PRISONER OF WAR -- Orientalist Slog Holds Audience Captive

Review by Daniel Lima

On paper, there’s nothing separating Prisoner of War from plenty of great examples of martial arts action starring Scott Adkins. Military man, check; martial arts expert, check; unflappable and unstoppable in the face of adversity, check. Directed by his former The Debt Collector co-star Louis Mandylor, one would expect that this would fertile ground for Adkins to lean into his particular capabilities as an action star, combining affability with agility to deliver the kinetic thrills that made him a modern-day legend. Sadly, it is Mandylor’s creative instincts that sink the film, rendering inert what should be exhilarating fun.

Adkins plays an RAF pilot shot down over the Philippines who is captured and placed in a Japanese POW camp. He quickly displays his knowledge of Eastern martial arts, singling him out to the camp commander and earning his enmity. With the Allies closing in and the depraved Japanese forces growing more violent by the day, Adkins must team up with his fellow captives in order to escape from their clutches.

Mandylor is no stranger to the Pacific front of the Second World War, his last two films having been set there as well. Reviewing 3 Days in Malay, I noted that his desire to make a fun action crowd-pleaser was at war with his sense of reverence for the sacrifices made by men in uniform. It seems that the latter instinct has won out, and so Prisoner of War ends up a dour, po-faced portrait of camp life that fails to earn the dramatic weight is so clamors for.

One could generously attribute the lack of characterization of both the Western prisoners and Japanese jailers as an attempt to show they not so different as patriots willing to sacrifice anything for their country. The end result, however, is none of these characters have a single distinct personality between them. One American can kind of speak Japanese, one guard is sympathetic to their plight, but these qualities are not elaborated on beyond servicing the procedural plot. It is genuinely incredible that for all the time spent with this limited ensemble, by the end there is nothing to distinguish one from the other. This in turn cripples any sense of danger or emotional stakes, as there is nothing to engender the audience to any one of these people.

In fairness, that would already be undercut by the film’s structure. For some unfathomable reason, the opening scene is Scott Adkins storming into a Japanese dojo after the war, by himself, angrily asking to see the man who had tortured him back in the Philippines. On the one hand, no one who would watch this movie would ever doubt that Adkins would survive to the end; on the other hand, to confirm this from the jump, in addition to showing the survival of his compatriots will ultimately not affect the finale, adds absolutely nothing to the unfolding drama in the camp. It’s a baffling choice that only hurts the narrative.​

Once Adkins is captured, the film idles into a familiar routine: the Japanese commit some casual war crimes, Adkins shows off his martial prowess, he collaborates with the fellow prisoners in building an escape plan. Beyond the thin characters, a key issue is developing the escape plan is not thrilling in its own right. Adkins’ own invulnerability is assured, but the film also studiously avoids putting any of the other Westerners in any real danger, even though the Filipino prisoners are killed with impunity. Each new step towards freedom is taken with precious little effort or complexity, and so the movie idles forward with no sense of intensity or momentum.

The closest Prisoner of War comes to actual character is in the relationship between Scott Adkins’ downed pilot and Peter Shinkoda’s camp commander, though even this is mostly down to the two actors’ performances rather than how they are written. Scott is a bona fide star, and remains a compelling screen presence even when saddled with nothing to work with. Shinkoda brings gravitas to his role, but it can only go so far when the motivations of his character as so ill-defined. This Japanese officer is a brutal, deranged thug whose devotion to his nation’s imperialist project supersedes any conventional sense of morality, yet he cannot bring himself to actually kill the man who brings him nothing but trouble because he’s impressed with how well he knows Eastern culture? A better script might interrogate that contradiction, but here it exists merely due to convention.

This leads to the elephant in the room: this movie is deeply Orientalist. The Westerner who knows the mysterious Eastern ways better than the Asian savages is a trope that is only rarely played with sincerity these days, and for good reason. Yet here it is, as pure an example as any of the ninja films of the 1980s. The villain’s fascination with the Caucasian hero, the way he completely dominates everyone he’s up against, the fact only the white prisoners are given any dialogue and only the Asian prisoners are allowed to die, the beautiful Asian nurses brought in as a prize for the Westerners. If this were a schlocky action film like Ninja: Shadow of a Tear, this element might go down easier, but the complete lack of any humor or self-awareness makes the bile taste of white racial supremacy hard to ignore.

That said, there are plenty of action movies with questionable politics and weak writing that skate by on the strength of their action. This does not manage that feat. Every fight take place on an open, barren space, leaving no room for incorporating the environment and offering little to differentiate them visually. Scott Adkins is an impressive physical performer even pushing fifty years old, and what he does here is especially impressive knowing he tore his hamstring shortly after production began, but the choreography similarly looks the same from fight to fight, maintaining the same rhythm and intensity with no deviation. Worse still is the camera, purposelessly circling around the fighters, capturing all the action clearly but doing nothing to accentuate any of the violence. It’s rare that an Adkins vehicle have such forgettable fights, but it’s just one failing among many.

Prisoner of War seemed like a layup, the kind of project tailor made for both its star and the audience he has cultivated for himself. Actually watching it made me feel sadder than anything else, as the realization that it would not measure up to even Adkins’ middle-of-the-road work dawned on me. At least the fans have Diablo and Day of Reckoning from this year to enjoy instead. 

Prisoner of War is now in theaters and on digital.

Rating: 2/5