Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence

Anyone else seen this little oddity? It stars David Bowie, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Tom Conti and Takeshi Kitano. It was made in 1983, based on the book "The Seed and The Sower" by Lawrence Van Der Post.

Basic Plot is this: Aussi POW Maj. Jack " Strafer" Celliers (Bowie) is brought to a prison camp in Java and the commander of the camp, Capt. Yanoi (Sakamoto) is "captivated" by him (read: falls in love) and tries to hide his feellings. Also involved are Sgt. Gengo Hara (Kitano) and the Japanese-speaking-Brit Col. John Lawerence (Conti). Hara, inbetween beating the snot out of prisoners, finds time to have deep conversations with Lawrence. Other intersting scenes: the Dutch POW biting off then suffocating on his tongue after his Korean guard lover is beheaded (forced to commit Seppukou, his second botches the beheading, causing Hara to jump in and end his suffering), Lawrence eating flowers, and Lawrence kissing Yanoi, causing him (Yanoi) to faint and Lawrence to be buried up to his neck in sand.

 

I remember this, but it is the sound of the boy singing that I remember most.

 

I've been trying to find this flick. I only saw the last 15 minutes on TV and nothing else.

 

You didn't miss much. It was a very strange movie to say the least.

 

It's one of my favorites, next to End All Wars, Schindlers List, and John Rabe. I have a thing for movies where the war isn't good vs. evil (ie: The gallant allies against the evil, sadistic Axis soldiers). I like movies and books where we can get both sides of the story (not all Nazis/Japanese where bad and not all Americans, Brits and Aussies where good).

I like the part where Hara gets drunk and, after giggling , says "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence!" in a high pitched voice.

 

If it stars David Bowie it has to be strange.

 

Ive heard of it but never seen it.

 

It's not even good if you see it all liquored up. I saw it when it came out in the 80s. When I was walking out of the theater I was thinking "WTF"????

 

Been there and done that. I have walked out on two movies. The first one was: An American Werwolf In London, the other was: Enough. I left the 2nd one-had paid only .50 cents to see it) and i left feeling like I was robbed of .49 cents.

 

Hudson Hawk was another one I walked out on. That was almost a total waste of time. Good thing I went to sleep for about 15 minutes or it would have been a total loss.

 

Ha, forgot about that one. I didnt pay to see it but a college friend rented it and after about 15 minutes of pain, I went off to go play a game on the Nintendo while he bored himself to death with said movie.