Movie UNBROKEN

[Bill Greenwood]

I just saw UNBROKEN, based on the true story of Louis Zamperini. He grew up in Calif, was picked on as a kid party due to Italian background, became a track star, ran well in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the one where Jessee Owens dominated and embarassed Hitler's idea of racial purity. He then became a bombadier in the Pacific in a B-24. Went down at sea and floated in a life raft for more than a month till found barely alive by a Jap ship, taken to prison camp and finally survived the war.

This is not a nice movie to take the kids too, and frankly I don't think many ladies will enjoy it. Half the movie is about the cruelty of the prison guards, one in particular called , "The Bird". After the war a number of war criminal were tried in Japan, a few executed, quite a few imprisoned, and unfortunately this barbaric goon escaped punishment.

Louie had incredible self strength to endure and survive. He even met Billy Graham , became religeous and forgave these people, and went back to Japan to be the Olympic torch runner for the laterTokyo games, when he met some of the former prison guards.
The main one, the "Bird" did not meet him, nor ever recant his crimes.
I hope there is a real place, "Hell" and this guy is there.

I also wonder if there is any legal action that a former prisoner could win against a country and espcecially any person for such crimes?

[gbrasch]

Read the book if you haven't already. I think it's been on the best seller list for over a year. Interesting side story about the author too and her medical condition. One of the best reads ever for me.

[iFLYblog]

I read the book and saw the flick - awesome story.

It's not a flying movie though, but well worth seeing.

[Floatsflyer]

A few comments on Bill's post. Louis Zamperini ran in the torch relay at the 1998 Nagano, Japan winter Olympics. That was significant as it was only a few miles away from the POW camp he was in. You talk about how you hope "The Bird" is in Hell and you wonder about legal action today against those involved in war crimes. To the first, I can only remark that you've missed one of the 2 major themes of the movie which is the art of forgiveness practiced by Zamperini which literally saved his life after the war. To the second, the US government stopped prosecuting Japanese war criminals in the early 1950's, preferring to adopt a policy to improve relations with Japan. This of course is in sharp contrast to the treatment of Nazi war criminals, whose prosecution continues to this day. I don't know why the US discontinued prosecuting those Japanese for their unspeakable acts and yet it and many other countries continue to search for and bring to justice the Germans.

The movie is riveting with great performances from the actors portraying Zamperini and Mutsuhiro "The Bird" Watanabe(so convincing), the sadistic, psychopathic POW camp commander. It also contains, IMO, 2 major flaws- not going into his life post-war and the fact that the movie, for all it's violence, depravity and brutality, is almost bloodless. Angelina Jolie has said she wanted to make the film a PG rating so her own kids could see it and learn from it. That aside, I highly recommend you see the film.

As the end credits rolled, I found myself asking 2 questions: could I endure such brutality and hardship and would I have had the power and will to forgive? To the first, I answered I don't know; to the second I answered no way.

And I wanted to know so much more about Zamperini's post-war life so I headed to mr. google and there is an amazing abundance of information. One of the things I found is a short documentary made by CBS Sports for the 1998 Nagano games. It's fabulous and fills in a lot of what the film omits. It also contains an astonishing interview with a former camp guard who admits that he and the other guards were very afraid of Watanabe because of the level of violence he engaged in. Even more astonishing is an interview with The Bird himself(he died in 2003). I'm linking the doc here, it's a must see compliment to the movie.

http://youtu.be/aEGL-wyz1yk

[FlyingRon]

Yeah, the difference is for a couple of reasons. First, we pretty much had 100% control over the reconstruction of Japan after WWII. Germany was split four ways (and we weren't on good terms it would seem with the Russians anyhow). The second was MacArthur. You can argue what you want as to whether he was a decent general, but as the leader of the occupying government he did an outstanding job of transitioning Japan to a more or less stable system, rather than just stomping on them which would almost certainly have come back to haunt us. The only downside is he got called back into war during Korea and managed to screw up badly as a general again.

[Bill Greenwood]

Flaots, as for as forgiveness, that is a choice that Louie made for himself, apparently after he met Bill Graham and became religious.
As for myself, I believe people should be held responsible for crimes like what "The Bird" did. No, I haven't read the book, but another source says this guy was #7 on the list of most wanted war criminals after the war, and that he escaped by going into hiding as a laborer on a farm, and died in 07. Obviously he had some help in being hidden. I think the U S should have offered a large reward, $200,000 for turning him in, and made it a serious felony to harbor him. I know that MaCarthur and the govt took a soft approach to some war criminals, like the slimy, little emperor, maybe in hopes of having the population be docile and cooperative. I think this was likely wrong, and especially in the Bird case, as he was not any revered leader, or hero, just a thug.
Wars are terrible, and full of crimes and abuses, but I think people and nations should be held accountable for the worst ones. Billy Graham obviously feels otherwise, he used to pal around with Nixon.
The U S like most every other nation, doesn't have clean hands. The recent news, really no surprise to me, is the revelations about torturing and even killing some prisoners. I have less respect for Cheney than even "the Bird", both were and should have been tried as war criminals. But in one way, what Cheney and others did was perhaps more understandable, it was at least on the surface to try to get info to prevent the next Al Quada attack. "The Bird" had no real intel or tatical purpose, just to personally indulge his need for cruelty. I'd like to know how he was raised and became this way. Maybe B-29 bombings killed his family, I don't know any of his background.
Even some of the worst U S war crimes like the shooting of women and infants at My Lai and unarmed students at Kent State, were spur of the moment rages, not long term and continuous brutality. Our shame is more that no one was punished for these, especially not anyone in higher authority.

I know very few Japanese, am not expert on them at all, but it is my impression that they certainly had and probably still have the character flaw, both as a people and as a nation of "Saving Face", which boils down to living a lie, to pretend that you have clean hands no matter what and rarely, if ever, admitting a wrong and apologizing for it. I have flown with one young CFI, born in Japan, and he confirmed the "saving face" is still the way it is there, but we didn't go too deeply into it.

I met and spoke with one of the Zero aces, Sakai?, but never got into any moral questions of Japan as a nation. I think he was a soldier, a tool, just as B-29 pilots were.

One small personal note. I share a driveway with a neighbor. The husband is causcaisian, the wife and grandmother Japanese or at least Japanese American. She is particulary unfriendly and overbearing, hard to get along with. I've got to phone them today about a plumbing repair bill from their workmen using my faucet without asking and I am not looking forward to it.