It was brutal being a POW under the Japanese.

Rating: 8/10 (17 January 2015)

The story is about two men: an American prisoner of war, Louis Zamperini, and a Japanese prison guard, Mutihiro Watanabe, who torments him. The movie devotes a lot of time telling the audience about Zamperini but provides almost nothing about Watanabe, thus transforming the latter into a stereotype. Watanabe's violence comes off as gratuitous; why he targets Zamperini in particular is never fully explained, and in order for the story to make sense, an explanation is required. Yet on one point the movie is utterly clear: the brutality of the Japanese in their treatment of the prisoners of war. The sheer mindlessness of the brutality is depicted with candor and frankness. There is no question that in this movie the Japanese are brutal as a matter of policy. It was brutality motivated by sheer hatred. Watanabe hates his prisoners; he hates Zamperini. His hatred is so intense that he cannot put it into words. He can only act on it. That any Americans at all survived incarceration under these circumstances is a miracle. True, Japan and the United States were engaged in a vicious war but still, there was no valid excuse to them to forgo even the pretensions of legality in the treatment of the prisoners. For the Japanese, the prisoners were not only the enemy but were still combatants who just happned to be prisoners. The movie is crammed with violence; everything in this story is violent. Watanabe vents his rage on Zamperini. After he is "rescued" by the Japanese, Zamperini becomes a punching bag for the disgruntled Watanabe. What is disturbing is that such scenes are not merely gratuitous depictions of violence meant to intensify the story but are based on historical incidents that actually occurred. Zamperini did not deserve to be mistreated. Why the Japanese chose to take the low road of brutality is never fully answered.