Accuracy in Review: Battleship Island

 

The Korean captives disgusted by the meals served in Battleship Island

Earlier this year, I watched the 2017 Korean movie Battleship Island which dramatised the events of the forced labours in Hashima Island.

The movie follow the accounts of a few captives, Lee Kang-ok (a musician played by Hwang Jung-min), Choi Chil-sung (a gangster played by So Ji-sub), Park Moo-young (a spy played by Song Joong-ki), Oh Mal-nyeon (a comfort woman played by Lee Jung-hyun) and Lee So-hee (Kang-ok's daughter and stage performer played by Kim Su-an).

As a island of rich in coal, Hashima Island is valued by the Imperial Japanese as part of their industrialisation during the Meiji Restoration. Bought by Mitsubishi (yes that Mitsubishi) during the 1890, the island gained infamy as Korean and Chinese labourers were forced to mine coal. The labourers were eventually released postwar, and the last mines closed in 1974. Hashima Island was granted UNESCO World Heritage Status in 2015.

What the film gets accurate
The workers were abused
After our main characters get introduced to Hashima Island, they set straight out to work. The Korean men mainly served as miners, while the Korean women mainly served as cleaning ladies or sex workers. With a bit of negotiation, Kang-ok and So-hee barely managed to avoid hard labour and became a part of a performing troupe.

The workers faced horrible conditions, namely poor nutrition and weak safety regulations, and were often cheated out of their wages. If performance of the male and female workers failed to meet arbitrary standards, they would face beatings and torture from the Japanese and their Korean subordinates.

The workers preparing to enter the mines.

Not every Korean supported Korean Independence
I myself was surprised how the film treated the popularity of the Korean Independence movement. Not all the Korean were in support of such an act, questioning their future survival of their hypothetical success.

Mal-nyeon, the comfort woman, also pointed out half-way through the film that the people who sold her into slavery were Koreans themselves, poignantly establishing that both Koreans and Imperial Japanese were to blame for the current situation. 

Later in the film, it was revealed that some of the Koreans were working undercover for the Imperial Japanese. This further complicated matters.

What the film was inaccurate about
There was no major uprising on Hashima Island
Despite my best efforts, I did not find evidence that a significant uprising on the island. There were riots due to poor conditions, but these were put down violently by the Japanese. 

In addition the nearest land was 18 km away, so escaping was difficult.

There was little American interest in Korean Independence
In another sub-plot, the Americans plan a spy (Moo-young) to raise the support for Korean Independence. However, there was zero to small American interest in this until the August 1945 (the end of the movie, while Moo-young was inserted much earlier). 

Conclusion
Battleship Island ultimately does a decent job is showing the suffering of the labourers (although the real life Japanese were way more crueler than portrayed).

For more information on Hashima Island
The Diplomat