KOLOA – It’s a wrap for the Kaua’i location filming of “To End All Wars.” A pocket valley mauka of Koloa is set as a Japanese Army POW camp in Thailand in the independently-produced film. Filmmakers have been working in
KOLOA – It’s a wrap for the Kaua’i location filming of “To End All Wars.”
A
pocket valley mauka of Koloa is set as a Japanese Army POW camp in Thailand in
the independently-produced film. Filmmakers have been working in the valley and
surrounding locations since early May.
“We have wrapped production on
Kaua’i,” said Enock Freire, associate producer of the film.
Freire said the
film company was very appreciative of the support they received on Kaua’i in
making the film, including the work of hundreds of male extras cast as World
War II POWs. Some dieted to look like emaciated prisoners to give the film an
authentic appearance.
Location filming completed on Monday and Tuesday with
unique footage of historic Kaua’i sugar cane locomotives. The locomotives were
hauled from the Grove Farm Homestead Museum’s baseyard in Puhi to a remote
plantation road that runs into the Koloa side of the Wilcox Tunnel. The tunnel
connects Kipu and Koloa and was dug in the late 1940s to allow cane haul trucks
to bring cane from Grove Farm Plantation to the mill at Koloa.
Freire said
stars Robert Carlyle, Kiefer Sutherland, Jimmy Cosmo and Ciaran McMenamin left
the island following the last day of filming.
He said all the stars either
are natives of Scotland, or have a Scottish heritage.
The plot of the film
follows the experience of Scottish and American soldiers trapped in a Japanese
prison camp and forced to build a cross-Thailand military railroad.
The
soldiers manage to survive years of beatings and starvation in the camp by
creating an alternate reality, starting college classes and a church in the
camp’s morgue.
Japanese actors Masayuki Yui – who has acted in the films
of famed Japanese director Akira Kurosawa – plus Sakae Kumura and Shu Nakajima
played the role of Japanese Army officers in the film.
The story is based
on a factual account written by Scottish railroad camp survivor Ernest Gordon
in the early 1960s following the success of the Academy Award winning film
“Bridge on the River Kwai.”
Freire said director David Cunningham will is
beginning post-production work on the film will. Work will be done on the Big
Island and in Los Angeles.
The film’s producers don’t yet have a confirmed
distribution deal, but are hopeful of worldwide showing of the Kaua’i-made
film.
Except for a scene filmed in Scotland, and one in Thailand, the film
is set entirely on Kaua’i.
Cunningham grew up in Kailua-Kona on the Big
Island. His film company Pray for Rain Pictures Inc. released “Beyond
Paradise,” a coming of age film set in Kona several years ago.
The film was
a hit on Kaua’i and other Hawaiian islands, plus in Guam and in the South
Pacific.
“To End All Wars” is a joint production, made under the name
Argyll Film Partners.
A tentative schedule has the film set for worldwide
release sometime in December. Most likely the film will be shown on Kaua’i
during its initial run.
Freire said initial concerns about Kaua’i’s
typically rainy weather were unfounded. “The fantastic weather really helped,”
he said.
He said the stars of the film put up with rougher filming
conditions then they normally face. “They were having a good time, working very
hard. The set was not the usual set, most of time stars don’t stay in tents and
have mud and makeup on them all day long. But they handled it very, very
well.”
