Loading Page
A Savage Christmas: The Fall of Hong Kong
Top 10 Billed Cast
Andrew Tarbet
John Payne
David Hewlett
Walter Jenkins
Greg Spottiswood
John Stroud
Brooke Johnson
Kay Christie
Martin Julien
Les Canivet
Andrew Miller
Ike Friesen
Jeremy Ratchford
Fred Reich
Loading Trailer Videos...
HomePage
Overview
The documentary, using the dramatization of fact, makes the case that the Canadian government knowingly sent two unprepared infantry battalions to help defend Hong Kong in late 1941, fully aware that they may have been on a doomed mission. The C Force, consisting of about 2000 soldiers from the Winnipeg Grenadiers and the Royal Rifles of Canada (from Quebec City) were, with the other British, Indian and Hong Kong troops, attacked on December 8, 1941 and overwhelmed by Japanese troops, leading to numerous casualties and the surrender on Christmas day. The Canadians would spend more than 3 and half years as prisoners of war, in horrible conditions. Part of "The Valour and the Horror" mini series.
Release Date
1992-01-12
Average
10
Rating:
5.0 startsTagline
The Valour and the Horror
Genres
Languages:
Keywords
Similar Movies
74%
Enemy at the Gates(en)
2001-02-28
A Russian and a German sniper play a game of cat-and-mouse during the Battle of Stalingrad in WWII.
79%
Braveheart(en)
1995-05-24
Enraged at the slaughter of Murron, his new bride and childhood love, Scottish warrior William Wallace slays a platoon of the local English lord's soldiers. This leads the village to revolt and, eventually, the entire country to rise up against English rule.
83%
Paths of Glory(en)
1957-10-25
A commanding officer defends three scapegoats on trial for a failed offensive that occurred within the French Army in 1916.
60%
Escape from Hong Kong(en)
1942-05-15
Three American vaudeville entertainers become involved with spies in Hong Kong, just before Pearl Harbor.
65%
Tunnel Warfare(zh)
1965-01-01
A small town defends itself from the Japanese by use of a network of tunnels during the Second Sino-Japanese War.
87%
Sunday Beauty Queen(tl)
2016-12-25
Beneath Hong Kong's glittering facade, Filipina domestic helpers work in relative anonymity and for near-slave wages. In a beauty pageant like no other, five helpers give themselves makeovers for a day and gleefully reclaim their dignity.
0%
Havoc(en)
1925-09-27
A war drama produced only 7 years after the end of World War I. Based on the play by Henry Wallace it chronicles two Englishmen, Dick Chappell (George O'Brien) and Roddy Dunton (Walter McGrail) at the dawn of The Great War. Both men are in love with the same woman, Violet Deering (Margaret Livingston). Chappell, whose proposal has been accepted by Violet, enlists for the war in Europe hoping to distinguish himself and make his fiancé proud of him.
0%
The Mobilized Generation(en)
2021-11-24
A short documentary chronicling the coming-of-age story of generation z punctuated by numerous culturally significant moments, known as period effects, that have bred a generation of young activists.
0%
No Surprises(en)
2025-07-04
A war veteran is going through his normal nightly routine, but as police sirens rush past his house, PTSD strikes. He begins reliving his past.
72%
Is Paris Burning?(fr)
1966-10-26
Near the end of World War II, Gen. Dietrich von Choltitz receives orders to burn down Paris if it becomes clear the Allies are going to invade, or if he cannot maintain control of the city. After much contemplation Choltitz decides to ignore his orders, enraging the Germans and giving hope to various resistance factions that the city will be liberated. Choltitz, along with Swedish diplomat Raoul Nordling, helps a resistance leader organize his forces.
90%
Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989(sv)
2024-10-04
Archival film maestro Göran Hugo Olsson has assembled—from a vast catalogue of footage in the vaults of Sweden’s national television service SVT—accounts of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as witnessed and represented by Swedish journalists. Stories of the beginning of the Israeli state interwoven with the Palestinian struggle for independence. News coverage with Yasser Arafat and interviews with Israeli foreign minister Abba Eban during a visit to Sweden unseen since first broadcast. From the tenth anniversary of Israel’s founding to the First Intifada, perspectives and encounters with statesmen, civilians, revolutionaries, and intellectuals tell the story from myriad angles of an evolving media landscape, revivifying a history of the ongoing conflict.
55%
Golden Years(fr)
2017-09-13
The true story of a French WW1 deserter who, with the support of his wife, spends a decade in disguise as a woman.
0%
Raise The Umbrellas(cn)
2016-11-28
Four years later, Hong Kong’s 2014 democratic Umbrella Movement has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, yet political backlash against protesters has intensified. Repeatedly the target of censorship*, Raise the Umbrellas traces the lineage of the massive Hong Kong protest to the global Occupy movement, 1989 Tiananmen, and its democratic struggles since British colonial days. Highlights range from the Umbrella Movement’s eco-awareness and its burgeoning aspiration for independence, to its empowerment of women -- “umbrella mothers” -- and the rainbow-bridging activism of LGBTQ iconic artists. Incisive and intimate, driven by stirring on-site footage in a major Asian metropolis riven by protest, Umbrellas includes anti-Occupy views that lay bare the sheer political risk for post-colonial Hong Kong’s universal-suffragist striving to define its autonomy within China.
81%
Full Metal Jacket(en)
1987-06-26
A pragmatic U.S. Marine observes the dehumanizing effects the U.S.-Vietnam War has on his fellow recruits from their brutal boot camp training to the bloody street fighting in Hue.
77%
Sniper: The White Raven(uk)
2022-05-03
Mykola is an eccentric pacifist who wants to be useful to humanity. When the war begins in Donbas, Mykola’s naive world is collapsing as the militants kill his pregnant wife and burn his home to the ground. Recovered, he makes a cardinal decision and gets enlisted in a sniper company. Having met his wife’s killers, he emotionally breaks down and arranges “sniper terror” for the enemy.
54%
Fear and Desire(en)
1953-03-31
After their airplane crashes behind enemy lines, four soldiers must survive and try to find a way back to their battalion. However, when they come across a local peasant girl the horrors of war quickly become apparent.
80%
The Life Letter(lt)
2022-09-18
A mail trip from battlefield to town, with a purpose of expressing one soldier's feelings.
77%
Tomka and His Friends(sq)
1977-10-28
Tomka is a boy who likes playing football with his friends. When the German army captures his town, the German soldiers establish their camp in the town stadium. Tomka with help from his friends and their parents organizes sabotage actions against the soldiers.
39%
War in the Highlands(fr)
1998-10-07
La Guerre Dans le Haut Pays is a period piece set in the winter of 1797-98, during the six days leading up to the fall of Bern and the victory of Napoleon's army, when the Bern government is faced with mixed loyalties from its subjects. The population of the lower valley is divided, but the upper region remains loyal, since they have been given special autonomy and a favorable system of taxation. David, a postman, works between the two regions. His father, who is a hard-line conservative, does not approve of his relationship with Julie, who is from the lower part of the valley. Julie's father, on the other hand, is more open to the new ideas of liberation. As a result of his work, David is exposed to new ideas and becomes a believer in equality and justice.
Recommendations Movies
75%
The War on Democracy(en)
2007-06-15
Set both in Latin America and the United States, the film explores the historic and current relationship of Washington with countries such as Venezuela, Bolivia and Chile. Pilger says that the film "...tells a universal story... analysing and revealing, through vivid testimony, the story of great power behind its venerable myths. It allows us to understand the true nature of the so-called "war on terror". According to Pilger, the film’s message is that the greed and power of empire is not invincible and that people power is always the "seed beneath the snow".
64%
Why We Fight: Prelude to War(en)
1942-05-27
Prelude to War was the first film of Frank Capra's Why We Fight propaganda film series, commissioned by the Pentagon and George C. Marshall. It was made to convince American troops of the necessity of combating the Axis Powers during World War II. This film examines the differences between democratic and fascist states.
65%
Father Soldier Son(en)
2020-04-15
When Sgt. First Class Brian Eisch is critically wounded in Afghanistan, it sets him and his sons on a journey of love, loss, redemption and legacy.
61%
The Battle of San Pietro(en)
1945-05-03
This documentary movie is about the battle of San Pietro, a small village in Italy. Over 1,100 US soldiers were killed while trying to take this location, that blocked the way for the Allied forces from the Germans. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2005.
82%
2000 Meters to Andriivka(en)
2025-07-23
Amid the failing counteroffensive, a journalist follows a Ukrainian platoon on their mission to traverse one mile of heavily fortified forest and liberate a strategic village from Russian occupation. But the farther they advance through their destroyed homeland, the more they realize that this war may never end.
66%
Korengal(en)
2014-05-30
Korengal picks up where Restrepo left off; the same men, the same valley, the same commanders, but a very different look at the experience of war.
73%
Let There Be Light(en)
1946-12-16
The final entry in a trilogy of films produced for the U.S. government by John Huston. Some returning combat veterans suffer scars that are more psychological than physical. This film follows patients and staff during their treatment. It deals with what would now be called PTSD, but at the time was categorised as psychoneurosis or shell-shock. Government officials deemed this 1946 film counterproductive to postwar efforts; it was not shown publicly until 1981.
72%
City of Ghosts(en)
2017-07-14
With unprecedented access, this documentary follows the extraordinary journey of “Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently”—a group of anonymous citizen journalists who banded together after their homeland was overtaken by ISIS—as they risk their lives to stand up against one of the greatest evils in the world today.
77%
Nazi Concentration Camps(en)
1945-11-29
Produced and presented as evidence at the Nuremberg war crimes trial of Hermann Göring and twenty other Nazi leaders, this film consists primarily of dead and surviving prisoners and of facilities used to kill and torture during the World War II.
62%
Behind the Line: Escape to Dunkirk(en)
2020-08-20
Occupied France, 1940. A Nazi Commander discovers one of his prisoners, Danny is a champion boxer. He forces him to fight for his company's entertainment. But the POWs realise they can use these contests, as cover for an audacious breakout, before they re sent to Germany, where escape will be almost impossible. Their fate and freedom may all come down to how long Danny can keep fighting.
69%
49th Parallel(en)
1941-11-24
In the early days of World War II, a German U-boat is sunk in Canada's Hudson Bay. Hoping to evade capture, a small band of German soldiers led by commanding officer Lieutenant Hirth attempts to cross the border into the United States, which has not yet entered the war and is officially neutral. Along the way, the German soldiers encounter brave men such as a French-Canadian fur trapper, Johnnie, a leader of a Hutterite farming community, Peter, an author, Philip and a soldier, Andy Brock.
59%
We Go In at Dawn(en)
2020-03-16
When a high-ranking war planner is captured and held in a German prisoner of war camp, a team of specialists take on the dangerous mission of trying to break him out. Trouble is, he doesn't want to be rescued.
82%
For Sama(en)
2019-07-26
A love letter from a young mother to her daughter, the film tells the story of Waad al-Kateab’s life through five years of the uprising in Aleppo, Syria as she falls in love, gets married and gives birth to Sama, all while cataclysmic conflict rises around her. Her camera captures incredible stories of loss, laughter and survival as Waad wrestles with an impossible choice– whether or not to flee the city to protect her daughter’s life, when leaving means abandoning the struggle for freedom for which she has already sacrificed so much.
64%
Sahara(en)
1995-04-25
After the fall of Tobruk in June 1942, U.S. Army sergeant Joe Gunn leads his tank into the Sahara desert, in order to evade advancing Rommel's forces and reach Allied lines. Along the way he picks up few Allied soldiers, but soon they are running out of water. They find water at the ancient well, but the well is a goal of an entire German battalion. Despite the impossible odds, Sergeant Gunn decides to defend the well.
62%
The Codes of War(en)
2025-03-20
War stories about family, ethics and honor include the true story of two U.S. Marines who in a span of six seconds, must stand their ground to stop a suicide truck bomb, a Navy Corpsman who attempts to hold on to his humanity, and a WW2 soldier who gets separated from his squad and is forced to re-evaluate his code.
64%
Wolf Hound(en)
2022-06-03
Inspired by the real-life German special operations unit KG 200 that shot down, repaired, and flew Allied aircraft as Trojan horses, "Wolf Hound" takes place in 1944 German-occupied France and follows the daring exploits of Jewish-American fighter pilot Captain David Holden. Ambushed behind enemy lines, Holden must rescue a captured B-17 Flying Fortress crew, evade a ruthless enemy stalking him at every turn, and foil a plot that could completely alter the outcome of World War II.
79%
Five Came Back(en)
2017-03-31
The extraordinary story of how Hollywood changed World War II – and how World War II changed Hollywood, through the interwoven experiences of five legendary filmmakers who went to war to serve their country and bring the truth to the American people: John Ford, William Wyler, John Huston, Frank Capra, and George Stevens. Based on Mark Harris’ best-selling book, “Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War.”
72%
The Bloody Hundredth(en)
2024-03-14
Meet the real-life airmen who inspired Masters of the Air as they share the harrowing and transformative events of the 100th Bomb Group.
65%
The Great Raid(en)
2005-08-12
As World War II rages, the elite Sixth Ranger Battalion is given a mission of heroic proportions: push 30 miles behind enemy lines and liberate over 500 American prisoners of war.
63%
The Hornet's Nest(en)
2014-05-09
Armed only with their cameras, Peabody and Emmy Award-winning conflict Journalist Mike Boettcher, and his son, Carlos, provide unprecedented access into the longest war in U.S. history: they are embed with U.S. troops during nine days of intense combat in Afghanistan.