Anatahan (film)

June 28, 1953 Japan

Twelve men of a shipwreck find themselves on a desert island, which is only inhabited by a farmer and a beautiful woman. A bloody struggle of power ensues, as also they find hand weapons from the crash of an American fighter. Josef von Sternberg directed, photographed, provides the voiceover narration and wrote the screenplay from a basedonactual event novel by Michiro Maruyana translated by Younghill Kang about twelve Japanese seamen who, in June 1944, are stranded on an abandonedandforgotten island called Antahan for seven years. The islands only inhabitants are the overseer of the abandoned plantation and an attractive young Japanese woman. Discipline is represented by a former warrant officer but ends when he suffers a lossofface catastrophe. Soon, discipline and rationality are replaced by a struggle for power and the woman. Power is represented by a pair of pistols found in the wreckage of an American airplane, so important that five men pay for their lives in a bid for supremacy.

Source: Wikipedia