Trivia / Hell in the Pacific

• Acclaimed Flop: Despite being a Box Office Bomb, critics did praise many aspects of the film, especially Toshiro Mifune's performance as one of the best in his career.
• Box Office Bomb: The movie had one of the more expensive productions at the time. This, combined with the movie's unusual concept, lack of subtitles and unpopular ending, caused the movie to become one of the biggest box office bombs of its time. It lost some $4 million, which was one of the factors that caused its production company, ABC films (subsidiary of the ABC company), to eventually go bankrupt. However, the critics did praise many aspects of the film, especially Toshiro Mifune's performance as one of the best in his career.
• Cast the Expert: Both Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune actually served in the Pacific during World War II, of course on opposing sides. Marvin was a US Marine. He was wounded during the war and received the Purple Heart during the Battle of Saipan in 1944. Mifune served in the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service.
• Creator Killer: The film's underperformance at the box office was one of the factors that caused its production company, ABC Films (subsidiary of the ABC company), to eventually go bankrupt.
• Dueling-Stars Movie: Lee Marvin vs. Toshiro Mifune as American and Japanese soldiers stranded on an island together? Oh, hell yes.
• Referenced by...: In Kong: Skull Island, Gunpei's and Willis's mutual stranding, initial hostility, and subsequent friendship mirror the plot of this movie.
• Spared by the Cut: The film's sole two characters are killed in an artillery strike at the end, but in an alternate ending, they survive and merely go their separate ways.
• Working Title: This began filming as The Enemy is War.

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