The Battleship Island (2017)
The Battleship Island (2017) ->>> https://blltly.com/2tEAai
Filming began June 17, 2016 in Cheongju, South Korea and finished on December 20, 2016. The film reunites Hwang Jung-min with Ryoo Seung-wan, who directed the 2015 hit movie Veteran starring Hwang.[8] Production cost about five times more than the average locally produced film due to the massive lifelike sets.[9] While the island provided the inspiration for the plot, The Battleship Island was not filmed on location. The sets were built in Chuncheon and were designed to resemble the conditions of Hashima Island's community and mines during the 1940s.[10]
Initially, Japan acknowledged Korean and Chinese forced laborers were there during World War II in its application to UNESCO for World Heritage status for Hashima Island.[12] The acknowledgement was a response to South Korean opposition to the bid stating, "large number[s] of Koreans and others [...] were brought against their will and forced to work under harsh conditions in the 1940s at some of the sites [including Hashima island]".[13][14] However, once Hashima Island was approved as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida made statements contradicting the earlier acknowledgement of the existence of forced laborers stating, "[forced to work under harsh conditions] by the Japanese government representative did not mean forced labor".[15][16] Although the UNESCO's World Heritage Committee had required the establishment of a monitoring mechanism to measure the degree to which Hashima Island victims are remembered,[17] the island's official tourism website and tour program - operated by Nagasaki City - makes no mention of forced laborers and currently does not make any efforts to comply with promised UNESCO requirements.[18]
"The Battleship Island" is set in a Japanese internment camp on Hashima Island just before the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Most of the film's diffuse ensemble drama concerns former band-leader Gang-ok ("The Wailing" star Jung-min Hwang), and his pre-teen daughter Sohee ("Train to Busan" lead Su-an Kim). But occasionally, the drama splits off from Gang-ok and his daughter, and focuses on secondary characters in order to further contextualize the nightmare that Gang-ok and Sohee find themselves in. Women of all ages are herded into "comfort houses" where they are prostituted for Japanese officials; pregnancy and venereal diseases are treated as inconveniences that bring dishonor on the island. Men are typically forced to work in coal mines where they must navigate claustrophobic, and highly combustible make-shift tunnels. Everybody works, and nobody is exempt from the anger of Japanese wardens/guards, not even the Korean collaborators who serve as middle-men between Japanese soldiers and Korean prisoners.
With the war coming to an end and the Japanese on the verge of defeat, Mu-young aborts his original mission to rescue an independence movement leader, and devises a daring plan to evacuate all the Koreans from the island.
During the Japanese takeover of Korea in WWII, a group of Korean prisoners, including famous gangster Choi Chil-sung, (So Ji-sub) grad student Oh Jang-woo, (Jang Sung-bum) escaped comfort woman Mal-nyon, (Lee Jung-hyun) and a nine-piece band led by Lee Gang-ok (Hwang Jung-min) that includes his pre-teen daughter So-hee (Kim Soo-ahn) are taken to the ruthless Nishima Island to work the coal mine inside as forced laborers. Tasked with working under the grueling conditions by Daisuke Shimazaki (Kim In-woo) and with no hope of an escape, they soon get word that Korean Liberation Army leader Yoon Hak-chul (Lee Kyoung-young) is among the miners and has sent OSS agent Park Moo-young (Song Joong-ki) in to extract him. Realizing their opportunity, the motley group of survivors band together with the other desperate souls onboard the camp to stage a drastic rescue mission to get him and themselves off the island.
The Battleship Island is a South Korean war film and is about the 400 Korean prisoners who had to mine coal under inhumane conditions on the Japanese island of Hashima during World War II. However, together with a resistance fighter, they plan to escape from the cruel island.
Lee Kang-ok (Hwang Jung Min) is a musician who planned to travel to Japan with his daughter. He ends up doing his best to please the Japanese in order to protect her. Park Moo-young (Song Joong-ki) is a member of the Korean independence movement who infiltrates the island in order to rescue an older man being held captive there. Choi Chil-sung (So Ji Sub) is a violent man who seems to be from a Korean mafia. Oh Mal-nyeon (Lee Jung Hyun) is a comfort woman who has already experienced terrible things with the Japanese in China.
"There cannot be a single witness who survives to tell what happened here." CJ Entertainment has released an impressive trailer for a war film titled Battleship Island, from director Ryoo Seung-wan. Set during the Japanese occupation of Korea in 1944, the film is about the 400+ Koreans that were conscripted into slave labor mining coal on an island known as "Battleship Island". They attempt to band together and make an escape. The main cast includes Hwang Jung-min, So Ji-sub, Song Joong-ki and Lee Jung-hyun. This looks like another strong anti-Japanese film from Korea - between this and The Age of Shadows, some Korean films these days seem to have a strong anti-Japanese agenda. The final scene in this trailer with the candles looks chilling, and I must admit most of this footage is better than expected. I'm curious about this.
1944, during the Japanese occupation of Korea, conscripted civilians head out to the Hashima island. Nicknamed 'The Battleship Island' after its resemblance to a war vessel, some are lured by false promises of high wages. Lee, a bandmaster of a jazz bigband and his only daughter, Choi, a thug, and Mallyeon are among the workers. But upon arrival, they found that the island turns out to be an isolated hell where the workers are forced into slave labor. As the Pacific War nears its end, Park, a Korean independence activist assigned on a mission to rescue a Korea's spiritual leader from the island. Battleship Island is directed by Korean filmmaker Ryoo Seung-wan, of Veteran, The Berlin File, The Unjust, and The City of Violence previously. CJ Entertainment will release Battleship Island in US theaters starting this summer. Stay tuned.
When the island was listed as a World Cultural Heritage site in 2015, Tokyo promised Seoul it would exhibit the history of Koreans forced to work there. Japan may continue to collect more testimony, potentially including acknowledgements of forced labor.
This film is based on historical events that happened during the Japanese colonization, where 400 Koreans were assigned to work as forced laborers on a remote island called Hashima Island. Hwang Jung Min plays Lee Kang Ok, the leader of a band with a daughter named So Hee (played by Kim Soo Ahn). He mistakenly gets put on the ship that is taking all the forced laborers to the island. On this ship, there is a well-known gangster by the name of Choi Chil Sung (So Ji Sub) and a slave named Mal Nyeon (Lee Jung Hyun). All of these characters get to the island and are forced to be conscripted laborers in a coal mine. They face various challenges from the Japanese, who are running the island. Song Joong Ki also stars in the film as Park Moo Young, a freedom fighter who gets sent to the island a bit later on in the film. He gets tasked with a mission to rescue one of the members of the Korean Independence Movement and is to rescue him alone.
The British/Commonwealth army relieved the besieged port of Tobruk on 10 December and drove west toward Tripoli. Italian efforts to reinforce the retreating Axis army grew more desperate. On 13 December, Operation M41 began. This involved eight merchant ships in four convoys. The direct escorts included 12 destroyers, while four battleships, five cruisers, and 13 destroyers served as a distant screen. Six weeks before, Riccardi had worried about using 3,500 tons of oil to protect one convoy. Now he was expending nearly ten times that amount.
For the Italians, this was tragic but the situation worsened. Before M41 even started, the British had received 21 separate ULTRA messages about the operation, including one that gave enough information to preposition submarines.[9] These sank two of the eight merchant ships en route to their departure port. A strengthened Force K roared out of Malta seeking a night engagement while three cruisers hurried from Alexandria to reinforce the Malta squadron. An Italian reconnaissance aircraft mistook the cruisers from Alexandria for battleships and the Italian high command scrubbed the operation, worried about the lack of air cover and the possibility of a night battleship action. To complete this tale of woe, a British submarine torpedoed the modern battleship Vittorio Veneto on the morning of the 14th as she was returning to port, and two merchantmen collided.
The loss on the same day of the surface strike force and the battleships knocked askew the props of British sea power. The Italians proceeded to assert themselves in the central Mediterranean. Italian fleet sorties in February and March 1942 helped frustrate Malta convoy operations from Alexandria and in June 1942 an entire 11-ship convoy, escorted by eight cruisers and 25 destroyers turned back rather than face a pair of Italian battleships supported by four cruisers and a dozen destroyers. Not only did the victories off Tripoli and in Alexandria allow the Italians to gradually impose a naval blockade of Malta, it allowed them to freely run supplies to Africa. Without the surface warships in in the mix, the submarines and aircraft from Malta were less effective. German air power, which started entering the theater at the end of December, and which had, by the end of March, largely neutralized Malta as a base, further reduced their effectiveness. Crises in the Atlantic and Far East prevented the British from redressing the balance in the Mediterranean. 781b155fdc