Abe should watch Jolie's Unbroken

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was reelected on Dec 24 for a third term, has an uphill battle to prove that he no longer harbors a revisionist historical view that whitewashes the atrocities of the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II.

One way he could do this is to watch the new Hollywood movie Unbroken. Directed by Angelina Jolie, the movie is based on a 2010 book by Laura Hillenbrand. It tells the story of US Olympic runner and World War II bombardier Louis Zamperini, who survived more than two years of horrendous torture in Japanese prison camps.

It is a powerful story, yet there are no patriotic or heroic slogans from Zamperini. Instead, the movie shows that as a child, Zamperini, an Italian immigrant boy, was causing a lot of trouble for his parents. Nevertheless, he was trained by his brother Peter to be a runner, competing in the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin.