Film review: Captured (1959)

A film privately produced by the Ministry of Defence to illustrate the horrors of brainwashing in the Korean War is an unusual period piece. This is propaganda directed at shoring up beliefs rather than inculcating new ones. The simple tale of prisoners subjected to extensive physical and psychological torture in order to convert them to the Communist cause is interesting for two reasons. Firstly it illustrates some of the techniques a soldier might deploy in order to survive with his sense of self intact. Secondly every torture that the Koreans are depicted as using has been employed by the West subsequently under the moniker of enhanced interrogation. An almost identical film might be made today with a suspected terrorist in the lead role.