World War II: Pacific POWs and Friends
Good, bad, brutal, humorous: films portraying the experiences of prisoners of war or internees in World War II. Emphasizes Allied POWs and the Pacific theatre.
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- DirectorRichard ThorpeStarsSpencer TracyJames StewartValentina CorteseNewspaperman Royer convinces government officials of a plan to obtain rubber by smuggling it out from under the Japanese. Carnahan is let out of prison to help.You'd think a film starring both Stewart and Tracy must be either a classic or a failure. Instead, this satisfying espionage flick seems to have disappeared from the consciousness, but it's worth tracking down for the intrigue in a recently vanished colonial outpost and the occasionally accurate drama of the Japanese takeover.
- DirectorOtto PremingerStarsJohn WayneKirk DouglasPatricia NealA Naval officer, reprimanded after Pearl Harbor, is later promoted to Rear Admiral and gets a second chance to prove himself against the Japanese.This was made just long enough postwar to straddle the divide between a good old macho re-up flick and a self-aware remix of the tropes. Director Preminger handles the Pearl Harbor attack in terrifying fashion, far preferable to Michael Bay's 2001 effort.
- DirectorSteven SpielbergStarsChristian BaleJohn MalkovichMiranda RichardsonA young English boy struggles to survive under Japanese occupation of China during World War II.Possibly the answer to "if I watch only one film on this list...." The fall of British China and the anguish, tedium, willpower and perseverance of the resulting internees rendered in heartrending detail. Little Christian Bale is so good you can't believe he's acting.
- DirectorAlan ParkerStarsDennis QuaidTamlyn TomitaSab ShimonoThe passionate romance between an Irish-American man and a Japanese-American woman is threatened when the Pearl Harbor attacks happen and the woman is forced into a prison camp because of her ethnicity.While the Japanese were providing lousy accommodation for POWs and civilians in Southeast Asia, the Americans were busy locking up their neighbors of Japanese descent. A beautiful portrayal of the 1930s glory days of Asian-immigrant California and the struggles of one appealing melting-pot family as it descends into war.
- DirectorMark SandrichStarsClaudette ColbertPaulette GoddardVeronica LakeA group of nurses returning from the war in the Philippines recall their experiences in combat and in love.Claudette Colbert in one of her strongest roles and Paulette Goddard at her best, in a remarkably un-dated portrayal of American nurses in the Pacific, made while the war still raged.
- DirectorJean NegulescoStarsClaudette ColbertPatric KnowlesFlorence DesmondDuring Word War II, American author Agnes Newton Keith is imprisoned by the Japanese in various POW camps in North Borneo and Sarawak.Colbert in her second lead role as a Pacific-theatre internee, here a civilian struggling to survive and give hope to others. Overlaps with PARADISE ROAD, TENKO, EMPIRE OF THE SUN.
- DirectorDavid LeanStarsWilliam HoldenAlec GuinnessJack HawkinsBritish POWs are forced to build a railway bridge across the river Kwai for their Japanese captors in occupied Burma, not knowing that the allied forces are planning a daring commando raid through the jungle to destroy it.In scripting, acting, and direction, one of the finest films of its decade. Though woefully misleading about the real people, motivations, and situations of the Siam-Burma Railway, it's the everybody's-seen-it touchstone for that appalling episode.
- DirectorNagisa ÔshimaStarsDavid BowieTom ContiRyuichi SakamotoDuring WWII, a British colonel tries to bridge the cultural divides between a British POW and the Japanese camp commander in order to avoid bloodshed.Essential, although let's be clear that director Oshima is telling a story he's interested in, not trying to capture real POWs' experiences. Can't take your eyes off performances by the sinfully talented Tom Conti, a completely serious David Bowie, and his compelling Japanese counterpart Ryuichi Sakamoto. Based on Laurence van der Post's slightly autobiographical book THE SEED AND THE SOWER, also recommended.
- DirectorBruce BeresfordStarsGlenn CloseFrances McDormandPauline CollinsA group of women who are imprisoned on the island of Sumatra by the Japanese during World War II use music to relieve their misery.A kickass cast overcomes life as civilian internees by founding a "vocal orchestra." Strongly based on fact, and with a particularly nice turn by Frances McDormand before she was a household name.
- CreatorLavinia WarnerStarsAnn BellStephanie ColeClaire ObermanAfter the Japanese invasion of Singapore in February 1942, a group of British, Dutch and Australian women are held in a Japanese internment camp on a Japanese-occupied island between Singapore and Australia."Tenko" means "roll call" for British and Dutch civilian women interned by the Japanese. Harrowing and warm-hearted, with some major star power from, notably, Stephanie Cole (WAITING FOR GOD). Watch it if you couldn't get enough of PARADISE ROAD.
- DirectorDavid L. CunninghamStarsRobert CarlyleKiefer SutherlandCiarán McMenaminDuring World War II, four Allied POWs endure harsh treatment from their Japanese captors while being forced to build a railroad through the Burmese jungle.The book (by Ernest Gordon) is better, but the film is well worth watching despite the Hollywoodish miscasting of Kiefer Sutherland. Kind of worth it just to see Mark Strong as a good guy--so good a guy, in fact, that his storyline reeks of implausibility, but it's straight out of Gordon's passionate memoir.
- DirectorDavid DevriesStarsEdward WoodwardWhat really happened is a long way removed from the Hollywood movie. This is the story of hardship almost beyond belief that was suffered by the Allied soldiers at the hands of their Japanese captors.A workmanlike documentary providing the basics on the Siam-Burma Railway and Philip Toosey, on whom THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI's Col. Nicholson is loosely based. A good complement/corrective to David Lean's masterpiece.
- DirectorHelen LangridgeStarsJohn ShrapnelThis documents the true stories of the survivors from one of the worst atrocities of the Second World War the brutal use of POWs and forced local labour by the Japanese to build a railway linking Thailand to Burma.An excellent starting place on some horrifying history. The moving and surprisingly funny interviews with extremely elderly survivors are what make this tidy gem of a documentary.
- DirectorAngelina JolieStarsJack O'ConnellMiyaviDomhnall GleesonAfter a near-fatal plane crash in WWII, Olympian Louis Zamperini spends a harrowing 47 days in a raft with two fellow crewmen before he's caught by the Japanese navy and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp.Angelina Jolie's epic winds up a touch lackluster but very much worth seeing. Suspend your disbelief to take in all the twists of Louis Zamperini's wild story, though Laura Hillenbrand's superior book swears it's all true. As a surprising rock star/actor successor to Bowie and Sakamoto in MERRY CHRISTMAS, MR. LAWRENCE, Miyavi is deliciously and appropriately creepy.
- DirectorTerrence MalickStarsJim CaviezelSean PennNick NolteAdaptation of James Jones' autobiographical 1962 novel, focusing on the conflict at Guadalcanal during the second World War.Not about POWs, but this achingly gorgeous collage of white men on the edge of combat in Melanesia nails the Pacific war's juxtaposition of natural beauty and terrifying violence. Also, groundbreaking musical score.
- DirectorAndrew V. McLaglenStarsTimothy BottomsNick TateGeorge TakeiA group of war prisoners from the Kwai bridge building camp undertake a harsh journey to Japan.Surprisingly well-filmed and acted TV movie, filled to the brim with inaccuracy and implausibility, yet shining a light on some corners of the history not usually portrayed (the Thai underground!). Plus, one of the rare times it's definitely not OK to be Takei.
- DirectorJohn DahlStarsBenjamin BrattJoseph FiennesJames FrancoTaking place towards the end of WWII, 500 American Soldiers have been entrapped in a camp for 3 years. Beginning to give up hope they will ever be rescued, a group of Rangers goes on a dangerous mission to try and save them.Not a terrible movie, but the liberation of Cabanatuan POW camp deserved better. James Franco and Joseph Fiennes are seldom more than OK. Read Hampton Sides' GHOST SOLDIERS instead.
- DirectorEdward DmytrykStarsJohn WayneAnthony QuinnBeulah BondiIn 1942, after the fall of the Philippines to the Japanese, U.S. Army Col. Joseph Madden stays behind to organize the local resistance against the Japanese invaders.This epic of the Bataan Death March and the guerillas left behind, while very much of its moment, occasionally transcends it. A pleasant surprise that a story set in the Philippines is actually in large part about Filipinos, led by Mr. Ethnic Anthony Quinn. The ripped-from-the-headlines portrayal of the Cabanatuan raid is not too inaccurate, and a parade of actual freed POWs adds a touching framing sequence.
- DirectorPeter WebberStarsMatthew FoxColin MoyTommy Lee JonesAs the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II, General Fellers is tasked with deciding if Emperor Hirohito will be hanged as a war criminal. Influencing his ruling is his quest to find Aya, an exchange student he met years earlier in the U.S.Tommy Lee Jones feels like he could win the war single-handed as Douglas MacArthur, 'returned' to the Japanese homeland to organize war tribunals. His definitive performance aside, a sobering glimpse of two civilizations--Japanese and American--that have deeply injured each other, no matter who started it.
- DirectorStephen WallaceStarsBryan BrownGeorge TakeiTerry O'QuinnThe island of Ambon in Indonesia, 1945. During the War, the number of Australian POWs on the island had dropped from 1100 to less than 300 due to abuses by their Japanese captors. Capt. Cooper is the chief prosecutor. In a mass grave, the bodies of 300 executed servicemen have been unearthed. Cooper assumes that the massacre was ordered by Baron Takahashi, Japanese commander on Ambon. But the one potential witness has gone mad and is due to be shipped back to Australia. No captured airmen were found alive on the island at all, not even the four-man crew of a reconnaissance plane shot down late in the War. Takahashi is returned to the island in the custody of an American officer, Maj. Beckett. But there is little evidence with which to prosecute the Baron. Cooper thinks he could make a case for the missing airmen if only their bodies could be located. And why does Maj. Beckett appear interested in not seeing Takahashi convicted? Cooper gets a break when Lt. Tanaka, a communications officer and a Christian, surrenders himself...It's that brief moment when Bryan Brown was a bigger star than Russell Crowe, and they're both great in this passionate courtroom drama where postwar Australian authorities try to bring justice to the massacre of POWs on Ambon Island. Excellent turns as well by George Takei and especially Toshi Shioya.
- DirectorJonathan TeplitzkyStarsColin FirthNicole KidmanStellan SkarsgårdA former British Army officer, who was tortured as a prisoner of war at a Japanese labor camp during World War II, discovers that the man responsible for much of his treatment is still alive and sets out to confront him.The story of internal strife told in ENEMY, MY FRIEND (and the original memoir THE RAILWAY MAN) gets tarted up with too much action and false suspense, but absolutely worth it for the chemistry between Firth and Kidman, Skarsgard, Sanada, the train schedule, the pot of rice...
- StarsEric LomaxPatti LomaxTakashi NagaseThis documentary tells the extraordinary story of a British prisoner of war tortured by the Japanese in World War II who spent 50 years trying to locate the man who cruelly interrogated him near Thailand's infamous Kwai bridge.Not the best-crafted documentary ever, but watch it anyway, especially if you saw Colin Firth in THE RAILWAY MAN (2013). Elderly veterans Eric Lomax and Nagase Takashi shyly work out their wartime trauma and wrongs in a halting friendship captured by the cameras.
- DirectorBilly WilderStarsWilliam HoldenDon TaylorOtto PremingerAfter two Americans are killed while escaping from a German P.O.W. camp in World War II, the barracks black marketeer, J.J. Sefton, is suspected of being an informer.Absolutely gripping thriller that happens to take place among Americans (mostly) in a German prison camp. One of my favorite William Holden turns, plus hilarious and sympathetic performances by an amazing roster of character actors.
- DirectorJohn SturgesStarsSteve McQueenJames GarnerRichard AttenboroughAllied prisoners of war plan for several hundred of their number to escape from a German camp during World War II.Americans and others behind German barbed wire. One of the first and best of the huge-all-star-cast films of the 1960s. Not especially historically aware, but who cares: suspenseful, funny, with James Garner in particular in one of his best roles.