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My Way film review

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My Way film review

I really enjoyed this film because of the historical both pre-World War II though post-World War II era relations between the Japanese and Koreans. The film centers on the rivalry between two childhood marathon runners, one of Korean descent (Kim) and his Japanese counterpart (Tatsuo). While the film has a lot of violence, I felt that there many clips that you can show in the classroom that are non-violent that show the colonial relationship between the Korean and the Japanese colonizers. For example:
1. Marathon Running: there's various marathon races between Tatsuo and Kim in Korea to see who will go on to represent Korea in the Olympics; even though Kim wins the race, he's not nominated to represent Korea because the Japanese claim that no Korean can represent them in the Olympics because they're a colonized nation.
2. Uprisings: There's a couple clips when the Korean people begin to protest and start uprising against the Japanese, but are quickly squashed.
When World War II begins, both Tatsuo and Kim are drafted, but Tatsuo is a commanding officer and mistreats Kim. Both are captured by the Soviets and drafted into the Soviet army and later by the Germans. It almost seems impossible that two soldiers who were originally fighting for the Japanese are captured by enemy soldiers (first the Russians and then the Germans) and drafted into their armies, but it does. Towards the end of the film both Tatsuo and Kim begin to develop a friendship despite years of hardship and animosity. I won't spoil it for you in case you haven't seen it and while it has mixed reviews online, I recommend you watch (it's on Netflix).
Check out the movie trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzInH4-Kk8U