Kokoda (2007)

A Realistic Film with No Plot...

Having an interest in Australian history, as well as teaching the subject to middle school students, the battle(s) on the Kokoda trail in Papua New Guinea between Australian forces and the invading Japanese, is a WW2 event that causes a sparkle to shine forth from the eyes of the students.

Out numbered and out gunned, these Australian soldiers fought bravely under the worst of tropical conditions: rain, mud, jungle, malaria, and extreme heat. What makes this event memorable was the courage of a few men fighting against impossible odds and holding their position against a fierce adversary.

Although slowing the Japanese invasion, in the end it was the harsh environmental conditions and a lack of supplies that prevented the invasions success. The 6000 Japanese soldiers, for the most part, died of starvation and disease. War is never a handsome affair, and the Australian film Kokoda depicts the conditions and extreme hardships with poignant reality...other than that, however, the film was a big disappointment.

The impression is the director focused on portraying, as realistically as possible, the dire conditions of war. He accomplished this aim without question. However, Kokoda has no `plot' per say, there is no actual story in this film other than focusing on a small contingent of soldiers in retreat, their deaths and suffering, and the courage these men had in order to carry on despite the apparent uselessness of it all.

As many people have commented after seeing this film, it begins compellingly, but we continue to watch expecting `something' to happen, a flashback of home from one of the soldiers, a character development or relationship explored to ensure we feel the pathos when one dies in battle; at least a `story' amongst the harsh conditions of war because there is only so much shooting and killing and audience can take.

Kokoda is like an expensive documentary with great actors, well made, with no story other than the brief contextual explanation from a voice over at the beginning and a paragraph of information at the end. In fact, the film did not teach the audience anything about this important historical event in Australian history; guessing that the director expected `us' to know enough to feel the harshness of war and how close the invading force came to success.

To be fair, this film is a good visual of history to convey what these courageous boy's experienced defending the country. My impression is that the director had tunnel vision, making the film to a small "Australian informed audience", because any audience overseas would wonder what the film was all about.

In the end, my students gained a better visceral understanding of a part of history they should be proud of, that war is a reality and nothing to be glorified because war is pure hell. And their grandfathers and great grandfathers' fought bravely to defend our country against a ferocious enemy.

A 2.5 rating at best.
May 16, 2007

A complete disservice!

I have avoided this review for some time but couldn't hold back any longer. I saw this film not long after it came out on DVD. It pains me to have to call this film out for what it is, largely flawed and missing the mark; particularly in a tradition of Australian cinema that has so often delivered incredibly powerful and poignant war epics which tell the history of our diggers ... Breaker Morant and Gallipoli but two among them.

I found myself cringing as the film dragged on, it had a great deal of potential but became a complete cop out focusing only on a group of fear gripped Militia. I think that the entire trajectory of the film is a slap in the face to those that served during that time. If you read your history and do any research on these men you know they were made of stiffer stuff than is portrayed in this film. My reading of Kokoda and this film are at opposite ends of the spectrum for realism! The point is that they were called Chocko soldiers but showed themselves to be anything but!

Another major disappointment was the weak battle scenes - when a final charge by the Japanese comes late in the film during a night time engagement we see possibly only about 13 Japanese come out of the scrub to make an attack and then the camera only shows about 4.5 secs of the battle instead focusing on an Aussie soldiers face as he deals with an off screen enemy we are supposed to now imagine! Waste of yet another cinematic opportunity.

I am proud of Australian Military history and felt this movie did nothing to serve it in any way shape or form. An opportunity was missed, when you consider how rare it is that we see films made about the Aussie WW2 period and this is what we get to stand in celluloid as representation one of the greatest and most sacred of Australian wartime engagements?

Fair suck of the sav! May 10, 2007

Missing the point

I had great expectations for this film, but I was very disappointed. The story was about nothing more than bunch of blokes wandering aimlessly through the jungle, bumping into and being slaughtered by an almost invisible enemy. More like Rambo meets Predator than a WWII film.

As a viewer I got no perspective of the battle fought along the Kokoda track. In fact, we hardly even saw the track. There was no sense of a huge prolonged struggle. We never got the idea that they were outnumbered because we hardly saw the Japanese. We did see a dozen or so Aussies get killed in minor battles. This movie is ruined by gory Hollywood killing effects and as usual, the coward dies a horrible death, and the bad guys are of course brutal murdering swines.

I rate this film right down there with Gallipoli. If you want to see a good WWII film then see To End All Wars or The Great Raid.

Its a shame really, I'm sure the story of the Kokoda track deserves a lot better than this. February 23, 2007

Bitter fight with excellent acting

A bitter battle is fought between Australian and Japanese soldiers along the Kokoda trail in New Guinea during World War II. A very moving and extremely well made war movie. A must see film. Some scenes shot inn Private Ryan/Spielberg style with hand-held camera filming. The movie is a good example of up-and-coming Australain competition to Hollywood with excellent acting, fine diretion and great cinematography. January 11, 2007

Pretty Dreadful

The battle of the Kokoda trail was one of the more imporant battles in the countries history. Australian troops fougth against an invading Japanese Army in New Guinea and eventually defeated it as as an all Australian military operation. It was the second defeant of Japanese forces after another Australian operation at Milne Bay.

The battle took place over some months and for most of the time Australian troops were heavily outnumbered fighting against a well trained and fanatical enemy.

The action of this film seems to take place after the battle of Mission Ridge when the defending Australian Marouba force was overrun and forced to retreat through the jungle.

The problem with the film is that it is basically gloomy and shows a rather defeated Australian patrol retreating in dreadful conditions. The cast keeps on talking about only being " choclat soldiers " ( derogatory term for militia ) and waiting for the AIF to turn up.

The reality is that whilst the conditions these battles were fought in were dreadful the Australian troops performed well. At the initial battles of Kokoda 1 and 2 400 Australian troops were by their aggressive counter attacks were able to delay an invading force of 2,500 Japanese. The Japanese commander in fact thought that Australia had some 6,000 troops in the field they were so effective.

In the defensive battles around Isurava around 1,000 troops kept 5,000 Japanese troops at Bay. The effect of the various defensive battles was that the Japanese ran out of supplies and eventually by the time they reached the end of the trail most of their army was starving and wracked with Typhoid. This prevented further offensive operations and the Japanese were forced into a catostrophic retreat.

The reality is that the Australian troops were skilled and self confident not like the scared winners portrayed in this film. It is a shame that something which should be a proud episode in Australian history is portrayed as a grim disaster. January 9, 2007

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