“Japan Sinks” FILTERS THE TRUTH

You've probably heard about the popular disaster film "Japan Sinks", which made a considerable amount of money in Japanese theaters and has topped the box offices in Korea. But did you know that the film is actually FILTERS THE TRUTH? Yang Sung-hee of the Korean newspaper JoongAng Ilbo tells us the why:

“Japan Sinks” has become the highest grossing Japanese film released in Korea. The movie tells about a catastrophic earthquake powerful enough to wipe Japan off the map. The blockbuster is expected to gross 6 billion yen in Japan alone. Ironically, the “anti-Japanese” marketing campaign promoted by the Korean distributor has contributed to its box office success.

Of course, “Japan Sinks” is hardly an “anti-Japanese” movie. In the shell of a Hollywood-style disaster flick, it contains the elevated political tension in Asia and portrays a Japan increasingly positioning itself formilitary power.

Here are some of the reviewer’s complaints:

1) The movie doesn’t follow the novel, which had an “introspective message on the arrogance and exclusivism of Japan”. Shockingly, the movie’s ending has been changed so that Japan doesn’t entirely sink.

2) “An underwater exploration expert initially plans to leave the country but ends up saving Japan by going down with a submarine. It is a Kamikaze-style sacrifice.” -Yes, exactly. One man going on a suicide mission to stop a geological disaster that is killing many people is comparable to men getting in airplanes and killing other people in suicide attacks.

3) Japan covers up the truth about Korea:

While neighboring Korea was partly damaged by the earthquake in the original book, there is no reference to Korea in the movie. It is not included in the list of nations calling for help, and the only mention of Korea is an announcement to the escaping Japanese not to make individual crossings to South and North Korea because of controls on illegal immigrants.

4) Japan is the only country sinking? Clearly this movie has an arrogant militaristic goal:

The most notable aspect of the movie is that Japan alone is in jeopardy of sinking, and the countries around the world are reluctant to help. Japan innocently finds itself in a crisis, but no help is coming. The fate of the country and the people depends on if Japan can stand strong by itself, justifying the reason for self-defense.

5) The movie is linked to Murakami Ryu’s “Leave the Peninsula”, which demonstates:

..the self-tormenting historical view of the Japanese, who consider themselves victims of history despite the fact that they in fact have been the assaulters. It is truly troubling if the outcome of the self-tormenting historical view is rearmament.

Disaster films are just the newest part of Japan’s trend in distorting history to make itself a victim. Did you know that the shinking of Japan depicted in the movie didn’t actually happen? What an outrage! When will the Japanese actually start telling the truth?

[Thanks to Chevalier87 for submitting this link!]