Not necessarily so - I've read some other articles about the film depicting the Japanese as showing very accurately the cruelity and degrading treatment the soldiers endured. I don't see anything wrong with showing what it was like for the Japanese as long as it doesn't try to rewrite Japan's history vis-a-vis WWII in a favorable light.
This is what I was going to say but I'm glad someone beat me too it. Until the movie comes out for at least the final product is reviewed, there is no way to know what it will be about.
World War II is my area of study as I work to complete my Masters. I don't oppose a movie showing the battle from the Japanese perspective so as long as it is historically accurate and does not attempt to make the Japanese out to the good guys or victims of the evil Americans.
I disagree. It is definitely a bad sign.
Now mind you, it might be a false sign, but it is most certainly a bad sign. I hope the films are better than implied by this article.
"Das Boot" was about German U-boat crews and what they went through. I consider it to be one of the best war movies of all time. It did not excuse what they did, it merely showed it. Hopefully, these two movies will do the same.
Wars are terrible things.
American prisoners suffered horribly in Japanese captivity, as did mot of the people who had to endure life under the warlords of Japan, Nazi Germany and later Joseph Stalin.
But the policies urged by governments or the warlords who ran the governmnet were not necessarily reflected by all indivudals.
The Japanese soldiers were fed a diet of war-propaganda about Americans and American cruelty. They were taught that they were modern re-incarnations of the Samurai and the Samaurai would never surrender, they would rather die fightening than disgrace themselves by surrender and anyone who surrendered had lost face and personality as a human being. They lived by that code themselves and believed that any enemy soldier who surrendered had lost their humanity and were worthless as human beings. This was a distortion of Bushido.
This is not a defense of Japanese war cruelty, but an explanation.
At the same time, there was at least one case of a Japanese official in Eastern Europe who risked his life and the lives of his family by issuing visas to European Jews as he felt NAZI extermination policies towards them made no sense.
The average Japanese soldier, like the average American, German, Russian soldier, was fighting for his country.
Its ironic that during the siege of Peking, two of the Countrys' troops which distinguished themselves by such outstanindg bravery were the Japanese and Americans who behaved much better than the Europeans there. Both sides should have taken a closer look at each other - perhaps WW2 would have been written differently.
WW2 is over. Both the Japanes and Americans suffered horribly at each other's hands. Now we are allies and face new enemies. I hope this movie doesn't create bad blood.
I would rather have the Japanese as allies than the French, Germans and other Euroweenies.
Back when Tora! Tora! Tora! was filmed, there was significant Japanese input. It was a unique collaboration for that period, and fortunately pre-dated the pestilence of political correctness. A few years ago, Pearl Harbor was revised to address complaints of Japanese test audiences. So, there's no telling which crowd Clint fell in with - the straight-shooters or the hand-wringers.
Agreed. Mrs. jimfree and I finally watched our DVD of Das Boot (director's cut) on Sunday. We weren't rooting for the Third Reich but we really felt sympathy for overstressed, professional, and heroic U-Boat crew as they tried to succeed as part of a losing strategy.