Ang Cheng WeiHands up, everyone who remembers Band of Brothers, the 2001 HBO miniseries based on a book of the same title written by Stephen Ambrose. For big fans of “Easy Company”, HBO is here with The Pacific, a 10-part television series that is a companion piece of sorts to Band of Brothers.
Produced by the same famous names (Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks), The Pacific is a lavishly directed miniseries with a budget estimated at US$200 million (S$275 million), replacing Band Of Brothers as the most expensive television series to be produced by HBO.
This time, the focus shifts from Europe to the Pacific and from one Axis power to another, where US Marines are struggling to push the Japanese back to the Land of the Rising Sun. Gone are the ruined European cities and brutal Nazi troops, now the soldiers face smothering heat, disease and an unseen enemy employing guerilla tactics.
Based on the memoirs of war veterans Eugene Sledge and John Basilone, The Pacific chronicles the battles that the 1st Marine Corps face in far-flung places like Guadalcanal, Cape Gloucester, Peleliu, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa.
In Band Of Brothers, the war was the star, not the men that were dragged into it, often making it difficult to tell the minor characters apart. The Pacific brings the audience closer by giving them just 3 main characters, Eugene Sledge (Joseph Mazzello), Robert Leckie (James Badge Dale) and John Basilone (Jon Seda), to focus on.
Eugene Sledge, a precarious young man who wanted to join the army, but has a heart murmur, preventing him from enlisting. Joining the Marines despite his father’s fears of him returning soulless like the WWI veterans he used to treat, Sledge enters the war late and realizes his father was right when he feels the war slowly breaking him and the men around him.
Robert Leckie, who joined the military after the Peal Harbor attack, sees countless atrocities done by both sides. Over the course of the series, Leckie begins to wear down mentally and physically and finally gets sent to a hospital to receive psychiatric care.
John Basilone, who was already serving the military before war broke out, displays heroics in Guadalcanal, almost single handedly turning the tide against the Japanese. Basilone was awarded the Medal of Honor and sent back to America to sell war bonds. Despite knowing that he would be more useful back at home selling war bonds, Basilone still longs for action.
Not shying away from coarse language and gore, The Pacific also unflinchingly presents the events as it happened without judgment, instead forcing you judge if the actions of the soldiers were justified or not.
The Pacific highlights this early in the series, where a startling scene shows some soldiers brutally murdering their own comrade because the poor soldier had a nightmare and wouldn’t stop screaming, potentially revealing their positions.
Each episode also shines with great acting and convincing visual effects, particularly seen in an episode where large numbers of soldiers are attempting to take a heavily defended airfield in Peleliu from the entrenched Japanese. The scale and intensity of this battle is heart stopping with limbs flying everywhere and mortars detonating dangerously near charging Marines.
But beyond the breathtaking effects, the bone-jarring explosions, the unending span of warships on the ocean, it’s in scenes where you see an unarmed, underaged civilian being shot point-blank by an expressionless Marine that make The Pacific the tour de force it has become.
Title: The Pacific
Airs: Every Saturday 9 PM
Channel: HBO Asia
Duration: 10 Episodes (Total 540 minutes)
Language: English
Rating: ✮✮✮✮☆
Genre: War Drama
Director: Tim Van Patten
Cast: Joseph Mazzallo, James Badge Dale, Jon Seda