Product Description

From the director of Excalibur and Deliverance comes this "gripping" (Leonard Maltin)adventure about two wartime enemies trapped alone on a desert island. Academy AwardÂ(r) winner* Lee Marvin (The Dirty Dozen) and Toshiro Mifune (The Seven Samurai) deliver "striking and well-etched performances" (LA Herald-Examiner) in this searing psychological drama that packs "plenty of action and excitement" (Motion Picture Herald)! From the instant they meet, a marooned American soldier (Marvin) and his Japanese counterpart (Mifune) have the same objective: killing each other. But it soon becomes apparent that the only way they will survive isby forging an uneasy truce and cooperating with each other. Can they rise above the hatred that divides them long enough to stay alive?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #26996 in DVD
• Brand: MGM HOME VIDEO (UNDER FOX)
• Released on: 2004-05-25
• Rating: G (General Audience)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, Letterboxed, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 103 minutes

Features

• From the director of Excalibur and Deliverance comes this gripping (Leonard Maltin) adventure about two wartime enemies trapped alone on a desert island. Academy Award® winner* Lee Marvin (The Dirty Dozen) and Toshiro Mifune (The Seven Samurai) deliver striking and well-etched performances (LA Herald-Examiner) in this searing psychological drama that packs plenty of action and excitement (Mot

Amazon.com essential video
Lone Japanese soldier Toshiro Mifune diligently scans the ocean from his island lookout as he must have thousands of times before, but this time he spies an abandoned life raft resting on a rocky bluff. Within minutes he's face to face with American sea-wreck survivor Lee Marvin and the two begin an elaborate game of cat and mouse. Director John Boorman presents this two-man war as a deadly game between a pair of overgrown children, who finally tire of it (as kids will) and settle into tolerated co-existence and then even something resembling a friendship. With impressionistic strokes, Boorman paints a lush tropical paradise in colors you can drink from the screen, capturing the texture of their experience as refracted through the cinema: the look of the island as seen through the haze of smoke, the sound of a sudden rainstorm as it hushes the island in a calming roar, the timelessness of life outside of civilization. The story seems almost secondary, an allegorical drama that comes alive in the excellent performances by Marvin and Mifune (who soon enough converse despite their complete inability to understand each other's language) and the visceral immediacy of Boorman's gorgeous widescreen images. Hell in the Pacific is not a tale told as much as a film experienced. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Reviews

The Best of Enemies
This review refers to the Anchor Bay DVD "Hell in the Pacific"...

You won't find a big ensemble cast in this World War II film from 1968. Only 2 actors tell the story, and they don't even speak the same langauge. But they don't need to, these two actors are Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune. They portray enemies, one American, one Japanese, marooned on an island in the midst of the war. They are so brillant in their portrayals, that actions really do speak louder than words. You won't even miss the fact that there are no subtitles when Mifune is speaking. His every expression, lets us know exactly what he is thinking.
Add to this the artful direction of John Boorman, who brought us such exquiste films as "Excalibur", the wonderful music of Lalo Schifrin (Mission Impossible), and the expert eye of Cinematographer Conrad Hall(Butch Cassidy, American Beauty) and you're in for a real cinematic treat.

When a disciplined Japanese Naval Officer discovers he is not alone on the small Island in the Pacific, he immediatly goes into high gear to protect and defend his territory. But he has met his match in the very undisciplined American Marine that has been washed ashore. And so it begins...these two do everything they can to capture, torture, and generally make life miserable for each other(and at times is on the comical side). The need for human contact though, becomes apparent and they stop short at killing each other, and actually form an attachment to each other. The ending is a bit of a shocker, but there is also an alternate ending included with this DVD.

Anchor Bay as usual has really made this 35 year old film a pleasure to watch. You have the choice of widescreen(2.35:1) or full format(by the way, my DVD was mismarked as to which side was widescreen, so don't panic if this happens, just flip it over). Excellent picture, vibrant colors and the sound in Dolby Dig Stereo is clear as a bell. And don't forget to check out the alternate ending.

A great buy for fans of war movies, Marvin and Mifune, and anyone who appreciates artful film making.

Enjoy....Laurie

more on war:
Into the DMZ A Battle History of Operation Hickory, May 1967, Vietnam(first hand account and great read)
Windtalkers
A Bridge Too Far
see my reviews for book and film details

With little-to-no dialogue, this film is one to watch
My fiance got me the DVD as a present to me on his birthday. It sat for a month and then we finally watched it together. I was amazed that there was no dialogue... really. Very little. And when we were watching the DVD, we did not choose the option for subtitles and only realized that option after we'd seen the film. Overall it is a film to watch -- really watch. After you see it once without the subtitles, watch it again with them. Makes it a totally different experience. The acting and directing is incredible and one is left wondering, what the screenplay of this film actually looked like. Not too many special features but there is an alternate ending that is interesting.

A tense and comical classic!
Being a hardcore fan of movies from Japan and China, Hell in the pacific is one of the few American arthouse movies I now owned and it is an absolutely fantastic piece of work.

Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune is absolutely terrific in this movie. Their chemistry is as perfect as the story is tense and an absolutely hilarious esp during the scenes when they try to out do each other in their "turf fight". I crack up everytime each one of them mess up their own dirty little wicked plan in the most humourous fashion.

The cinematography is stunning and I really appreciate the alternate ending. I find the original ending really sucks big time.

Still a solid 5 star for this movie. 2 stars for both actors, 1 star for the movie, 1 star for the cinematography and 1 star for the alternate ending. There you go, a 5 star pure cinematic genius. I am very very happy with this DVD.