200–400 Dutch women alone.

 

According to testimonies, young women were abducted from their homes in countries under Imperial Japanese rule. In many cases, women were also lured with promises of work in factories or restaurants; once recruited, they were incarcerated in comfort stations both inside their nations and abroad.