Z-Men

Low-key WWII adventure film with noisy action , thrills , patriotic events and impressive battles . Moving warlike production set during WWII on the South Pacific at a location plenty of Japanese and a crew of New Zeeland soldiers battling an important base . As a group of Australian commandos launch a secret mission against Japanese forces in World War II. The brave commando is assigned a perilous mission on Chinese Islands already inhabited by stranded Japanese forces , they have some hours to get their objectives . The Americans are commanded by a Captain P.G. (Paul) Kelly (Mel Gibson) , along with Lieutenant J.A. (Jan) Veitch (John Phillip Law) , Sergeant D.J. (Danny) Costello (Sam Neill) ,Able Seaman A.D. 'Sparrer' Bird (Chris Haywood) , Sub Lt. Ted 'Kingo' King (John Waters) . At the beginning the soldiers successfully in wiping out Japanese and they endeavor to blow up a pivotal Japanese installation , but one of them early dies . Then they are spotted and descended upon by enemies forces ; meanwhile suffering casualties , exhaustion, dangerous encounters until execute their mission and to be rescued . They must go to the other side of the island to a beach , being really besieged by Japanese forces . Then , the daredevil captain and his underlings find themselves vying during the escape . The group must try to survive enemy that undergo a chase and a mini-war , as they fight all by themselves and finally find how wrong his misconceptions are .

A well known plot all before the end of WWII : an elite of corps of Australian military is Force Z volunteers are chosen for a risked mission . Australia/Taiwan Co-Production realised thru Roadshow Film, The Australian Film Commission and Umbrella Entertainment and written by Roger Marshall . Flag-waver , jingoist wartime movie with a typical crew of Anzacs battling the 'yellow menace' and to find the aircraft that crashed somewhere and rescue a defecting government official on board . The film packs warlike action, thrills, drama and being quite entertaining . All the potentially thrilling set pieces are thrown away with a disregard for the basic mechanics of suspense and the climax is literally cardboard thin . The story contains a brief studio character seeking human frailty beneath surface heroism . Talented cast is partially wasted , being effectively directed in this limited budget adventure, featuring two young newcomers actors : Mel Gibson and Sam Neill , both of whom to have a long , long career . Splendid Mel Gibson , he is consistently watchable for the whole damned poor show with no much emotion ; however , appealing the WWII enthusiasts . Gibson plays as a tough captain , in one of his first roles when he starred early Australian successes such as : Tim , Chain reaction , Mad Max , Mad Max 2 , Beyond thunderdome , Gallipoli , The year of living dangerously , Mrs Soffel . A cool cast, nimble direction from Burstall with riveting climax and enhanced by energetic score make this a must for wartime hardcore fans, though it has some flaws , gaps and failures . The picture was filmed entirely on actual locations in Taiwan . The producers gratefully acknowledge the cooperation of the New Zeeland and Taiwan government and its armed Force . Thanksgiving to Department of Defense , New Zeeland Navy , Army Corps and Coast Guard , for their invaluable assistance .

This medium budget movie was professionally directed by Tim Burstall (1927-2004) . Director Burstall's skill with the thrills overcomes the artificiality of the story . He was a craftsman who made several TV series such as Return to Eden , Water Rats , Snowy River : The McGregor Saga , Special squad and films such as : Naked country , A Descant for Gossips , The Last of the Knucklemen , Duet for Four, Eliza Fraser , End Play , Getting Back to Nothing , Libido , Pesadilla en Bitter Creek , among others .

Others movies concerning the warfare sub-genre about Allied soldiers battling Japanese on the Pacific islands and Philippines during the WWII are the following ones : Guadalcanal diary (43) by Lewis Seiler with Anthony Quinn and Lloyd Nolan ; the classic Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) by Allan Dwan with John Wayne ; Beachhead (1956) by Stuart Heisler with Tony Curtis and Frank Lovejoy ; None but the brave, directed and starred by Frank Sinatra. In addition, Between heaven and hell(1956) with Robert Wagner, and Ambush Bay (1966) by Ron Winston with Hugh O'Brian , Mickey Rooney , James Mitchum , Peter Masterson , among others.

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.

"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.

ATTACK FORCE Z is the only Aussie war movie I've seen yet besides RETURN FROM THE RIVER KWAI. It's fast-paced, fun, cheesy and plenty entertaining.

Jon Phillip Law (DEATH RIDES A HORSE) stars as an Allied commando who leads 4 international commandos to rescue a Japanese defector from a Japanese-infested island in the Pacific.

The movie features a lot of familiar plot elements, and strongly resembles the earlier American features AMBUSH BAY and BEACHHEAD. Only here, the movie is based on fact; a similar mission involving the "Z" Special Forces team was actually undertaken in the Pacific. The cast features a lot of young actors who were unknown at the time, including Mel Gibson (WE WERE SOLDIERS) as the team leader and Sam Neill as the radio operator.

The movie is obviously pretty low budget, as the action scenes involve few extras and are mostly skirmishes between the 5 commandos and Japanese patrols. There's some great martial arts action as a Chinese commando judo-chops dozens of Japanese soldiers to their deaths. The final battle scene, in which a handful of Chinese resistance fighters hold off at least a few dozen Japanese soldiers with shotguns is corny, as the Japanese always charge right into oncoming fire and never attempt a flanking movement. One resistance fighter stands in the alley blasting away with a shotgun, only dying once he's taken 6+ direct hits and grenade fragments. The Japanese soldiers look and act like idiots and use American machineguns, and the Aussies have M3 machine-pistols with silencers that never run out of ammo and never miss -- but what the heck, it's pretty entertaining and logic-free entertainment.

The musical score is great patriotic stuff by Eric Jupp, and the cinematography is pretty stunning. The Taiwanese crew does a great job with the little budget they had.

The version shown on TNT and TBS once in a very great while is of good quality. Unfortunately, there were some scenes in Japanese and others in Chinese which lacked subtitles. The closed captions weren't much help either as they read, "Speaking in Oriental Language". I haven't seen the NTSC video yet because it's far too expensive for my taste.

All in all, this really isn't the best war film out there. The action scenes bring the worst excesses to WINDTALKERS to mind as they're excellently photographed by defy all logic known to man. Still, the pace is fast, the characters good and the scenery is stunning. I give this a 6/10.

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.