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List Price: $12.98 | | Label: Turner Home Ent
Salesrank: 14457
Released: May 22, 2007 |
| Our Price: $3.61 |
| Used Price: $3.60 |
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MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
After the fall of the Philippines to the Japanese in World War II, Col. Joseph Madden (John Wayne) of the U.S. Army stays on to organize guerrilla fighters against the conquerors.
Description of Back to Bataan:
John Wayne and Anthony Quinn star in this touching 1945 drama inspired by real-life heroism in the Philippines following General MacArthur's withdrawal in 1942 and the islands' subsequent conquest by the Japanese army. Wayne plays Colonel Joe Madden, an American who stays behind to organize a ragtag guerrilla army in the forests and hills. At his side is Captain Andres Bonifacio (Quinn), grandson of a legendary revolutionary martyred in the nation's old war against Spanish colonialists. Joe, Andres, and their fearless irregulars (with support from a schoolteacher, played by Beulah Bondi) sap the enemy's resolve through hit-and-run missions, but as time passes the locals wonder, with pronounced disillusionment, why America doesn't return with masses of troops and weapons. Wayne's star power is undeniable, and Quinn is very good as a man uncertain of his role or destiny. Edward Dmytryk (Murder, My Sweet), soon to be imprisoned during Joseph McCarthy's witch hunt of Hollywood communists, directs. --Tom Keogh
Back to Bataan Reviews:
Classic WWII movie 
2009-01-19 - For a World War II buff, this movie is a classic and a must have.
a war film too close to real war 
2008-05-07 - A film in good black & white photography, much better than the electronic coloured version as jungle is more real and dramatic in the original version. I think this movie is little polished, as it seems WW II hadn't still finished when was made. So, we see an enormous Philippine and USA patriotism and a presentation of the Japanese as monsters, as usual by these times. Summing up, this is the story of the fight of Filipino guerrillas against the Japanese invaders, commanded by Colonel Jackson, an USA military played by John Wayne.
It seems the Japanese attempted to convince natives they all were "Asiatics" united together against "White Race", the topics of these moments, but their brutality and pretended superiority showed clearly the truth.
Curiously, Spaniards are remembered also as undesirable conquerors of the Philippines, as these islands received his name in honor to Felipe II, the emperor of Spain at times of the discovery.
But in spite all that, side by side with John Wayne, there are Anthony Quinn and many Philippine people with Spanish names, fighting together. I think is truly American the personage of the energical woman,mature school teacher.
Effectively, during Spanish domination there was much race mixture and Christianity was spread mostly by friars of St. Dominic Order. By these times many Spanish friars still remained in the Pacific area of war and were murdered by Japanese troops, as I remember to have read in old Spanish newspapers my fathers conserved.
Madrid was a nest of spies during WW II and Japan had also a consulate, but Franco didn't like nor understood Japanese. He had enough with Hitler.
Scenes of fights are the best here, John Wayne being at his best moment, very credible although logically this movie can't compare in quality with actual war movies and special effects, but still so is good and must of all sounds very real, as many actors were real soldiers.
After the Fall of Bataan...
2007-09-08 - "Back to Bataan" is a ripped-from-the-headlines drama produced as World War II was drawing to a close. It captures the fighting in the Philippines during the brutal Japanese occupation with all the immediacy of a bitter conflict still in progress. It is well-cast with John Wayne and a young Anthony Quinn, blessed with good direction and crisp black and white cinematography, and holds up well more than a half century on.
A prologue features the liberation of the Cabatuan POW camp in 1944 by U.S. Army Rangers and the Filipine resistance. It includes cameos by some of the real liberated prisoners and sets the context for the movie to follow as based on actual events.
The story opens with the pending defeat of U.S. and Filipino forces defending the Bataan Peninsula outside Manila against the Japanese Army in early 1942. An American Colonel named Madden, played by John Wayne, is plucked from the Peninsula and dispatched into the jungles to organize a resistance movement against a promised day of liberation. Madden sets about organizing those former soldiers and interested volunteers he can find. He immediately comes into contact with the brutality of the Japanese Army, as they execute a popular Filipino school principal who refuses to haul down the American flag in a small village. The villagers, including the school children, become valuable allies of Madden's small force.
Madden's small force frees a Filipino Army Captain, played by Anthony Quinn, from the horrors of the Bataan death march in hopes he will serve as a leader of the Filipino resistance. The young Captain, discouraged by defeat and demoralized by the apparent defection of his girlfriend to the Japanese, seems to have declared his own truce. One of the main themes of the movie will be COL Madden's patient effort to make the young captain understand the value of his leadership to the resistance.
Madden's small group prepares for the U.S. return to the Philippines, and for a final confrontation with the sadistic local Japanese Commander. Along the way, various characters will be challenged to do the right thing against the odds. The heroic sacrifices of the Filipino people in the face of privations and Japanese retaliation are highlighted.
The movie paints black and white portraits of the Japanese as cynical murderers and the Americans and Filipinos as virtuous heroes. Those depictions and the voice-overs at the beginning and end of the movie reflect the fact that the U.S. and Japan were in a fight to the death, in a situation where moral distancing would look absurd. The action sequences are surprisingly realistic, if without the special effects possible in today's movies. The acting by Wayne and Quinn is solid, understated, and consistent with their roles as military officers.
This movie is highly recommended as a realistic and thrilling account of the role played by the Filipino resistance in the liberation of the Philippines from Japanese occupation.
dvd review
2007-05-13 - Excellent John Wayne movie from the 1940's. Received dvd in super condition and received quickly.
Old War
2007-01-05 - One of John Wayne's better older war movies, great acting my John Wayne and Anthony Quinn.
