The war in the Far East ended August 15 1945, 70 years ago and it will be remembered with celebrations around the world this weekend. Although, Japan didn’t formally surrender until September 2, 1945.
The war is particularly remembered for the treatment of prisoners of war who were subject to, beatings, summary punishment (executions), brutal treatment, forced labour, starvation, and even medical experimentation. At the end of the war, some Japanese soldiers took revenge for the surrender by murdering prisoners.
Below are three film from the POW gene based on the Japanese war and all three are in my top 100 films
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There are few Second World War films are as enduring as this multi-Oscar-winning examination of the stiff upper lip from director David Lean. Alec Guinness plays Colonel Nicholson, the epitome of British dignity and resolve who, after brutal treatment at the hands of his Japanese captors in Burma, leads his men in the building of a strategically vital railway bridge for the enemy as an exercise in keeping up their - and his - morale.
There is a sub plot to the film of a mainly British story with American actor William Holden playing a prisoner who escapes only to find himself dispatched back into the jungle to blow up said bridge with British commandos.
The mental battle between the camp Commander Colonel Saito played by Sessue Hayakawa and Guinness stands out in the film. To get his bridge built Hayakawa as release more and more authority to Guinness character. Nicholson (Guinness) is a hardnosed stiff upper-lipped British officer with a brand of pride, patriotism, and loyalty to the regiment. The bridge built but will Holden and the commandos have a final say if the first train will cross.
Another prisoners of war film set in a WWII Japanese prison is concerned with the harsh realities of surviving the terrible hardships of day-to-day life than planning escapes. With a mainly strong British cast consisting of the likes of James Fox (Flight Lieutenant Peter Marlowe), Tom Courtenay (Lieutenant Robin Grey), Denholm Elliott (Lieutenant Colonel G. D. Larkin), John Mills (Colonel George Smedley-Taylor) and Leonard Rossiter (Major McCoy).
American actor George Segal (Corporal King) plays a cynical hustler who seems far more adept at making the best of his predicament, and as such, the other prisoners either ally themselves with him or despise him. James Fox is excellent as the British officer who befriends him and humour, drama unfolds as the camps differing factions motives, and hypocrisies are exposed.
Perhaps the most pivotal scene in the movie is when King cooks a stew of dog meat for his closest mates in the camp. After one of the prisoners is order to kill his dog for killing one of the camp’s valuable egg-laying hens, King “acquires” the carcass. He hires a room invites some of chums for a dinner party. King makes a point of not telling his guests its dog until he’s dishing out plates and they’re literally slobbering at the smell. “Meat’s meat,” he tells them, with characteristic bluntness.
When the camp commandant summons the senior British officers and notifies them that the Japanese have surrendered, the war is over. After overcoming their shock and disbelief, the prisoners celebrate – all except King. He realises he is no longer the unquestioned (if unofficial) ruler of the camp. When Marlowe speaks to him before King's departure from the camp, King ignores his overture of renewed friendship
A battle of wills set in a Japanese POW camp at Java in late 1942, between Capt. Yonoi (Ryuichi Sakamoto), and rebellious British prisoner Major Jack 'Strafer' Celliers, (David Bowie), who admires Celliers' defiant stand.
David Bowie is outstanding as the defiant British prisoner whose erotic appeal undoes the Japanese commandant, played by Sakamoto, who was at the height of his fame as a musical icon in Japan. A as lot of been made of the sexual overtones between the two characters. Celliers and Lawrence (Tom Conti) are known to each other and Lawrence speaks Japanese and understands some Japanese customs, and has managed to earn himself a place as a liaison.
His acting is a tad (Sakamoto) hammy even by Japanese traditions, which conflict rather badly with the British (and in Jack Thompson's case Australian) acting traditions. Thompson is the commander of the prisoners and doesn’t understand either Celliers or Lawrence
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