****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
I first saw this film years ago on television -- well before DVDs or VHS.Based on a book -- true story -- by Agnes Newton Keith, it details her internment in a Japanese prison camp during WWII in Borneo.It is a startlingly moving story of survival of a group of women and children -- some of the women in their 70s -- and how badly they were treated by their prison guards and the commandant of the camp. The film follows the book very closely. Mrs. Keith told it like it was, even including the fact that some of the other women in the camp thought she was too "chummy" with the commandant who gave her special favors due to the fact that he had read one of her books in the past and admired her writing.Most WWII films focus on the men involved in the war. It is worth the time to learn how some women fared during WWII.Watch this film, and then read some of Mrs. Keith's books. She was a remarkable woman, six feet tall, overcame a serious head injury early in her life, lost her eyesight for a long period, did bit parts in movies, married an Englishman, lived in Borneo for five years before the war, kept her son live during their imprisonment, and flourished after the family's liberation. Luckily, her husband survived his imprisonment, too.You won't be disappointed in this film.
