Posts Tagged ‘prisoner-of-war’

Mouse That Roared, The (1959)

Friday, February 22nd, 2008
Genres: Comedy | War
Countries: UK
Actors: Sellers, Peter | Seberg, Jean | Hartnell, William | Kossoff, David | Leo McKern | Parke, MacDonald | Willis, Austin | Bateson, Timothy | Landis, Monte | Gifford, Alan | Gordon, Colin | Kasket, Harold | Brown, Wally | Cey, Jacques | Clay, Charles
Directors: Arnold, Jack
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The best laid plans of mice and men … A cold war satire emphasising the new emerged American Superpower’s use of foreign aid to buy friends and keep then away from the USSR’s influence. Peter Sellers, as the scheming Prime Minister of Grand Fenwick, plots with Peter Sellers, as the scheming Grand Duchess, to declare war on the USA, lose and get that foreign aid. Unfortunately, they forget to tell Peter Sellers, as Tully Bascombe, commander of their mediaeval army. This honourable man does his best for his country and through a series of unbelievable circumstances (well, this is a comedy) to win. Now, who has to give aid to whom?

Bridge on the River Kwai, The (1957)

Monday, February 18th, 2008
Genres: Adventure | Drama | War
Countries: UK | USA
Actors: Holden, William | Hawkins, Jack | Guinness, Alec | Hayakawa, Sessue | Donald, James | Horne, Geoffrey | Morell, André | Williams, Peter | Boxer, John | Herbert, Percy | Goodwin, Harold | Sears, Ann | Okawa, Heihachiro | Katsumoto, Keiichiro | Chakrabandhu, M.R.B.
Directors: Lean, David
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The film deals with the situation of British prisoners of war during World War II who are ordered to build a bridge to accommodate the Burma-Siam railway. Their instinct is to sabotage the bridge but, under the leadership of Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness), they are persuaded that the bridge should be constructed as a symbol of British morale, spirit and dignity in adverse circumstances. At first, the prisoners admire Nicholson when he bravely endures torture rather than compromise his principles for the benefit of the Japanese commandant Saito (Sessue Hayakawa). He is an honorable but arrogant man, who is slowly revealed to be a deluded obsessive. He convinces himself that the bridge is a monument to British character, but actually is a monument to himself, and his insistence on its construction becomes a subtle form of collaboration with the enemy. Unknown to him, the Allies have sent a mission into the jungle, led by Warden (Jack Hawkins) and an American, Shears (William Holden), to blow up the bridge.

Rescue Dawn (2006)

Sunday, February 17th, 2008
Genres: Action | Adventure | Drama | War
Countries: USA
Actors: Bale, Christian | Bell, Marshall | Chau, François | Davies, Jeremy | Gellis, Craig | GQ | Grenier, Zach | Healy, Pat | Huss, Toby | Hutchinson, Bonnie Z. | Jones, Evan | Jusakul, Abhijati 'Meuk' | King, Mr. Tony B. | Manning, Mr. Richard | Melich, Mr. Garrett D.
Directors: Herzog, Werner
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This film tells the real-life story of U.S. fighter pilot Dieter Dengler, a German-American shot down and captured in Laos during the Vietnam War. Dengler organized a death-defying escape for a small band of POWs, including Duane Martin.

Uncommon Valor (1983)

Sunday, February 17th, 2008
Genres: Action | War
Countries: USA
Actors: Hackman, Gene | Robert Stack | Ward, Fred | Brown, Reb | Cobb, Randall 'Tex' | Swayze, Patrick | Sylvester, Harold | Thomerson, Tim | Lai, Lau Nga | Lim, Kwan Hi | Junkerman, Kelly | Allen, Todd | Strickland, Gail | Kaczmarek, Jane | Stroock, Gloria
Directors: Kotcheff, Ted
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A group of Vietnam War veterans re-unite to rescue one of their own left behind and taken prisoner by the Vietnamese. Supported his father (a retired military man himself) and a rich businessman whose son was also a POW, the group engages in a dangerous and violent adventure trying to rescue the POWs and at the same time re-direct their lives.

Road to Guantanamo, The (2006)

Sunday, February 17th, 2008
Genres: Documentary | Drama
Countries: UK
Actors: Ahmed, Riz | Harun, Farhad | Siddiqui, Waqar | Usman, Afran | Iqbal, Shahid | Khan, Sher | Salkey, Jason | Gaffney, Jacob | Holden, Mark | Henry, Duane | Meredith, William | Bina, Payman | James, Adam | Hughes, Ian | Buller, James
Directors: Whitecross, Mat
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In 2001, four Pakistani Britons, Ruhal Ahmed, Asif Iqbal and Shafiq Rasul and another friend, Monir, travel to Pakistan for a wedding and in a urge of idealism, decide to see the situation of war torn Afganistan which is being bombed by the American forces in retaliation for the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Once there, with the loss of Monir in the wartime chaos, they are captured by Northern Alliance fighters. They are then handed them over the American forces who transport them to the prison camps at the Guantanamo Bay base in Cuba. What follows is three years of relentless imprisonment, interrogations and torture to make them submit to blatantly wrong confessions to being terrorists. In the midst of this abuse, the three struggle to keep their spirits up in that face of this grave injustice.

Great Raid, The (2005)

Saturday, February 16th, 2008
Genres: Action | Drama | War
Countries: Australia | USA
Actors: Bratt, Benjamin | Franco, James | Mammone, Robert | Martini, Max | Carpinello, James | Consuelos, Mark | McLachlan, Craig | Farnsworth, Freddie Joe | Macintosh, Laird | Callaghan, Jeremy | McLean, Scott | Montalban, Paolo | Crawford, Clayne | Worthington, Sam | Innes, Royston
Directors: Dahl, John
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Set in the Philippines in 1945 towards the end of WWII, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Henry Mucci and Captain Robert Prince, the 6th Ranger Battalion undertake a daring rescue mission against all odds. Traveling thirty miles behind enemy lines, they intend to liberate over 500 American Soldiers from the notorious Cabanatuan Japanese POW camp in the most audacious rescue ever.

Valiant (2005)

Friday, February 15th, 2008
Genres: Adventure | Animation | Comedy | Family | War
Countries: UK
Actors: McGregor, Ewan | Gervais, Ricky | Curry, Tim | Broadbent, Jim | Laurie, Hugh | Hurt, John | Torrens, Pip | Mayall, Rik | Williams, Olivia | Ross, Jonathan | Lonsdale, Brian | Roberts, Dan | Schlingmann, Michael | Horgan, Sharon
Directors: Chapman, Gary
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The animated comedy tells the story of a lowly wood pigeon named Valiant, who overcomes his small size to become a hero in Great Britain’s Royal Air Force Homing Pigeon Service during World War II. The RHPS advanced the Allied cause by flying vital messages about enemy movements across the English Channel, whilst evading brutal attacks by the enemy’s Falcon Brigade.

Empire of the Sun (1987)

Thursday, February 14th, 2008
Genres: Drama | War
Countries: USA
Actors: Bale, Christian | Malkovich, John | Richardson, Miranda | Havers, Nigel | Pantoliano, Joe | Phillips, Leslie | Ibu, Masatô | Richard, Emily | Frazer, Rupert | Gale, Peter | Kataoka, Takatoro | Stiller, Ben | Neidorf, David | Seymour, Ralph | Stephens, Robert
Directors: Spielberg, Steven
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An aristocratic British youth is seperated from his family at the start of World War II after the Japanese Army invades British controlled areas of China. Reduced to living on the street and fighting for food, the youth is eventually interned in a Japanese POW camp for British civilians. Here, admiration quickly develops both for captured American pilots and the Japanese themselves. When the war ends, the boy torn from everything he knew attempts to again find his parents.

Pianist, The (2002)

Tuesday, February 12th, 2008
Genres: Biography | Drama | Music | War
Countries: France | Germany | Poland | UK
Actors: Brody, Adrien | | Finlay, Frank | Lipman, Maureen | Fox, Emilia | Stoppard, Ed | Rayner, Julia | Meyer, Jessica Kate | Zebrowski, Michal | Mues, Wanja | Ridings, Richard | Sharron, Nomi | Milner, Anthony | Skeaping, Lucy | Skeaping, Roddy
Directors: Polanski, Roman
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The true story of Wladyslaw Szpilman who, in the 1930s, was known as the most accomplished piano player in all of Poland, if not Europe. At the outbreak of the Second World War, however, Szpilman becomes subject to the anti-Jewish laws imposed by the conquering Germans. By the start of the 1940s, Szpilman has seen his world go from piano concert halls to the Jewish Ghetto of Warsaw and then must suffer the tragedy of his family deported to a death camp, while Szpilman is conscripted into a forced German Labor Compound. At last deciding to escape, Szpilman goes into hiding as a Jewish refugee where he is witness to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943 and the Warsaw City Revolt in August/October 1944.

Black Hawk Down (2001)

Tuesday, February 12th, 2008
Genres: Action | Drama | History | War
Countries: USA
Actors: Hartnett, Josh | McGregor, Ewan | Isaacs, Jason | Sizemore, Tom | Bana, Eric | Shepard, Sam | Bremner, Ewen | Hardy, Tom | Eldard, Ron | Hofheimer, Charlie | Dancy, Hugh | Guiry, Tom | Van Holt, Brian | Ford, Steven
Directors: Scott, Ridley
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Action/war drama based on the best-selling book detailing a near-disastrous mission in Somalia on October 3, 1993 where nearly 100 U.S. Army Rangers, commanded by Capt. Mike Steele, were dropped by helicopter deep into the capital city of Mogadishu to capture two top lieutenants of a Somali warlord which lead to a large and drawn-out firefight between the Rangers and hundreds of Somali gunmen which led to the destruction of two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters in Mogadishu, and the heroic efforts by various Rangers to get to them, centering on Sgt. Eversmann, commanding one Ranger unit named Chalk Four, leading Rangers to the first black hawk crash site, to Warrant Officer Durant who was only survivor of the second black hawk crash site and whom was captured, to Col. McKnight who leads a rescue convoy for the Rangers only to get lost within the hostile city, to Sgt. Sanderson desperately trying to get to the first crash site, to Staff Sgt. Yurek who leads two fellow Rangers, Nelson and Twombly to meet with up their squad, Chalk Four, at the first crash site, to many others involved who where either killed or survived.