My Way

I recently watched the 2011 South Korean Film, My Way, which depicts the story of two friends during World War II. The story, which is loosely based on true people and events, captures the story of two friends, one who is Japanese (Tatsuo) and of a military family occupying Korea, the other who is a Korean boy (Jun Shik) and a servant to Tatsuo’s Japanese family. The two children share a passion for running and find themselves continually into their teens competing against each other. As the story takes place in Korea, Tatsuo unfairly has an advantage as final rulings of competitions tend to lean in his favor as competitions are run by the Japanese. Their competition reflects their latter years as they ‘compete’ in war with each other as WWII ensues. The story is full of twists and turns, but importantly the story can be shown in the class to show the individual stories of survivors of war and the emotional conflicts people suffer from. I do a WWII Jewish Holocaust unit with my students as an expository unit, and a major part of the unit is focusing on stories of survivors and their individual struggles. My attempt is to look at historical aspects not as large major events, but individual stories, in order to humanize the events. The film would serve as a great example for looking at individual stories as well as possibly even looking at how different cultures react to war and its effects.
edited by dchoi on 1/5/2015