[3][4] Set during Imperial Japan’s occupation of Korea during World War 2, a group of over 400 Koreans endure harsh forced labor on Hashima Island and risk their lives to attempt a daring escape.

The Battleship Island holds a 67% approval rating by 15 reviewers on aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes with a weighted average of 4.3/5 and 6.3/10, respectively.

[27] The New York Times noted that the film "vividly conveys the pain of a national wartime trauma whose scars clearly have not healed.

[38] In response, director Ryoo Seung-wan said "the film is a fact-based fiction" based on historical records as well as first hand testimony from survivors regarding their lack of payments, abusive treatment, and working conditions which lead to deaths of laborers from diseases, malnutrition, and accidents.

The writer-director said the film was not made to stoke Korean nationalism or anti-Japanese sentiment but to show "how war can make man a monster".

[9] Ironically in South Korea, there was criticism that the film reflected a '[pro-Japanese]' colonialist view of history (식민사관) because it reduced war crimes to cinematic entertainment, and it emphasized the acts of betrayal committed by Koreans on behalf of the Japanese-colonial government.

[40] The acknowledgement, which was only made after South Korea opposed the bid, stated "large number[s] of Koreans and others [...] were brought against their will and forced to work under harsh conditions in the 1940s at some of the sites [including Hashima island]".

[43][44] Although UNESCO's World Heritage Committee stipulated that a monitoring mechanism to measure the degree to which the victims of Hashima Island are remembered be a prerequisite for the successful bid,[45] the island's official tourism website and tour program - operated by Nagasaki City - makes no mention of forced laborers and currently does not make any efforts to comply with UNESCO's requirement.