Shusenjo: The Main Battleground of the Comfort Women Issue

Jul 25, 2019

2h 0m

★ 7.4

Welcome to the Battleground of the Comfort Women Issue

Overview

A Japanese-American director digs deep into the controversial 'comfort women' issue to settle the debate on whether the women were paid prostitutes or sex slaves, and reveals the motivations and intentions of the main actors pushing to revise history in Japan.

Genres

Documentary

History

Production Companies

No Man Productions

Shusenjo: The Main Battleground of the Comfort Women Issue Trailers

Cast

Self (archive footage)

Shinzo Abe

Self (archive footage)

Park Geun-hye

Self (archive footage)

Barack Obama

This documentary by director Claire Billet and historian Christophe Lafaye details the massive and systematic use of chemical weapons during the Algerian War. Algerian fighters and civilians, sheltering in caves, were gassed by "special weapons sections" of the French army. The gas identified on military documents is CN2D, whose widespread use forced insurgents to flee "treated" sites, at the risk of dying there. The method is reminiscent of the "enfumades" used by the French expeditionary force during the conquest of Algeria in the 19th century. Between 8,000 and 10,000 such operations are believed to have taken place on Algerian soil between 1956 and 1962. This historical aspect is little known due to the difficulty of accessing archives, many of which are still classified, raising questions about memory, historical truth, and justice.

4.0

Liberators Take Liberties

Feb 22, 1992

Helke Sander interviews multiple German women who were raped in Berlin by Soviet soldiers in May 1945. Most women never spoke of their experience to anyone, due largely to the shame attached to rape in German culture at that time.

7.4

The Collaborator

Jan 1, 2007

During the conflict in the former Yugoslavia many soldiers were convinced to kill fellow citizens including friends and relatives in the name of patriotism. The Kolaborator follows the story of Goran, 24, a promising young soccer player who is forced to become a soldier. Goran goes from being a talented athlete to an executioner virtually overnight. Following orders, Goran lines up civilians, shoots them and drags them into mass graves. Justifying his role as a protector of his people, Goran becomes increasingly detached from the task until his soccer coach and life-long friend, Asim, is led in front of him. As a familiar face stands defeated before him, Goran must reconsider his actions and choose between his own life and that of his dear friend.

7.7

Twenty Two

Aug 14, 2017

Follow the lives of the elderly survivors who were forced into sex slavery as “Comfort Women” by the Japanese during World War II. At the time of filming, only 22 of these women were still alive to tell their story. Through their own personal histories and perspectives, they tell a tale that should never be forgotten to generations unaware of the brutalization that occurred.

7.6

The Last Emperor

Oct 4, 1987

A dramatic history of Pu Yi, the last of the Emperors of China, from his lofty birth and brief reign in the Forbidden City, the object of worship by half a billion people; through his abdication, his decline and dissolute lifestyle; his exploitation by the invading Japanese, and finally to his obscure existence as just another peasant worker in the People's Republic.

8.4

Nuremberg: The Nazis Facing their Crimes

Oct 25, 2006

The documentary of the Nuremberg War Trials of 21 Nazi dignitaries held after World War II.

6.8

Grbavica: The Land of My Dreams

Mar 1, 2006

A woman and her daughter struggle to make their way through the aftermath of the Balkan war.

8.0

Poland 1939: When German Soldiers Became War Criminals

Aug 31, 2019

September 1st, 1939. Nazi Germany invades Poland. The campaign is fast, cruel and ruthless. In these circumstances, how is it that ordinary German soldiers suddenly became vicious killers, terrorizing the local population? Did everyone turn into something worse than wild animals? The true story of the first World War II offensive that marks in the history of infamy the beginning of a carnage and a historical tragedy.

7.5

The Bridge

Oct 21, 1959

A group of German boys are ordered to protect a small bridge in their home village during the waning months of the second world war. Truckloads of defeated, cynical Wehrmacht soldiers flee the approaching American troops, but the boys, full of enthusiasm for the "blood and honor" Nazi ideology, stay to defend the useless bridge. The film is based on a West German anti-war novel of the same name, written by Gregor Dorfmeister.

6.5

The Great Raid

Aug 12, 2005

As World War II rages, the elite Sixth Ranger Battalion is given a mission of heroic proportions: push 30 miles behind enemy lines and liberate over 500 American prisoners of war.

7.4

Man of Will

Oct 19, 2017

Young Kim Chang-soo is placed behind bars, charged with murdering a Japanese person who took part in Empress Myeongseong's assassination. In prison, Kim Chang-soo sees how Koreans are persecuted and grows into a fighter for Korean independence.

6.5

Andersonville

Mar 3, 1996

This lengthy docudrama records the harrowing conditions at the Confederacy's most notorious prisoner-of-war camp. The drama unfolds through the eyes of a company of Union soldiers captured at the Battle of Cold Harbor, VA, in June 1864, and shipped to the camp in southern Georgia. A private, Josiah Day, and his sergeant try to hold their company together in the face of squalid living conditions, inhumane punishments, and a gang of predatory fellow prisoners called the Raiders.

0.0

Kaneko Fumiko

Feb 28, 2026

Why did she die? The Supreme Court first sentenced her to death, but then commuted her sentence to life imprisonment and sent her to Tochigi Women's Prison. What happened before she took her own life there? Based on her tanka poems, which convey her raw voice, the film explores her lone fight during the 121 days between her death sentence and suicide, a period that has remained obscure to date.

7.5

Occupation 101: Voices of the Silenced Majority

Mar 25, 2006

A thought-provoking documentary on the current and historical causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and U.S. political involvement.

6.8

Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk

Aug 22, 2025

An Iranian filmmaker participates in a series of video calls with a young Palestinian photojournalist who describes her life confined in Gaza during the current regional conflict.

7.2

Labyrinth of Lies

Nov 6, 2014

A young prosecutor in postwar West Germany investigates a massive conspiracy to cover up the Nazi pasts of prominent public figures.

6.9

Walnut Tree

Feb 1, 2020

Qader, a bricklayer from Sardasht in Kurdistan Iran whose wife is pregnant with her 4th child, suddenly found himself amid a war crime perpetrated by the Saddam regime. On June 28th, 1987 Iraqi air fighters dropped mustard gas bombs on the city...

6.2

Men Behind the Sun

Dec 1, 1988

Japanese troops round up Chinese and Russian prisoners of war and take them to unit 731, where they're horribly tortured and experimented on to test new biological weapons.

0.0

TARGET

Oct 10, 2021

In 1991, the issue of “comfort women” was raised for the first time through the testimony of the late Kim Hak-sun. One of the first reporters in Japan to write an article about her testimony was Uemura Takashi of The Asahi Shimbun. Since the publication of his article, Uemura has been subjected to blatant attacks from the far-right, including threats on his family’s life, and the issue is still ongoing in 2021. Based on Uemura's defamation lawsuit that began in 2015, TARGET details why he had to be someone's “target.”

Shusenjo: The Main Battleground of the Comfort Women Issue

Overview

Genres

Production Companies

Shusenjo: The Main Battleground of the Comfort Women Issue Trailers