Wartime captivity from a young boy's perspective.

Rating: 8/10 (16 September 2005)

Hollywood's treatment of the Japanese in World War Two movies is always harsh, maybe deservedly so. According to many published histories, the Japanese treated American and other Allied POWs with cruelty bordering on outright barbarism. Incidents, such as the infamous Bataan Death March, are cited as examples of Japanese cruelty. Yet this movie attempts to portray the Japanese in a more balanced and less stereotypical way. True, in this movie too, there are scenes of Japanese beating POWs and forcing the POWs to live in conditions of abject squalor, but to the young boy in the movie, he perceives the Japanese differently. He sincerely respects the Japanese, for their dedication, tenacity, and discipline and in response the Japanese come to respect him too. The movie shows how the young boy went so far as to learn some Japanese, my point being that this movie succeeds in offering a far more sympathetic portrayal of the Japanese than found in other movies of this genre. I'm sure that some POWs who had to endure months and even years of captivity under the Japanese may object to such a portrayal, with valid grounds for feeling that way. Nevertheless, this movie is worth watching.