How a War Movie became a Divine Blessing to Me

My family will tell you that I am very critical of movies. As someone who has put in blood, sweat, and tears to write my own works of fiction it drives me crazy when people are paid millions to do what I deem an inferior job. If I can nitpick my way around your story without having to dig ridiculously deep I’m probably going to complain about it every chance I get.

One of the reasons I’m so passionate about stories is I’m a stronger believer that they promote morals, whether the storyteller intended it or not. As a kid I remember wanting to heroically battle evil because that’s what Aragorn taught me to do. Others (cough cough Transformers) promote nonsensical violence and human objectification.

In order for me to appreciate a movie it needs to do two things: 1) be a well-written story with captivating characters, and 2) at the very least not glorify evil, preferably even promote things of God’s character. Well, I’m glad to say yesterday I found one that accomplished both: Midway.

SPOILER WARNING FOR MIDWAY FOR THE REST OF THE BLOG!!!!!

I could write all day about the characters and structure of the movie, but I’ll spare you an amateur critic’s petty critiques and go straight into the important stuff: how the Japanese were portrayed.

The Japanese of that era were some of the most evil people in history. A quick google search on the Nanking Massacre will show you that, not to mention countless other atrocities committed throughout Asia. Even the Nazi German ambassador to China, John Rabe, was appalled by some of the things they did. I could rant about this for hours, but I’ll just leave it at that.

Going into the theater I knew the Japanese would be portrayed in one of two ways: either evil monsters who deserved every bomb that was dropped on them, or as victims to America’s imperialism. Either would have annoyed me, or even angered me. But I’m happy to say that I was wrong. The movie found a beautiful way of showing how evil the Japanese military was, while at the same time humanizing the individuals and making you hurt when they died in service to their country.

There’s a big push in American culture to minimize the severity of evil, and a counter movement in some circles to portray everything as evil. Both horrify me, as the latter will only create a bunch of Jokers, and the former takes away the need of our Savior Jesus Christ.

Leaving the theater I found myself appalled by just how evil those men were, but at the same time wanting to reach out and give them a big hug. And that’s the beauty of Christianity. Every other worldview has to do one of two things with what they decide is evil: either eradicate it, or celebrate it. For the follower of Christ, however, there’s only one option: they show that sinner the love of God.

Yes, that Japanese soldier who has spent days torturing a Chinese man for daring to help a downed American pilot is a despicably evil sinner entitled to God’s righteous wrath crushing down on him. And yes, that Japanese soldier’s name was on Christ’s mind when He bore the sin of the world.

I was excited to see Midway, because war movies are just awesome. But I was not expecting to be shown God’s love in it. I have to deal with evil people all the time. That may sound like an exaggeration, but when a customer is determined to make my day as miserable as possible until I finally yield and steal from my employer to give them a 99cents discount, I’m going to call it what it is: evil. But if God is willing to forgive someone like that Japanese soldier, and called His adopted sons and daughters to share His love with him, then He has also called me to show love to this customer who may be a little more mean-spirited than I would like.