There may well have been other feints in that direction, but I, for what that's worth, am not aware of any.
The Japanese Army invades Hong Kong in December 1941, and soon defeats the British/Canadian/Indian garrison supported by local Chinese elements. (The blasted, half-inundated remains of the British fortifications, the defensive "Gin-Drinkers Line", can still be visited today on their mountaintop overlooking the Shing Mun Reservoir.) Here there is very little attention paid to the actual battle; the focus is on the occupation and the brutalization of the Chinese inhabitants, and their eventual resistance to the Japanese.
This film has serious trouble with seriousness. There are scenes which are quite dramatic and are obviously intended to be -- I am thinking of one of the rape scenes, as seen by a concealed witness -- but at other times you get the feeling you're watching a conventional HK exploitation flick. Here I am thinking of another of the rape scenes where Japanese soldiers burst into a movie studio during production and just happen to discover the movie's heroine bound to a chair for her next scene. So this particular rape has a superfluous kinky bondage tinge to it.
The shifts in mood can be jarring. The director even chose to put a slapstick comedy scene in the middle of the film.
It's delightful to see the Japanese getting their faces rubbed in their wartime atrocities, something they have rarely had to suffer much over. But the Hong Kong film industry, the next time, should really approach this subject with the formality it warrants.
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