3-3-3. History-fabricating film Battleship Island insults the Japanese people

3-3-3. History-fabricating film Battleship Island insults the Japanese people
In July 2015, “Gunkan-jima” [“Battleship Island”] (officially named “Hashima”), located southwest of Nagasaki, was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List for its coal-mining facilities.
This is a heritage that we should be duly proud of for as the island contributed to the modernization of Japan.
However, during the process of having the facilities inscribed on the list of World Heritage, Korea wrongly claimed that, “The fact that Korean workers were most cruelly treated here at the coal-mining
facilities is covered up,” resorting to all possible means and measures, with officials and civilians altogether, to prevent registration.
Moreover, after inscription, Korea continued to defile this heritage,
and produced a film titled Battleship Island, a terrifying film which thoroughly distorted historical fact.
On July 2017, the film was released to the public.
At the beginning of the film, “drafted factory workers” and “comfort women” are shown being transported to Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi Prefecture, packed by Japanese soldiers into windowless freight cars.
The impression here is that Japan committed atrocities, equivalent to that of the Jewish Holocaust.
Elementary school-aged girls are shown undergoing venereal disease exams and drafted Korean workers are shown undergoing cruelties beyond description.
The film shows comfort women being brutally murdered.
Nearing Japan’s surrender, the coal mining company decides to murder all the Korean workers to conceal its cruelty.
At the end of the film, drafted Korean workers and comfort
women with guns in their hands knock down Japanese soldiers and escape from the island aboard a coal-transporting ship.
The director of this film, Ryoo Seung-wan, asserts that the film is “based on historical fact,” and that the film was shown not only in Korea, but also in the U.S. and Canada, and is slated for viewing in Southeast Asia.
However, what this film conveys is entirely fictitious.
Former inhabitants of Hashima were furious at the film’s sheer distortion of history and established the Society of Hashima Islanders for Pursuing True History.
The Society disseminated correct information to recover the honor of the island.
In fact, there were no cruelties nor discrimination against Korean workers at Hashima coal mine, and, to the contrary, Japanese and Korean miners cooperated and worked together as one friendly community, sharing their destiny.
Japanese and Korean children were good friends and studied together in the same elementary school.
When the war ended and Korean workers were evacuated from the island, company ships sent them back to the Peninsula.
A former islander recalls the departure: “Both Japanese and
Koreans were very sad to say goodbye to each other. Finally, when Koreans were leaving Hashima aboard the company ships, every one of us Japanese gathered at the sea-wall, waving our hands and
Koreans, too, waved their hands until they were no longer visible.” This is the truth.
At that time, warm, heartfelt feelings filled the air.
The film Battleship Island distorts history and degrades the
Japanese people through “images on the screen.”
This film is an extreme example of racial degradation and should not be expressed.