Harockerce What a beautiful movie!

Kailansorac Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

screenman Big John Wayne stars in this pacific actioner surrounding the defence of the Phillipines. He's fairly young and the solid larger-than-life character he quickly became is just on the cusp of development here.Anthony Quinn lends his ambiguous racial identity to the Phillipinos, playing the mythical grandson on their former hero.It's an old movie, so the violence and cruelty is a measure of what censors of the time (1945) would allow. Lots of people back home had sons and husbands fighting the Japs, imprisoned or returning and it probably wouldn't do to show them how bad things could actually get. Quite honestly; I've yet to see any movie that adequately portrays Japanese brutality with the kind of frankness that we see in some of the more recent movies about the Nazis. It's long past time that this was done, even at the risk of ruffling a few Nipponese feathers.This movie gives a Hollywood take on the conflict. Allied prisoners interned by the Japanese are released full-bodied, fresh-faced and clean-shaven. Likewise the jungle fighters look as though they're on the way to a parade ground. Some set-pieces are stagy to say the least.It's filmed in B&W which gives the movie a nice 'period' feel. The budget seems to have been pretty limited by usual standards. Even so, it still makes for an adequate watch if you've nothing better to do.I personally like old movies. So the £2 I paid at the local supermarket represented something of an investment. I only wish they'd turn out more of 'em.

gazzo-2 Basically an unofficial sequel to the Pre-Bruckheimerish 'Bataan' from '43(Lloyd Nolan/Rod Taylor/Desi Arnez), this time showing John Wayne and Anthony Quinn leading an insurgency against the occupying Japanese forces 'til MacArthur could, indeed, return in '45. You have familiar faces ala Paul Fix, Lawrence Tierney and Buelah Bondy along for the ride, real POW's shown marching in front of the camera, and (of course) the usual studio gimmickry, bushes and oddly stagey handling of the combat scenes.In short, a typical WWII era lower-budgeted war-movie. Wayne, Quinn, Bondi and co. are all fine, it's routinely handled but involving. You can certainly put 'They were expendable' w/ Duke and Robert Montgomery as a bookend for this, also in '45-set in the same time/place but bigger budgeted and frankly more believable.You'll also see Phillip Ahn here, from 'Kung Fu' and whatever else, I should add.*** outta ****, pretty decent.

MartinHafer While this film is a tad heavy from time to time with propaganda elements, in many ways this war film stands well above the usual crowd of jingoistic American war films. Now I am NOT being critical saying the films are "jingoistic", as this was positive propaganda that slightly exaggerated the truth in order to unify the country against the Japanese. After all, we were at war and Japan had conquered most of the Pacific. But films made during the war often sacrificed reality in order to deliver the message--such as in AIR FORCE when a B-17 bomber almost single-handedly wipes out half the Japanese planes!! Fortunately, beneath the occasionally heavy-handed patriotism, the film itself was a very good representation of the war in the Philippines. This, combined with excellent action scenes and better than average acting make this a film worth seeing. In particular, other than IN HARMS WAY, this is John Wayne's best WWII film, as his acting is a little less "bigger than life" and more realistic. Also, if you liked this film, I also strongly recommend BATAAN (starring a surprisingly macho Robert Taylor). This film focuses on the fall of Bataan and BACK TO BATAAN is a great companion piece as it focuses not only on this but its reconquest. Top notch entertainment and a decent history lesson to boot!

gregcostello I agree that this is a terrific movie, and by "History vs. Hollywood" standards rates fairly high. The point of the movie is to characterize the Japanese soldiers as brutal and often sadistic in their treatment of the enemy. In the history of modern warfare, the Japanese in WWII were by far the most inhumane. There is nothing in this movie that is unfair in the portrayal of Japanese treatment of Filipinos. Later, American and other Allied POW's were subjected to even worse horrors. The film also correctly characterizes the Filipinos as tough, hard fighters, and unfortunate victims of a superior Imperialist (militarist) society, which was run by the Japanese Army, and victimized with extreme prejudice. I will disagree with one contributor to this forum who offers that the brutal treatment of Filipinos was one of the reasons for entering the war. Not so. The reason for entering the war was the gradual aggressive military movements of Japan spanning the previous 20 years, culminating in the invasion of China followed by the attack on Pearl Harbor.