Angelina Jolie’s wartime based movie “Unbroken” will finally be released in Japan over a year after its release despite attempts from nationalists who blasted it as racist to stop it being screened, a distributor said Thursday.
The film, directed by Jolie, which depicts an American prisoner of war being tortured by a sadistic Japanese guard, is set to hit screens in February, beginning in Tokyo before being shown in other locations nationwide.
Unbroken is based on Laura Hillenbrand s 2010 best seller and tells the story of American Olympic athlete and air force pilot Louis Zamperini, who was captured by Japanese soldiers after his bomber crashed into the Pacific in 1943.
The movie was screened in the United States and other countries last December.
Scenes of Zamperini being tortured and starved provoked anger among Japanese right wingers, who described it as racist and anti-Japanese.
Previously, cinemas in Japan in the start ditched plans to screen “The Cove” — an award-winning 2009 documentary film about the annual dolphin hunt in the town of Taiji — after threats by fishing industry supporters, before it was eventually shown.