them the location of her father, who they believe is hiding the survivors of the crashed plane, but Chien Hua refuses. Lin's son Shaw Hu falsely tells the Japanese that Lin, the Z men, and the plane's survivors are heading for the island's capital. All the Japanese leave except for two soldiers guarding Chien Hua; Veitch kills both with help of Shaw Hu. Meanwhile, within sight of the plane, Kelly watches as locals blow up the wreckage. Lin is evasive, and after quizzing the inhabitants of a village, the team head on to the plane. Kelly manages to get Lin to tell them that the two survivors are being taken to his home, so they turn around and head back. In the capital, Veitch is led to the survivors. One of them is a defecting Japanese government official Imoguchi, and he is believed to hold a secret that could end the war faster. Only Kelly knows that he must be rescued at any cost - or killed. As the pieces of the puzzle begin to fall together, Kelly must persuade his own men that Imoguchi is worth rescuing and the local resistance that it is worth fighting against their Japanese enemies. Cast John Phillip Law as Lieutenant J.A. (Jan) Veitch Mel Gibson as Captain P.G. (Paul) Kelly Sam Neill as Sergeant D.J. (Danny) Costello Chris Haywood as Able Seaman A.D. 'Sparrer' Bird John Waters as Sub Lt. Ted 'Kingo' King Ku Chun as Rice farmer Sylvia Chang as Chien Hua O Ti as Shaw Hu Koo Chuan Hsiung as Lin Chan-Lang Production The script was based on a real-life commando rescue raid, Operation Opossum, where a team of commandos rescued the local sultan on the Japanese-held island of Ternate near Borneo. The film was originally entitled The Z Men and was to be directed by Phillip Noyce. Pre-production commenced in Taiwan where for six weeks Noyce worked on the script with writer Michael Cove. However, Noyce clashed with the producers - McCallum later claimed in particular that Noyce refused to use one of the Chinese actors who had been cast in a small role - and was fired the night before shooting was meant to start. He was replaced by Tim Burstall in November 1979. Filming was further delayed by constant rain and re-writing of the script. Among the changes made were adding a fifth character to the team -