The Last Bullet (1995)

Brilliant and touching

A Major Disappointment

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

THE LAST BULLET – 1995This excellent Australian television film is about the Borneo Campaign of 1945. This was the last major Allied campaign in the South West Pacific during the Second World War.The film is set during July 1945 just before the end of the Pacific conflict. The Australian Army has defeated the main Japanese forces, and are now engaged in mopping up operations. The war has come down to small unit actions in the dense Borneo jungles.A new replacement, Jason Donovan, has joined one of the platoons out searching for the remaining Japanese. At the same time, a group of 40 or so Japanese are about to launch a Banzi attack on an Australian position further inside the jungle. The attack is repelled with only two Japanese surviving.The two make their way deeper into the dense forest to hide. They come upon an old abandoned bunker. They find some old rice to chow down on. This beats the bamboo sprouts and bugs they have been living on. By this time in the war the Japanese merchant fleet had been wiped out. No supplies were getting through to bases on the Pacific outposts.Donovan's patrol is making a sweep through the forest and come up on the two Japanese, Kôji Tamaki and Kazuhiro Muroyama. Tamaki is a sniper with a scoped rifle. The two Japanese soldiers manage to ambush the Australian patrol. They wipe out the patrol except for Donovan. Muroyama is also killed in the battle.Now the two enemies spend the next two days and nights trying to kill the other. Both have sniping rifles and both are wounded in the fire exchange. There is a real game of cat and mouse here as each tries to finish the other. Grenades and rounds are exchanged till both are down to their last bullet. What happens now? This one is a down and dirty war film, showing just how quick and bloody death can come.For a film made on a television budget, this one is better than you would expect. It was well worth the 90 minutes spent watching.

I can't believe it. I read all the comments above and No one - NO ONE - speaks about the feature starring Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune, made by John Boorman in 1968, and speaking of the nearly very same story. It could have been the perfect copycat of the Boorman's film that I won't tell the title. It's SO OBVIOUS !!!For me, it's totally unbelievable that no one has told this yet. I dream. Such a great film, with two awesome actors - Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune - in such an unusual story...But, concerning this feature, OK, I agree with the other comments, it's a good piece of work. But let's be fair, the Boorman's film has not been so worldwide released as other movies from him. And not so long ago, it was still available in DVD in f...garbage can pan and scan frame. So maybe this explains that.

I was fortunate enough to catch this film on the Sundance channel one day. It has got to be one of the most powerful WW11 movies that I have ever seen. I literally cried during the scene where he (the Japanese soldier) was flashing back to his life before the war. I just broke into tears when his daughter was stuck up in the tree, and he was below telling her to jump and trust that he would catch her. This is just wonderful filmmaking at its finest. I want to deeply express appreciation to director Michael Pattisen for such a fine exhibit.

It is a movie that is not shown by TV networks as often as it probably deserves to be especially nowadays when then there are so many conflicts brewing across the globe and "foe" tag often leads to hatred and unjustified murder.I'd say that here in Europe as well as in the US folks often underestimate australian movie industry which is a misjudgement. Despite the fact that aussies do not make as many movies as Hollywood one cannot deny that australian cinematography is very mature yet really different from both Hollywood and what sometimes is named as the "european" schoool of film-making and that makes it very unique (read - even more interesting)."The Last Bullet" featuring Jason Donovan and Koji Tamaki in lead roles is just one such example of very interesting, thrilling yet very serious war films, which is in effect a very anti-war movie. I'd note that due to Jason Donovan's pop-singer popularity one may possibly expect something miraculous on his part and some folks were a bit disappointed yet in my opinion what Jason did in this movie is just exactly what he should have done - that movie is not about singing.Another interesting aspect of that movie is that it is a rare piece of the WW2 episode where Japanese are characters rather then just a "banzai"-shouting mass.Interesting is that the film director Michael Pattinson is exactly the man who directed the fabulous TV series "The Feds" which is probably the best TV police series ever made.So, I do not know how you'd be able to see the "Last Bullet" unless it is on your TV station schedule yet if there a chance to do not miss it.