'Unbroken' News: Japanese Nationalists To Boycott Angelina Jolie's Film?

"Unbroken" movie which is directed by Angelina Jolie, is based on real-life story of Louis Zamperini written by Laura Hillenbrand in the same name. Although Miyavi, the Japanese actor who portrayed the role of Mutsuhiro "The Bird" Watanabe, a brutal P.O.W. guard, defended the director, it seems it's not enough to convince Japanese nationalist to like the film.

According to CBC, there is a provocative passage in the book that refers to cannibalism among the troops. It's not yet actually clear if this passage is included in the film.

Mutsuhiro Takeuchi, a nationalist-leaning educator and a priest in the traditional Shinto religion said,"But there was absolutely no cannibalism. That is not our custom."

Takeuchi acknowledged Jolie is free to make whatever movie she wants, but he also pointed that Shinto believes in forgive-and-forget. Morever, he urged the "Salt" actress to study Japanese history. The nationalist mentioned that executed war criminals were charged with political crimes, not torture.

"Even Japanese don't know their own history so misunderstandings arise," said Takeuchi.

CBC reported that Japanese theatres cancelled screenings of the Oscar-winning 2009 "The Cove." The story of the film revolves around the "bloody dolphin hunts in the town of Taiji after the distributor was deluged with threats from people who said the movie denigrated the "culture" of eating dolphins although most Japanese have never eaten dolphin or whale meat."

Roland Kelts, a journalist and expert on Japanese culture said that Jolie's film outburst is like  the frenzy over "The Cove"--- "banal and predictable."

"None of them have even seen the film, and while it is based on one man's story, it's a feature, not a documentary. There are plenty of movies that depict the brutality and inhumanity of war," the journalist said.