Being something of a history nut, I generally avoid really low budget World War 2 adventures after getting burned so many times as of late. However director Fredianelli is something of a notorious Bay Area filmmaker who has done a quite a few surprisingly good indie dramas, so I decided to give it a watch when browsing around streaming. Although it's not as bad as a lot of the reviewers here say, the overall idea for the story doesn't make a lot of sense at face value. I'll try to be as charitable as possible and steel-man the plot holes as they come along.
So a group of (rather well-nourished) Japanese soldiers escape from an internment camp in Northern California and then build a camp of their own where they torture American soldiers. I'm not entirely sure why they would think it would be a great idea to shoot guns off when they are trying to hide in the American wilderness but I guess it makes perfect sense if they're collectively desperate to the point of utter insanity and maybe WANT to get caught at some level. Perhaps they are showing off who can act the most recklessly as some sort of right of passage?
The United States Government decides that, rather than send large groups of local, state, and federal law enforcement to find the escapees on American soil, that a small squad of low-morale green recruits would be a better idea, most of whom have seemingly no clear idea of what the mission is about. One of the soldiers is a victim of an M. K. Ultra-style brainwashing experiment who just murdered a ship full of soldiers but it's all Even Stevens once the mission is over. To do the exact opposite of lightening the load, they're given a Japanese man to guide them who doesn't speak English. Now this all may seem odd as well at face value but it makes perfect sense if you remember that this may be a fantasy war movie set in some kind of alternate universe, sort of like "Game of Thrones" or something. It's a world where the U. S., after the lunacy that was The Battle of Los Angeles (in which it fired hundreds of shells at a UFO), decided to get even crazier in matters pertaining to domestic security during the war perhaps in an effort to lose.
During their misadventures, our belligerent group of unlikable dimwits discovers a Soviet T34/85 tank (which would have been state-of-the-art in 1944) parked in the wilderness with only a single soldier tending to it. Why and how did the Soviets send one of their brand new tanks, so desperately needed at the Korsun Pocket over to the States while the U. S. was desperately supplying them with thousands of tanks of their own? Well, there's some line about the Soviet tank needing new parts (in America??) but I tend to think that someone high up in the Soviet Army here was a victim of some of the same insanity that also gripped the movie's American Officers, and also wanted to lose the war.
This tank shortly thereafter goes on a rampage with the soldiers shooting at its well-armored turret and running around rather than running toward it and shooting into its wide open driving hatch. There's only one guy in it so he can't drive and shoot at the same time, but he still manages to wipe out nearly half the squad. For supposedly trained soldiers, they didn't seem too interested in anything resembling tactics.
A few other things didn't make much sense to me at first; such as why the squad gets dropped off so many miles away from the enemy camp (which they seem to know where it is) when there are several roads and a military installation in between. Maybe they all needed the exercise? Why does the Japanese sniper shoot the wounded American soldier who is getting carried rather than one of the able-bodied soldiers who is more of a threat to him? Bad aim? Why do the soldiers keep referring to the Japanese as "Victor" and "Charlie" when they're not anywhere near the 1960's Vietcong? Well, I guess the only explanation there is that those must be the actual names of two of the escapees and they're all on a first name basis.
I get that a lot of these inconsistencies came from budgetary or logistical limitations, but they all add up to make this a pretty baffling experience. Obviously the production had a tank, a bunch of actors, some vintage weapons, and a beautiful patch of the California countryside to film in. It all would have gone much more smoothly to have set the movie in East Russia or China with the soldiers all cooperating with Russians or KMT to capture some Japanese prisoners who had escaped over there. The locations would still have worked and it would have made more sense to see a Russian tank. Either that or they could have just removed the soldiers completely and replaced them with a bunch of local vigilante's out hunting Japanese in California. It could have gone deeper into the horrors of the whole internment system and war hysteria that gripped the nation for years, but as it is gets far too bogged down in infighting to make any points at all.
Still I have to say that the action scenes definitely acquit themselves very well and there comes an odd scene or two with some pretty good acting.
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