Product Description: From the director of Excalibur and Deliverance comes this gripping (Leonard Maltin) adventure about two wartime enemies trapped alone on a desert island. Academy Award® winner* Lee Marvin (The Dirty Dozen) and Toshiro Mifune (The Seven Samurai) deliver striking and well-etched performances (LA Herald-Examiner) in this searing psychological drama that packs plenty of action and excitement (Motion Picture Herald)!From the instant they meet a marooned American soldier (Marvin) and his Japanese counterpart (Mifune) have the same objective: killing each other. But it soon becomes apparent that the only way they will survive is by forging an uneasy truce and cooperating with each other. Can they rise above the hatred that divides them long enough to stay alive? System Requirements: Running Time 103 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE Rating: G UPC: 027616905819 Manufacturer No: 1006381
Amazon.com essential video: Lone Japanese soldier Toshiro Mifune diligently scans the ocean from his island lookout as he must have thousands of times before, but this time he spies an abandoned life raft resting on a rocky bluff. Within minutes he's face to face with American sea-wreck survivor Lee Marvin and the two begin an elaborate game of cat and mouse. Director John Boorman presents this two-man war as a deadly game between a pair of overgrown children, who finally tire of it (as kids will) and settle into tolerated co-existence and then even something resembling a friendship. With impressionistic strokes, Boorman paints a lush tropical paradise in colors you can drink from the screen, capturing the texture of their experience as refracted through the cinema: the look of the island as seen through the haze of smoke, the sound of a sudden rainstorm as it hushes the island in a calming roar, the timelessness of life outside of civilization. The story seems almost secondary, an allegorical drama that comes alive in the excellent performances by Marvin and Mifune (who soon enough converse despite their complete inability to understand each other's language) and the visceral immediacy of Boorman's gorgeous widescreen images. Hell in the Pacific is not a tale told as much as a film experienced. --Sean Axmaker
Powerful study & psychological drama but only two stars. Great for most. I find Boorman's direction to be fantastic. As others note two military officers from opposite sides recognize each other. Mifune especially seeks with all his cunning to kill Marvin while the latter struggles very hard just to fill his canteen with drinking water. The tensions, very strong at the beginning slowly dissipate as both realize taking out each other might be very difficult but via cooperation--even despite the language barriers--two heads can equal the results of three. Mifune shows his tenderness first. But both play outstanding roles. While trying to develop the peace, Marvin reads a military manual that mandates troops always to kill the enemy. Their keen attention to the nonverbals, even as both seem not to be observing is a case study for those intererested in interpersonal communication. Marvin brings in new vitality once he recognizes there is bamboo on the island. Yielding to each other in a collaborative manner, the raft is built and launched. Then I got the impression they had to fight high waves without food on the ocean for perhaps four days. Both are exhausted. Discovering the new island is a dream, that neither perhaps thought would occur. They forage through the deserted military hospital, each finding things of special interest and then dressed neatly as military professionals toast each other countlessly with a big bottle of booze. I wasn't ready for the end but tried to foresee possibilities. For those who can take a movie with very limited dialogue, scores of nonverbals and two superb actors, this movie is a must. Those who enjoy more group drama or romantic entertainment would be bored. I am glad to have found this movie in my collection. The VHS version plays very well.
another side of a great filmaker this is the JOHN BOORMAN i love . the director of "DELIVERANCE" and "THE EMERALD FOREST" in addition to this excellent and haunting film . in his twin outstanding lead actors , a very thoughtful screenplay and breathtaking photography and direction , it all comes together for me . i withhold the fifth star as i am conflicted about the ending . that was john's artistic choice though . i don't do alternate endings .
How to make a movie 101 Anyone who wants to make a film would be served well to watch this movie, repeatedly. Boorman achieves what few filmmakers ever dare: an almost nonverbal story about rivals who learn, somewhat reluctantly, that the humanity they share cannot be abandoned. Yes, it's a product of the 70's, and the visual style embraces that, but the acting is superb. These were two of the best actors of their generation, and the collaboration must have been an actor's dream for both. No more spoilers. If you're a fan of Boorman, Mifune or Marvin, enjoy.
Pull together or die apart together. This is both a serious movie and a parable. Toshirô Mifune plays Captain Tsuruhiko Kuroda, a proud Japanese Naval officer and Lee Marvin plays a downed American Pilot. They both end up on a deserted small island. They are mortal enemies, but somehow when you are both staring death in the face, it is easier to make common cause against it. The story of the movie is how they overcome their hatred for each other (in the generic - wartime sense) to find a way to be found, signal for help, or get off the island somehow, someway. Both actors are superb.
The parable is appropriate for a world ravaged by two-world wars the previous sixty years and now facing nuclear annihilation. We need to pull together or we will die at each other's through for no good reason. While I don't want to reveal what happens, it is instructive how vanishing cooperation and friendship are once the immediate threat seems to be past.
As I watched the movie, I could see how the Cast Away and Enemy Mine both seemed to learn and use things from this film.
I think it is a pretty good film that should be seen yet today.
Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI
Lee Marvin at Work In real life, Lee Marvin is a Marine that received a purple heart after being shot in the buttox during the battle for Saipan. Now here he is afterwards making movies where he is confronting his adversary and being the representative for the American side of the WWII GI psyche. His opposite is a Japanese soldier who equally does a splendid job to bring one up to speed with his culture. Both different and somehow the same. United together by a common goal of survival, yet on a hair trigger to let their warrior spirit flare. Interesting concept for a movie. Well done, appropriately cast.
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