Attack Force Z

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.

An odd little curio of an Australian action movie, made in 1982, enjoyable in itself as a popcorn movie for its WWII commando story. But it would largely be forgettable were it not that two of its lower-ranking actors--Australian Mel Gibson and New Zealander Sam Neill--were soon to became big international stars. Gibson, it's true, had made *Gallipoli* and a few other Australian movies, and Neill had starred in a delightful little picture called *My Brilliant Career* (with Judy Davis, no less), but both were largely unknown at this time. The headliner in *Attack Force Z* was good ol' American pulp-action hero John Philip Law, whose credits went all the way back to the early '60s and included the likes of *The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming!* Yet Law, for all his good looks and occasional noteworthy appearances, never reached anything like the fame that awaited his two co-stars in this minor action picture. It's worth seeing if only to be reminded that *everybody* has to understudy somebody else early in his or her career.

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.

Melodramatic war film which sometimes focuses too much on the forbidden romance shared between lead Law and the character played by Chang, daughter of the village elder who despises the Japanese but is also wary of the impact allied forces will have on his village. Elsewhere it's a capable action film concerning an elite group of soldiers who infiltrate an island village in Taiwan to extract a Japanese defector and his American minder who crash landed on the island.

There's plenty of future star power to rev the engines with Gibson showing glimpses of the livewire character he went on to regularly play, Neill as the reliable interpreter (who has an especially unenviable task to perform early in the mission that should make you gasp), and then Haywood and Waters occupying smaller roles. The child actor who plays the young son (Ti) covertly assisting the members of Z Force to carry out their dangerous mission is also good value.

I've read that original director Philip Noyce was replaced just prior to filming due in part to his desire to inject colonialist themes. Fortunately the moralities of war lessons are kept to a minimum, Neill giving us a half-hearted reminder that the allies are also the enemy, before a reasonably tense escape plan is executed (in the style of 'The Magnificent Seven', but bloodier) with mixed results.

Overall it's a fairly bleak tale with just enough action to hold the attention, which it obviously has gained more of since its stars have risen.

A little-known World War 2 drama despite featuring the talents of Mel Gibson and Sam Neill. The film follows an Australian Special Forces team led by Gibson on a mission to rescue the occupants of a plane crash-landed on a Pacific Island. Naturally, the island is swarming with Japanese determined to thwart the mission at every turn.

The film is not without its weaknesses; Gibson & Neill are a little flat thanks to a script that doesn't allow them to show off their talents to the full(compare to Gibson's brilliant performance as Frank Dunn in Gallipoli made around the same time). The music is poignant but fails to add much to the drama and there is a low-budget feel to much of the film in general.

Having said that, Attack Force Z is fairly entertaining; it moves at a good pace and there are plenty of well-staged action sequences. The ending makes a strong statement on the futility of war. A decent addition to your war movie collection but for fans of the genre only.