John Boorman’s Hell In The Pacific

During World War II, two soldiers, an American (Lee Marvin) and a Japanese (Toshiro Mifune) find themselves stranded on an island together. While the Japanese represents the strict honor code of that country, the American soldier is completely desperate. The Japanese soldier has created a disciplined, ordered residence on the shoreline, even building things like water stills and fish traps, he’s clearly an expert on survival. Meanwhile the American is living in the jungle, starving and using all his fading energy to infiltrate the Japanese soldier’s area to rob him of water and food.

The scenes between Mifune and Marvin are often comical. The Japanese treats the American like a lower life form while the American hates the Japanese in return and irritates him as much as humanly possible. One of my favorite sequences is where the American quietly tries to steal some water out of the Japanese’s still. He drops his canteen down on a string and suspense builds as the liquid slowly fills it. Suddenly, the Japanese hears the quiet bubbling and goes nuts. The end result is one of the funniest moments in the film. The story moves from an all out war game between the two (they constantly fight and torture one another) until the point they realize to get off the island they must put their prejudices aside and work together.

John Boorman’s direction is imaginative and concise. The Pacific island setting really provided a unique kind of atmosphere for the two actors to play off one another. Boorman couldn’t have picked two finer actors to portray the war weary soldiers. A main aspect that added more realism was the fact they had both served in World War II, Mifune was a member of the Japanese Air Force and Marvin was in the US Marines.

The score by master composer Lalo Schifrin (who scored Peter Yates’ Bullitt the same year) is another of his fine musical pieces that enhances the suspense even more. Hell in The Pacific is one furious gem of a film that genre fans will want to take a look at!

Buy Hell in the Pacific on BluRay

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *