Review of The Battleship Island (2017) by Smart R — 03 Aug 2017

Good Family Movie for 13 and up to learn about the history. Delicately balancing the human drama with the monumental suffering, this movie teaches us yet another part of history during Japanese colonialism period and what the Japanese did to the Korean people forcibly enslaved to work in the harshest condition of a prison-like island that supplied the coals for the Japanese army to further inflict pain and atrocities to the Korean people living in both Korea and Japan.

Without the coal, the Japanese army wouldn't have been able to produce what it needed to kill and dominate over Koreans. The saddest thing I learned from this story is that the Korean people did all the "dirty work" (in literal, symbolic and bodily sense - you will see what is meant by these terms when you see the movie) for the Japanese.

What was poignant was the story of So-Hee and her father - the beauty of their endearing relationship that cast a light and beauty of human drama on otherwise a steely gray environment none other than a prison camp.

I wished the subtitled translations were more eloquent because they didn't always capture the essence of the dialogues: "lost in translation".