The Apology (2016) Online

In the final agreement reached in the 1965 treaty, Japan provided an $800 million aid and low-interest loan package over 10 years. Japan intended to directly compensate individuals, but the Korean government insisted on receiving the sum itself and "spent most of the money on economic development, focusing on infrastructure and the promotion of heavy industry" In 1994, the Japanese government set up the public-private Asian Women's Fund (AWF) to distribute additional compensation to South Korea, the Philippines, Taiwan, the Netherlands, and Indonesia.

Women in the film seem to be victims by lawless soldiers who violated the military discipline. Japan had acknowledged there had been those criminalities and apologized. I pity those victims and hate those criminals. However, Japan denies existence of systematic atrocity as a nation such as what this film says, "Over 200,000 women and girls were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese Imperial Army". That is also what Korean activists insist. The reason of the denial is simple. No one ever disclosed objective evidence.

If the director wanted to pity victims and consider their lives, she were to just depict their personal experience. If she wanted to insist systematic atrocity by Japan, she were to explain the basis to support her insistence logically. Only victims' personal experience cannot be its evidence.

But she did none of both. The film depicts the victims' personal experience, then insists Japan's systematic atrocity without showing any of its basis. It should be known that, regarding to the "systematic atrocity", even Korean government cannot show objective evidence nor primary source ( You can understand it by their official site "e-Museum of the Victims of Japanese Military Sexual Slavery")

It's one more ugly point that the screenplay depicts "evilness" of Japan by cherry-picking or distortion.

• To impress "malicious" Japan on audience, the film exploits that some Japanese slandered the woman. But, in fact, that is quite rare case. Many Japanese hate such slanders.
• The film says "Japanese politicians said that sex slavery was necessary". But, in fact, they said "IANFU(comfort women as legitimate workers) were necessary evil", but didn't say "SEI-DOREI(sex slavery) were necessary".
• The film doesn't refer the apology in the past. But, in fact, some Prime Ministers of Japan had apologized and implemented activities to support victims. ( Asian Women's Fund(1995-2007), P.M. Abe(2015), and other cases)

It is unfair that the film seems to avoid recalling audience's intelligence/logicality and seems to appeal only to their emotion. That is the very way of advertising or propaganda.

In the end, this is a quite ugly film that exploits victims' tragedy in order to support the Korean activists' unverified insistence, "systematic atrocity as nation's will of Japan".

( For more about finding of fact, read "Frequently Asked Questions" of this film. via "View Full Site" or "View Desktop Site" button, if on mobile.)

THE APOLOGY is a thoughtful and emotive documentary exploring the issue of "comfort women", in other words usually poor villagers who were forced into prostitution by occupying Japanese forces in WW2. It remains a controversial topic even today, with Japan often refusing to acknowledge this unsavoury part of their country's history, so this film follows three women as they seek justice and a simple apology from their former oppressors. Three different angles are followed, based around survivors in South Korea, China and the Philippines. Most of the documentary is made up of on-camera interviews, and there's no denying the raw power evident in the testimony of these old ladies.

I was accidentally drawn into this story, rife with compelling and fascinating characters, and then realized the subject matter at hand and was completely riveted. This is a subject that most people are probably not familiar with, yet the people in the story are so relate-able, and marvelously captured, it makes the matter of the 'apology' most impactful. Everyone should watch this beautiful and consequential film, and make sure the legacy of these women is not forgotten.