Kokoda - 39th Battalion [DVD]

It can be difficult to explain to someone why you would want to watch a war movie. Everyone is all too aware of the suffering, and WWII in particular has surely been covered from all angles several times over by now. So why would you want to watch people going through hell? What is to be taken from that? Some people are merely looking for a historical version of Star Wars, black and white - good vs evil. Others, a peculiar bunch, are obsessed by weaponary, military doctrine and accuracy, and delight in seeing this portrayed on screen. You may want to learn about a hitherto unknown conflict, or you may struggle to fathom just how normal, every day people are able to plough on in the face of utter chaos and survive. I fall into the last two categories, and this movie does an excellent job of covering a conflict that is not well known in this country, and in showing how a small cadre of Australian reservist troops survived in unyielding, grim environmental, tropical conditions on Papua New Guinea. I was not aware that Japan had come so close to launching an invasion of Australia, and that a thin line of inexperienced and poorly equipped troops played such a part in holding them back. The Japanese are barely shown in this film, bar some barbarous torture, and you do not see their faces and there are few scenes of actual combat. So the focus is on the Australians and how they cope with sickness, lack of food or sleep, and the terrible weather. The film succeeds admirably in both telling a story of the bravery of the Australian troops in general, and in how a small group of men overcame the horrendous conditions to survive. I found it a moving portrayal and would recommend it to anyone interested in how people cope with war.

An impressive war movie from Australia. This is the same movie as Kokoda, that has until now only been available in Australia and therefore not available for all DVD players due to Region constraints.

World War 2 in the minds of most Europeans is the war in Europe and we forget that it was fought in the Pacific as well. Kokoda is set in the desperate struggle to keep the Japanese from capturing south Papua New Guinea. The name comes from the village Kokoda that is situated on the Kokoda trail, on overland mountain track that saw a series of battles between the Japanese and Austrailian forces. The movie is about a small group of Australian soldiers in that conflict.

The movie captures well the horrors of jungle fighting, malaria, dysentery (a brave thing to do graphically in a movie) and exhaustion. The soldiers wait in their muddy trenches and when things can't get much worse it starts to rain. The movie is well shot and realistic. And who else but Aussies would use the word mateship :) This is a war movie, there are no love interests or sideline stories for a wider audience. Some scenes are very brutal and strong, but this adds to the movie and the storyline. I should also add that the movie is 90 minutes long, a quality many of our overly long movies overlook these days. Courage Endurance Mateship Sacrifice are written on the memorial to this conflict.

The story itself is fiction but with strong ties to real events, so what we have is a story of a small forward squad that gets cut off from their main lines and must get back. The horrors of the jungle, maladies and brutallity of the Japanese are all well represented. These are all based on documented facts, however unbelieveble they may seem. The soldiers are also reservists without the support and training of regluar troops, that had been fighting in North Africa. All told the story is true to life and very well done, there are no silly heroics but all through the movie is down to earth, at least after the first opening scene (which is a dream). WW2 War Movie Enthusiasts and those with attention to detail will also like that the Bren gun gets well represented.

A good solid story, a well cast movie with strong scenes and attention to detail. Recommended.

This is a cracking Australian Film set in PNG in the early days of the Pacific War. All that stands between Australia and the Japanese Army are a group of under-trained and under-equiped mates who were dock workers or rubber tappers. Based on true events but a fictional account "Kokoda" is one of the few films I have seen that give a real impression of the terrible jungle conditions and the cruel nature of the Imperial Japanese Army. Not every war film shows what its like to have Dysentery and still have to fight.
This film is not for the squemish and if you're expecting a "Ryan" type picture, its not.
But I liked it and what it tried to say. I think this will rank along side Peter Weir's Gallipoli as an iconic Aussie War movie.