5 Films & TV Shows Set In Malaysia During The 1940s
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Sergeant Hassan
🇲🇾 Malaysia The 1940sHassan (P. Ramlee) is 10 when his father died. His mother had died when he was younger. His late father's boss feels sorry for Hassan and adopts him. However, Hassan's foster father's own child, Aziz (Jins Shamsudin) is jealous of Hassan and hates him. When both of them have fully grown up, Aziz and Buang (Salleh Kamil) always bully Hassan. At the same time, Salmah (Saadiah) has developed a crush towards Hassan, fuelling Aziz's fury. When the Second World War is approaching, the Royal Malay Regiment begins recruiting young soldiers.
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The Camp on Blood Island
🇲🇾 Malaysia The 1940sThis is not just a story - it is based on brutal truth — Set in a Japanese prisoner of war camp during World War II, the film focuses on the brutality and horror that the allied prisoners were exposed to as the Japanese metered out subjugation and punishment to a disgraced and defeated enemy. This harrowing drama concentrates on the deviations of legal and moral definitions when two opposing cultures clash. Although fictional, this was one of the earliest films to deal realistically with life and death in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp during the Second War.
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A Town Like Alice
England 🇲🇾 Malaysia Northern Territory The 1940sA tale of survival. — In 1941, The advancing Japanese army captures a lot of British territory very quickly. The men are sent off to labor camps, but they have no plan on what to do with the women and children of the British.
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Three Came Home
🇲🇾 Malaysia The 1940sThe true story of one woman's personal experience! — Borneo, 1941, during World War II. When the Japanese occupy the island, American writer Agnes Newton Keith is separated from her husband and imprisoned with her son in a prison camp run by the enigmatic Colonel Suga.
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Malaya
🇲🇾 Malaysia The 1940sAfter living abroad for several years, journalist John Royer returns to the United States just after the U.S. enters World War II. His boast that he could easily smuggle rubber, a key wartime natural resource, out of Malaya has him tasked with doing just that. He manages to get someone from his past, Carnaghan, sprung from Alactraz and together they head off to South East Asia posing as Irishmen. Once there, Carnaghan lines up some of his old cronies and with Royer and a few plantation owners plans to smuggle the rubber out from under the Japanese army's watchful eye.