Scottsboro Girls (2015 Video) User Reviews (5)

From one side--it makes a narrow field of view

[vudavijp · 10/10 · 15 April 2016]

Very good movie. We must stop looking from a biased viewpoint that Japanese army must have been evil. We have to think about what really happened with objective evidence/records, not only testimony of belief.

At least we must understand how easy we are deceived from a truth with a lot of true-or-false information and sympathy.

Hope this movie helps to get rid of the prejudice on old Japanese soldiers as sexual beast... They were salt of the earth,just summoned and fought on duty just as the soldiers of your country. If you watched this movie and know about the background what Yujiro Taniyama revealed a little bit more, you can see the real problem South Korea has. And the awfulness of information control and education...

Don't believe everything you hear

[mullaskula · 9/10 · 14 April 2016]

I watched Scottsboro Girls with an open mind. As the filmmaker Yujiro Taniyama let the story unfold he used humor and his personal experiences to help convey his message. He related his experiences going to school in Australia and the racial torments he suffered. He noted the trials of the aboriginal students as well. He made a lighthearted reference to a soccer match at the Olympics where he and one other North Korean sat in the North Korean section of the stadium. All the other seats in that section were empty. He jokingly referred to the fact that people thought he was a North Korean. Another amazing video record was of a weekly protest in Seoul, Korea across from the Japanese embassy. Absurd is the best word for it. Watch the movie just so you can see this protest unfold. I dare you not to find yourself with your mouth open in amazement at just how odd this event is.

I was reminded of what I learned in U. S. Air Force technical school about how to give a speech. Tell em what you're gonna tell em, tell em, and tell em what you told em. That is exactly how Yujiro, or Michael Jackson as he likes to be called, presented the facts of the so called "Japanese Comfort Women".

He definitely has a way of treating the subject in a multifarious way. While the subject is serious he found the humor when he made a sincere effort to visit the Comfort Women Museum in Korea. He did his research and discovered it only cost about three U. S. dollars to get in. He flew to Korea and took a bus ride, then a taxi ride. When he got to the museum no one was around until he ran in to what he described facetiously as North Korean communists. They told him he needed to apply ahead of time and fill out necessary documents. Nothing of the kind was in the website.

Since the film was in English he strove to speak to the enforcers outside the museum in that language, but they kept speaking to him in perfect Japanese. It was funny to see the deception on the part of the propagandists who were staffers at the museum. It was also frustrating because I would have liked to see what was inside.

Taniyama later quotes Bruce Cummings book "Korea's Place in The Sun." In this scholarly work the professor details how Korean prostitutes were recruited by Korean men.

Kim Hak Sun, one of the most famous of the "comfort women" originally stated she was sold by her mother to a Korean pimp. Later she changed her story to make it line up with the narrative of the Japanese Army kidnapping girls for forced prostitution. This actually was a practice that occurred with Lee Yong Su and Jee Man Won who also changed their stories to line up with the narrative created by the propaganda machine regarding vilifying the Japanese Military as sex slavers.

Yujiro Taniyama even compares Lee Yong Su to Oscar Pistorius the infamous South African runner who shot his girlfriend. His story didn't add up. Lee Yong Su's story didn't show a consistent narrative either. She made things up. This illustrates how incredulous her story is.

Another point the filmmaker posits is that the Japanese government had a Volunteer Corps made up of civilians – primarily women. There is no evidence whatsoever that these women did anything more than produce armaments for the Japanese War machine or other national security tasks. They were emphatically not sex workers or sex slaves.

An eye opening fact of this film is that the history of Korean prostitution is quite established. Even today 23.5 percent of prostitutes in the U. S. are Koreans. Throughout the Second World War the Korean military organized "comfort stations" where Korean and Indonesian men took part in the services offered. Again it was not the Japanese Volunteer Corps.

Another character in the film was Seiji Yoshida. He claimed to be an officer in special operations to kidnap sex slaves for the brothels. No evidence of this was ever uncovered. His book was a complete fabrication.

Unfortunately there was a United Nations report written based on this book that was proved to be false. This report detailing the abuses of the Japanese toward the comfort women in World War II is still being used even after its source material is a demonstrable fake.

As Yujio assumes his role as a samurai toward the end of the movie he lays out many more facts. One that was astonishing is that 200,000 Korean girls leave home every year. These runaways often find themselves in the sex industry. "Nothing has changed over the last 70 years except for the dear leader's hair style." In other words the culture of the sex trade in Korea has not changed.

Taniyama is funny. He is a good communicator. He has made an entertaining, humorous and thought provoking movie. He presents a thorough case for why people need to look closely at the facts related to this issue.

Excellent!!! !!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!Excellent!!!!!!!!!!!!

[nanminneizo · 10/10 · 14 April 2016]

What a story!!!!!!!!! remarkably spiritual..... ...Inspiring......... A remarkable fascinating social film, raised to the level of super magical real human story!!!!! As a work of research, the book is wide ranging,impressive!!! huh!Quite honestly,at the end of most of the scene, I cried.Primarily because I could identify with the people you chose to write about,but also because their stories didn't provide me with answers to my own questions about what we should do with this kind of matter.Each scene forced me to acknowledge that I am going to have to find the answers to my own questions. This is holistic work of unique,encouraging power!!!!!!!!!!!!

Truth revealed

[taktoktek · 9/10 · 14 April 2016]

This movie is about so called "comfort woman" issue in eastern Asia which a South Korean group accusing against Japanese Government for kidnapping young women (Korean) to make them sex slave for their military during the World War 2. This is what is South Korean side is accusing at loud but it started being pronounced in 80's. It wasn't so long ago.

South Korean side kept evangelizing this fantasy and now multiple "comfort woman" statues have been put in places in U.S.

If you are not from eastern Asia, you probably won't know much about this. You will probably believe South Korean side is telling truth without question.

Is this true? This movie detects what is the real problem behind this issue. During the war there are so many camp followers to make money in any other countries. This so called "comfort woman" was one of them. They are prostitutes. They weren't slave. Matter of face, they made a lot of money. I have done research about this by my own over the years.

As I watched this movie I confirm that Yujiro Taniyama the director researched thoroughly and covered all the important elements regarding this issue. For the people from outside of Asia, this movie seems to give overwhelming information and probably seems it is too long to watch. But the amount of information shows how it became such a complex issue now.

The truth revealed in this movie. All the whys are answered here.

I hate when innocent is falsely accused. I am intolerant when people lie for their own benefit. I hate when I see racism. It is non sense. Isn't it almost like a racism? Just like Scottsboro boys?

Yujiro Taniyama revealed the truth that so called "comfort woman" issue is just a based on fiction and dropped a hint that it was motivated by strange feeling toward Japanese……..

If you are truth seeker, MUST WATCH!

Edgy stuff on war and sex. Highly recommended to understand the dispute.

[jennyitane · 8/10 · 7 April 2016]

A friend of mine is a journalist and had been working on the issue of the "comfort women" - then subsequently banged into this film. So I happened to watch it too (A history major myself). To be honest I don't take sides on this dispute between South Korea and Japan, because it won't take you no where. Truth is all I ask for. Of course this is a delicate, debatable issue indeed because women are so often exploited in battlefields today in places such as Syria and so forth. But then after I saw this Scottsboro girls I reckon this WW2 dispute is not so simple like the sex slave issues in "our times" today - its by far heaps mo complicated due to rampant prostitution that existed not only in Japan but Korea (colonial) back then. Director Taniyama claims Korea had Kisaen system (prostitution) since 10 A.D, explaining Prof. Catherine Moon (Brookings institute, U.S) 's quote that Kisaen eventually became synonymous for concubines in the latter half of Korea's chosen dynasty.

By no means do I justify Japanese army during WW2, but this movie simply made me think the truth on this issue is not exactly how the Guardian or the Times reports. Director uses quotes from well known feminist Susan Brownmiller's book "Men, women and rape" on devastating Vietnam war, and like the Vietnam war when sex industry as a whole, pimps and scavengers swallowed huge amounts of USD from U.S GI's to make a living, the comfort women does have resemblance in one way or the other, based on various testimonies by the comfort women themselves. This film exposes words from some Korean women that actually assert (astonishingly) they were indeed prostitutes during WW2 and did it for money. Wartime prostitution (how you define the issue is of course wholly up to u) is a today's issue, and as a woman myself i reckon we do have to fight for our whats right for mankind.