China, Korea and Japan are the three countries in Northeast Asia, too tangled up to unravel the long history of gratitude or resentment. In most cases, Japan always wanted to conquer Korea to conquer China, and then established a great emperor. As the mother country of Korea, China always counterattacked Japan when Korea was in critical situation in the Japanese invasion. In China, there are many films about counterattacking Japan during 1931~1945, but few films about helping Korea fight Japan before the modern history. More historical events about the three countries in films come from Korea, and The Admiral: Roaring Currents is one of them. Directed and co-written by Kim Han-min, based on the historical Battle of Myeongnyang, it stars Choi Min-sik as the Korean naval commander Yi Sun-sin. The movie overwhelmingly surpassed Avatar’s original record of 13 million viewers to become the most watched film of all time in Korea.

In the film, it revolves around the titular Battle of Myeongnyang circa 1597, regarded as one of legendary Joseon admiral Yi Sun-sin’s most remarkable naval victories, in which he led the only 12 ships remaining in his command to a heroic victory against an invading Japanese fleet numbering 330 vessels. The film spends a lot of time telling the story that the Korean fight Japanese, but a little time telling the truth that Chinese made great effort to help the Korean fight the Japanese. But the film caters to the Korean historical values, arouses the great enthusiasm of local audiences, and makes a great success in Korea.

Some details and mistakes worth thinking.

As mentioned above, we talk about the Korean historical values. And the Korean historical values are that Korea is ashamed of being a Chinese dependency in history, and they always want to get rid of this identity, though they already have. And they want to escape the Chinese influence upon Korea. It is reasonable to get the conclusion from the details in the film.

First, as mentioned before, Korea was a Chinese dependency, and they used Chinese Character as their official written language, and Chinese calendar as their calendar. In the film, when Yi Sun-sin reads the imperial edict in Chinese, we can see the date is Wanli 30 Years of Chinese Ming Dynasty. This is a stupid mistake, because the battle broke out in Wanli 25 Years, i.e., 1597, and Yi Sun-sin died in 1598. If in Wanli 30 Years, Yi Sun-sin could not revive to lead the war.

Second, in the film, the Korean navy soldiers are all dressed in iron armor, which is not true. The standard Korean army equipments were copied from Chinese Ming Dynasty, but only the generals had the right to wear the iron armor. According to history, the Korean navy soldiers wore leather armor and cotton armor. Furthermore, iron armors are very dangerous to navy soldiers, because when falling into water soldiers would be drowned for the iron armor gravity. The film should not show disrespect for history, only because the film wants better visual effect from iron armor than leather armor and cotton armor.

Third, the film pushes Korean army forward in the battle against Japanese, but the film tells little about the fact that Chinese army were the main force to save Korea. No matter how successful Yi Sun-sin in the Battle of Myeongnyang was, it was a blocking action, not a battle of annihilation. The Japanese navy main forces retreated because of local temporary small failure, but still had the ability to attack. “We are the last defense line of Korea, and the whole country will be lost if we fail,” says Yi Sun-sin. The fact is that Korea was already lost, and the Korean King escaped into China to seek refuge. And Korean army was dogged by defeat at every step, and the main forces were mostly destroyed by the Japanese army. Under the background that main forces of Chinese Ming Dynasty were the main power to fight Japanese army, the Battle of Myeongnyang was just an auxiliary campaign.

It was nothing surprising that the film only got nearly $5 million in box office in China. In the face of nationalism, people are mentally handicapped. But if you want a successful film, nationalism is enough in local country, but far from successful in international market.

The true history.

In 1592, Japanese ruler Toyotomi Hideyoshi launched an invading war to conquer Korea to conquer China. Because of the corrupt Korean interior and army, Japanese army wiped out most of Korean army, occupied most parts of Korea to the border line of China and Korea, the Yalu River. Korean King escaped into China. China decided to counterattack Japanese army.

Badly frightened by Japanese army, the command and reconnaissance system of Korean army nearly collapsed, and couldn’t present the accurate information about Japanese army for China. Because of the wrong information, in July 1592, China sent a spearhead army of 3,000 soldiers to attack the fallen Pyongyang. The Chinese spearhead army suffered heavy casualties, and failed.

In December 1592, China sent the main forces to attack again. Chinese army showed terrible combat effectiveness. In January 1593, Pyongyang was recovered, and more than 10,000 Japanese soldiers were killed. The war damage ratio of China and Japan was1:15. In April 1593, Seoul was recovered. Soon, Japan proposed to make peace, and retreated its army. 10,000 Chinese army stayed to defend Korea and the rest retreated.

But the peace was so weak. The 1593 peace agreement was made by the envoys of China and Japan, but in order to get agreement quickly and nicely, the envoys made some provisions unreasonable for both parties, which made Chinese Emperor and Toyotomi Hideyoshi were very furious. In January 1597, Japanese army of 140,000 land forces and 10,000 navy forces attacked Korea again to ask for more. And that was the background for Battle of Myeongnyang commanded by Yi Sun-sin. Of course, Korean army was utterly routed as in the past, and it mainly relied on Chinese army to attack Japanese army. Though Battle of Myeongnyang blocked the Japanese navy attack, the Japanese navy main forces were completely destroyed by Chinese navy forces in Battle of Noryang in 1598.

The series of war laid the structure of the Northeast Asia for the coming 300 years, and had important influences on China, Korea and Japan.

In order to fight Japan, China spent 7 years and lots of money and lots of soldiers fighting in Korea, which made the country weak. And, what was worse was that to reinforce the combat personnel, the Ming dynasty had to arm and train the Manchu soldiers who later destroyed Ming Dynasty.

As for Japan, Toyotomi Hideyoshi died for the loss of the war, and Leyasu Tokugawa unified Japan. Leyasu Tokugawa cut off Japan from the outside world for almost 300years, because Japan knew that they couldn’t afford to engage another war with China again.

The Korean dynasty was reserved after the war, and continued to attach itself to China. And Korea got a famous national hero Yi Sun-sin to commemorate for the nation. 300 years later, Korea was completely occupied by Japan.

Today, December 13th, the National public memorial day of Nanjing Massacre, is set by the Chinese government to commemorate the 300,000 victims in the Nanjing Massacre by the Japanese Army. On December 13, 1937, Japanese Army attacked and occupied Nanjing, and in the following 43 days from then on, innumerable civilians, unarmed soldiers, women and children, were massacred by the Japanese Army. Nanjing became a living hell. Here, the film Spirits’ Homecoming, tells another living hell, i.e., the misery of the comfort women in the comfort station. Spirits’ Homecoming is a 2016 South Korean period drama film written and directed by Cho Jung-rae. It is set during the Japanese occupation of Korea in 1943. The movie tells the story of 14-year old Jung-min and Young-hee. One day, Japanese soldiers come to kidnap the two girls in order to use them as ‘Comfort Women’. Jung-min and Young-hee plan to escape because of the constant sexual assault and beatings. However, while Young-hee succeeds, in order to save Young-hee, Jung-min is shot by the Japanese soldiers.

The Second World War, Japan, Comfort Women, behind which is the painful history, full of spots of tears and blood. In those years, more than 400,000 females from China, Korea and other Asian countries, suffered horrific ravage and slaughter by the Japanese soldiers. Most of them were buried in the history, even without their names. A few survivors, with their broken bodies, lived abject and grievous life, and they never were able to shake off the psychological shadow.

The cruelest thing is to destroy a beautiful thing, and show you the whole course. At the beginning, the film shows girls’ life with the keynote of pure and fresh. Trees in the wild, fresh wind and sunshine, carefree games with companions, families and neighbors, all show the simple and happy life. But, when the truck full of Japanese soldiers passes by, the perplexed and worried girls and playful smile on the Japanese soldiers’ faces, we all know the living hell is just right there. It is not fictional, but really existed in history. It is not isolated, but just one of the thousands of sufferings and nightmares.

And when the girls arrive at the comfort station where the Japanese soldiers vent sexual desire, they know what are waiting for them. They are in panic and fear and violation and beatings all day long, raped by dozens of Japanese soldiers. They are not allowed to speak Korean but Japanese, which make them lose freedom and country, and become unwanted wandering souls. Most of them are very young, even under age of 14, the flower age. The heroine answers the Japanese soldier that she is just 14, and a virgin, and she cries and begs and fears and screams, but the Japanese cares nothing and violates her. She is too young to know what the Japanese is doing. The most and heaviest atmosphere spreads out, and people cannot help shivering.

The film also tells the brutal truth that even the Koreans are never on an equal footing with the Japanese, even if they take service in the Japanese army. One of the girls, whose brother is the Japanese army, is still kidnapped to use as Comfort Woman. When the brother wants to save his sister, he is beaten soundly by the Japanese. And the sister gets mad, and she calls every Japanese soldier bother, because they are in the same uniform as her brother.

The Chinese girl in Spirits’ Homecoming.

There is a plot about Chinese girl. A team of Japanese soldiers go to the comfort station. On the way, there are bodies randomly thrown away by the Japanese by the road to corrupt, without bury or cremation. That is really inhuman, because it is the basic respect to bury the dead. But, it may be quite usual to the Japanese. A Japanese soldier stops, and he takes off one of the dead girl’s clothes. He wants the girl to take on the clothes before the violence. And the girl is Chinese who does not know Japanese, and she is beaten badly by the Japanese soldier for her disobey.

The plot emphatically shows that the victims are very extensive. China and Korea, close neighbors separated only by a strip of water, are all invaded by Japanese for years. Because of war and confusion and fighting, people of two countries often cross the border line and go in to the other country. But, Japanese armies are everywhere, and they are all under the repressive rule of Japanese. In both countries, they can feel the loss of home. And when the disasters come, not a man is spared.

Furthermore, the film implicitly criticizes Chinese government that China suffered most among countries invaded by the Japanese army, and the number of Chinese females kidnapped by Japanese for Comfort Women was the biggest, but Chinese government never set a hardline tone against Japanese after the War. Take Comfort Women for an example, there is national-level researches, publications, or supporting living Comfort Women to ask Japanese government for compensation. And there is even not a film about the Comfort Women. Chinese acts only verbally, not practically. Numerous historical people and facts are left in the long river of history.

Japanese never has the courage to face the history.

Comfort women were females who were forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army in occupied territories before and during World War II. Most of the women were from occupied areas, including Korea, China, Taiwan, Philippines, Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, East Timor, and other Japanese-occupied territories. A smaller number of women of European origin were also involved from the Netherlands and Australia. Estimates as to how many women were involved, numbers are as high as 360,000 to 410,000. Stations were located in Japan, China, the Philippines, Indonesia, then Malaya, Thailand, Burma, New Guinea, Hong Kong, Macau, and French Indochina. 

So far, there is no official declaration from the Japanese government to face and acknowledge the Comfort Women problem and the pain brought to the victims. This is a question clearly worth thinking.