Leofwine_draca ATTACK FORCE Z is a little-known low budget war film from Australia, featuring an all-star cast of familiar faces. The film was shot in Taiwan and also features a wealth of talent from a Chinese cast, including former Shaw Brothers star Jimmy Wang Yu who is completely unrecognisable playing a Japanese official.This film follows the usual men-on-a-mission format with Mel Gibson, John Phillip Law, and Sam Neill teaming up rescue the survivors of a plane crash who are hiding out from local Japanese forces. The low budget nature of the production actually works in the film's favour, giving it a grittily realistic look, and I loved the small scale nature of the action scenes which zing with excitement. None of the cast are at their best here, but Gibson, Law, and Neill are all reliably good and, most importantly, likable.

Euromutt "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.

greenheart I presume that this movie was meant to be a tribute for the Australasian special forces operating in WW2. Now, I've no doubt that they were totally professional and highly trained individuals, I just don't think this movie did them too many favours. They made so many tactical errors and decisions based on emotion that I'm quite sure in real life, thy wouldn't have made. Individuals leaving their unit as they'd fallen for a girl! Sorry, but it just wouldn't have happened with so much at stake. On the positive side, this had a great cast and terrific authentic locations. The action sequences were well done and the torture scenes particularly harrowing. But at the end of the movie, I just sat there thinking, what were they really fighting for and was it all necessary? So many lives taken without a second thought and for what? Not a classic, but thought provoking which in my book, is never bad.

Jonny Frost 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.