Attack Force Z

When the Japanese invaded the area of the Western Pacific in 1941-42, their occupation was a harsh one. The people native to the areas were brutally treated and often killed for minor transgressions. Due to the wide area occupied by the Japanese and the difficulty of mounting large scale amphibious operations, the Allied forces formed a set of small commando teams that would engage in quick strikes against high value targets. This overall unit was called Z Special Unit and was primarily made up from Australian and New Zealand volunteers. During the war, small teams from this unit engaged in some very successful raids, particularly against Japanese shipping docked at Singapore harbor. The rate of survivability of the members of a mission was very low, it was not unreasonable to consider them suicide missions. This movie features a team of five members of the Z Special Unit going ashore from a submarine in order to find what may be survivors of the crash of an Allied airplane. Only the commander knows all of what they are there for and there is a significant Japanese presence on the land. After some fighting and with assistance from the non-Japanese locals, the team discovers that there were survivors of the crash and the viewer learns why they are considered so valuable. While there are some incredulous moments in the action, it is generally realistic. By this, the end results are a questionable outcome with deaths among the members of the Z Special Unit. The Japanese are depicted as being brutal in pursuit of their goals. There are no super soldier moments, they are all depicted as no more than well trained soldiers. It is a good movie and while a work of fiction, it could and likely did happen.

War films formed the basis of many a childhood, mine included, and this film is a firm favourite of mine, my brother and my cousin.

Made by the Australian film industry it is one of two films about the Australian Special Task Force Z during the Second World War. It shows that the war in the Pacific was not won solely by the Americans and that the Japanese occupation of China was brutal to anyone who would oppose them. Having seen photos of what the Japanese did to Chinese relatives of mine and to the population of China in general this film goes someway to highlight a rather forgotten piece of history.

Having said that, taking the film as an action/ war drama it is well paced and fairly realistic with but one feat of fantasy. As cinematic trivia it is noteworthy for the performances of Mel Gibson, Sam Neill and singer/actress Sylvia Chang pre-stardom. The star that never was, John Phillip Law takes centre stage for the most part but is beaten for intensity by Gibson as the young officer. The effects are a bit ropey, the blood has the red paint quality of war films of the late 60's - early 70's, but this adds to the charm.

If you like "men on a mission" films you should enjoy this.

NB- For more films on the Z Special Forces see "Heroes" 1 and 2 (made for tv). "Heroes 2" follows the same failed real-life mission as the second of the two Australian films whose title escapes me.

Better than average Aussie "B" feature, where the producers have certainly gained maximum bang for their buck in more ways than one.

Let's be clear from the outset. This is a fictional story, supposedly based on the real life exploits of the Z force. The high body count pretty much attests to that. But high body counts do mean there is action and I have to admit some surprise as to how well director Tim Burstall, not really known for action films, choreographs the action sequences in this movie, bearing in mind that the budget he was working with was minimal. Still he cleverly manages to include realistically; a submarine, an exploding plane, fire - fights, martial arts and a climactic battle (of sorts). Attack Force Z may be many things, but it can't be accused of being dull.

Burstall even manages to throw in a couple of unexpected twists. One of the supporting cast members who was (and arguably still is) a very well-known Australian actor of the 70's and 80's, plays a character who barely has 5 minutes of screen time before suffering a probable unforeseen fate.

A bonus of course is we get to see both Mel Gibson (complete with Aussie accent) and Sam Neill playing together in pre-Hollywood fame roles. Gibson is the mission leader and Neill is effectively his trusty sidekick. I have to also say John Phillip Law plays the (token) American-Dutch, mandarin-speaking (LOL) character very competently.

The story itself too is quite interesting with its variation on the war against the Japanese in the Pacific, by this time, strongly highlighting the involvement of the ethnic Chinese.

I was pleasantly surprised with this film, as I'm sure others will be too.

"Attack Force Z" depicts a fictitious operation by a five-man team from Z Special Unit, a predominantly Australian special operations unit in World War II, who are assigned to infiltrate a Japanese-occupied island in (presumably) the Dutch East Indies to rescue the aircrew of a downed Allied aircraft. The team is plagued by recurring bad luck (which quickly alerts the Japanese to their presence) and by friction between the inexperienced team leader, Captain Paul Kelly (Gibson), and his more experienced but erratic subordinate, a Dutch lieutenant named Jan Veitch (Law), the team's most fluent Chinese speaker. When the team manages to enlist the aid of the local resistance, further friction develops between Kelly and the local cell leader, Lin Chan-Lang (Ko), who resents Kelly's holding back information about the plane's occupants. About halfway in, however, we do discover why Kelly is under strict orders to keep clam.

For a (relatively) low-budget war movie, "Attack Force Z" is pretty good. The costumes and weapons are about as historically accurate as feasible, and the filming location--Taiwan--is convincing enough as an island at the other end of the South China Sea. Particularly enjoyable is the fact that Asian characters speak their respective languages on screen, rather than accented English. This, however, does lead me to the film's main problem, at least to me, which is that it's a mess ethnographically and consequently linguistically. Because it was shot in Taiwan with a mostly Taiwanese (or otherwise ethnically Chinese) cast, the island's population appears to be entirely ethnically Chinese without a single speaker of Malay (as it was then called) in evidence, the occasional pitji cap-wearing extra notwithstanding. This also results in the somewhat unlikely situation of Veitch being fluent in Chinese rather than Malay.

Veitch is the most problematic character in the film. The original director, Phillip Noyce, left the project at least partly because he disagreed with the producers over the choice of John Phillip Law to play Veitch, and bluntly, he was right: Law simply doesn't pull off anything resembling a credible Dutchman. It's not entirely his fault, though, because the writer and producers don't seem to have ever so much as met a Dutch person, as is apparent from the fact that Veitch isn't even a Dutch name (insofar as I can make out, it's Scottish). Admittedly, I am myself Dutch and my paternal grandmother's family lived in the East Indies so this is a niggle that maybe affects me more than the typical viewer but it's emblematic of what's wrong with an otherwise perfectly enjoyable film. Enough so that I can almost overlook how all the team members manage to stay clean shaven despite not having time to shave.

Continuing my plan to watch every Mel Gibson movie in order I come to Attack Force Z from 1981.

Plot In A Paragraph: A group of commandos go on a secret mission to check for survivors of a plane crash.

By the numbers, cliché ridden, dull, flat and instantly forgettable. There are some good individual performances, but the film, though produced with efficiency and what looks like a decent budget, is tough to say great things about this movie.

It probably wasn't helped by my DVD having a poor transfer. I'd go so far as to say if Mel Gibson and Sam Neil weren't in this movie it probably would have even had a DVD released.