In John Boorman's 1968 WWII drama Hell in the Pacific, Toshiro Mifune and Lee Marvin play Japanese and American soldiers forced to work together to survive when they find themselves stranded on a remote island. In Stanley Kramer's 1958 thriller The Defiant Ones, Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis play bickering escaped convicts forced to work in tandem due to being chained together. Both movies have been refashioned since - Hell in the Pacific as the '80s sci-fi Enemy Mine, The Defiant Ones as the '70s grindhouse fave Black Mama, White Mama - but with Monster Island, writer/director Mike Wiluan mashes these two setups together, adding dashes of Predator and Creature from the Black Lagoon to the mix.
In the dying days of WWII, a Japanese ship transporting prisoners is sunk by enemy fire. Washing up on a small island are Saito (Dean Fujioka), a Japanese soldier set to be executed for defying his superiors, and Bronson (Callum Woodhouse), a British squaddie. Like Poitier and Curtis, Saito and Bronson are shackled together by a chain. They immediately assume the worst of one another, but through non-verbal communication Saito is able to convince Bronson that he means him no harm. Both men soon find themselves in danger when it's revealed that some other Japanese soldiers have also washed up alive on the island.
The real threat however comes from the "Orang Ikan," a humanoid monster native to the island. After witnessing the Orang Ikan tear the other shipwreck survivors limb from limb, Saito and Bronson go on the run in a hostile and alien jungle.
Wiluan pulls from several sources here. Monster Island's heaviest debt is clearly to Hell in the Pacific, but it wastes the potential of its Defiant Ones setup by having Saito and Bronson unshackle themselves relatively early on. The two men are then separated and remain apart for most of the narrative. The film becomes far less engaging when these two men are forging their own paths rather than being forced to work together, though admittedly the language barrier removes the potential for the sort of verbal squabbling that made The Defiant Ones such a hit. Predator is clearly a major influence, with the Orang Ikan even making the same sort of clicking noises as its more famous predecessor. The creature design is clearly based on the Gillman from Creature from the Black Lagoon, but credit must go to the monster makers here for managing to make their creation look intimidating rather than goofy.
At just over 80 minutes, Monster Island plods along in its middle section. The main issue is that everyone bar the two leads are killed off in the first half hour, and we know Saito and Bronson will make it at least as far as the climax. Too much of the film simply follows the two survivors as they explore the island, observing the creature from afar until the all-action climax.
That climax is admittedly fun (though the night scenes are somewhat underlit, a growing problem in today's movies), and it's always nice to see a monster movie opt for a good old bloke in a suit (in this case performer Alan Maxson) rather than a weightless CG creation. Woodhouse and Fujioka develop a convincing silent chemistry that makes us hope both men can make it off this island and maybe even become friends in a post-war world; it's just a shame the movie separates them for so much of its running time. Monster Island refrains from any political lectures, but in watching two human enemies come together to face a natural threat that cares not for our petty squabbles, its point is clearly made regardless.
Monster Island is available on Shudder
Directed by: Mike Wiluan
Starring: Dean Fujioka, Callum Woodhouse, Alan Maxson
