Trailer for French film Indochina 1945.

[Von Stroheim]

Les Derniers Hommes is a French film about a group of FFL misfits at the end of World War 2. Trailer is in French.

[Inkpaduta]

Interesting. I thought the French were completely driven out of Indochina early in the war.
The film is set in March 1945 and it would appear it is about French soldiers fighting in Indochina.
Did they come back?

[Westfalia Chris]

Interesting. I thought the French were completely driven out of Indochina early in the war.
The film is set in March 1945 and it would appear it is about French soldiers fighting in Indochina.
Did they come back?

IIRC, it is a bit more complicated, in that Japan essentially controlled French Indochina (by use of ceded airfields, troops stationed there etc.) following an agreement in July 1941, while leaving French administration structures in place to run day-to-day affairs. In early 1945, they took over direct rule, imprisoning or executing large numbers of civil servants and military personnel, and ran the country directly until the end of the war.

After the Japanese surrender, French forces were sent quite quickly to try to reestablish colonial rule, but this movie seems to be set in the interim period, about a group of Foreign Legionaries trying to escape the Japanese takeover (to Burma or China, I'd assume).

On the topic, intriguing. I found "De Oost" and "Intimate Enemies" a bit tedious at times, but interesting as well, and this hits a similar nerve and style.

[Tom Dulski]

 It looks very ARTY like Thin Red Line, still I will certainly watch it. Man what a miserable theater to have to fight in.

[FreakyFenton]

Oh! Thank you for showing the trailer, did not have this movie on my radar!

[bluewillow]

Interesting, I look forward to seeing this ,I think the story is from a book.

Cheers
Matt

[General Castries]

Just to expand a little, while France was liberated in 1944, the regime running Indochina in 1945 was still Vichy affiliated.  The Japanese were concerned (probably correctly) that there was a risk of the Vichy forces in Indochina aligning themselves with the Allies, and / or an allied landing on the cost of Vietnam.  So in March 1945, the Japanese launched a coup d'etat, over-running the French forces.  There was French resistance in Hanoi, Lang Son and a few other places, which the Japanese put down amidst some fairly unpleasant atrocities.  As the French were still technically Vichy, allied assistance to them during this fighting was limited.

But several French units (including units of the Foreign Legion) retreated hundreds of kilometers through northern Vietnam into Southern China.  The retreat was marked by disease, starvation, desertion and Japanese attack.  But the columns made in. 

One of the French battalion commanders in that retreat, Colonel Jules Gaucher died in Dien Bien Phu in March 1954, commanding the 13th Legion Demi-Brigade.