How Historically Accurate Is The Movie Unbroken?

May 2024 ยท 1 minute read

According to Slate, Louis Zamperini and Russell Philips were given decent treatment aboard the vessel, which was not featured in "Unbroken." It brought them to the Japanese-occupied Marshall Islands, where they were starved and interrogated before being sent to different POW camps. From here the film correctly, albeit extremely reservedly, depicts Corporal Mutsuhiro Watanabe as a ruthlessly cruel camp director who singles out and cruelly tortures Zamperini for his Olympic past (via Daily Mail).

During this time Zamperini was sent to Radio Tokyo, where he was able to broadcast a message that he was alive, but refused to read propaganda messages in exchange for preferable treatment. He remains in the camp until the end of the war, after which he is freed and Watanabe successfully escapes war-crimes charges (via History vs Hollywood). The span of time that Jolie covered is exceptionally faithful to the accounts of Zamperini and his fellow POWs. What some critics have pointed out, however, is that his life after the war was reportedly plagued by PTSD and alcoholism, which was why Zamperini's later commitment to his faith was such a turning point in his life (via NPR).

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