Review of Gung Ho! (1943) by Tristan M — 05 Apr 2015

This is one of the best action war movies for it's time. It is also without a doubt the most well known of them. A propaganda film no doubt and it shows, but a good action flick that gets it all down pretty well.

The beginning feels long and drawn out, shows us some characters but we can't really tell them apart of remember them as the movie goes on. We are stuck in a submarine for a bit, then the fight for Makin takes place, which takes up about 45 minutes of the movie.

Te action is really good for its time, far better than other stuff they had, with good sound effects, explosions, and camera angles. The showing the actual guns firing with the exception of the Japanese machine guns seems to have been a problem, as we can't really tell if they are shooting if we didn't have the good sounds effects.

Of course it is the classic American hero style, which is exactly what is expected of it given the time and all, so don't expect different. They kill all the Japanese with little problem, have some good shootouts, and after the action starts it doesn't let off until the film is over.

I don't really know anything about the raid on Makin so I don't know how historically accurate it is, but I can be pretty positive that they didn't paint an American flag on the headquarters roof to make the Japanese planes bomb their own troops after they retook it.

Also it was funny to see the Japanese pilots flying out their American F4F Wildcats and TBM Avengers which although were standing in for Japanese aircraft had full US navy markings. Overall good classic war movie, exactly what is to be expected in terms of story and plot, but better in action and characters.