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Title: an awful film
Review: I'd been meaning to see this film for many years, so I was glad to finally get it out. What a disappointment! It's a badly made film: poor script, an awful sense of rhythm, visually ugly and frankly boring. The performances are quite often wooden, though that's because the characters are poorly written. Tom Conti is relaxed and natural, but the material is so thin there's not much he can do.The cinematography and staging are quite amateurish, though perhaps this is because the Japanese director was trying to make a Western-style film. I can only assume people who like this film do so because of the subject matter. If you're interested in Japanese prisoner of war stories, I would recommend 'River Kwai' or the Australian miniseries A Town Like Alice. Or even the English TV series Tenko. But skip this film.
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