This is the opening scene of the first draft of the movie that was to become Blood Oath. It took Brian Williams over 30 years to tell his father's story the way he knew it needed to be told. It is not just his father's story or even his country's story and it is much more than the story of a single time and place. From working these past few months with Brian as we put together these web pages, I have learned this is a story that must be repeated until everyone hears its message; it is a story for us all.

While Blood Oath is a work of fiction, it is based on real events and Brian and his co-screenwriter, Denis Whitburn give Captain Cooper a rather poignant line during his closing remarks at the Ambon trial of Lt. Tanaka. The words are especially thought provoking given the current world political climate and I offer them as if they were my own.                                                                        -- Isis

"We all acknowledge that the world must go on but if a swift political solution

 to the future of the Pacific and the Far East can only be won at the expense of justice,

 then our grief and our anger at the barbaric treatment of prisoners of war

 will not be washed away in this century."

 -- Captain Cooper, Blood Oath

Lifting the Curtain

Brian A. Williams

Joint-Writer/Producer/Son

July 5, 2003

NSW, Australia

Winston Churchill once said about history that 'the farther back you look the further forward you can see'.

As a general proposition I feel this has stood the test of time and has become something of a touchstone for me in this time of an almost religious desire to remake the world (and perhaps prove conclusively Henry Ford's dictum that "history is bunk' would almost be the equivalent of an eleventh commandment!)

On the other hand, looking back now on the whole experience which led to the film "Blood Oath", I can say that with my discovery of my father's Japanese war crimes documents as a 12 year old in 1965, I certainly could not have foreseen so much of what was to happen following my astonishment at what I had found in my father's garage in a black steamer trunk – some images of which you will see displayed on this site.

                                           "Military History Section - General Staff LHQ AIF 1945"

                                                                               ©Estate of John M. Williams 1994

The years of my attempting to draw my father out from behind  his own curtain of silence, deliberately maintained, as I later realized, about his involvement in and feelings about his prosecution of probably the largest post WW2 war crimes trial in the Pacific.

The lifting of the curtain of silence in Japan brought about by the death of Emperor Hirohito in 1989, a critical turning point for Denis and myself as writers and producers, and for our Japanese actor colleagues, as it reinforced our decision to make Hirohito's immunity from prosecution status, as determined by the US, and Australia's opposition to this decision, a central point of conflict in our film.

For many would feel encouraged to speak out about their experiences as a result of the film – former Australian POWs, their widows, sons, daughters and grandchildren who all felt the film had lifted a burden from them and enabled them to speak for the first time in detail about the effect on their lives of one of the most traumatic experiences ever suffered by Australians.

Indeed, the 'Ambon POWs Remember; Special Feature' on the DVD is an example of this process and it finally took till Anzac day 2001 for the Ambon survivors to talk to camera in great detail about their experiences before the silent, tear streaked faces of their families.

Similarly, and with an even greater degree of both cultural and political complexity surrounding them, the emergence of the former Japanese defendants to endorse the film and apologize for their actions before my father and the assembled media and government representatives at the film's Tokyo opening in April 1991 – this was the penultimate moment for me and one that certainly could be seen as a vindication of our approach to the film.

But it could never have been predicted back in 1965. In fact, in the climate of sullen suspicion of the Japanese that was very palpable in Australia then, it would have been unthinkable. Much of the above detail I have elaborated in my own account of the film's evolution – titled 'The Film's Journey' on the DVD Special Features.

Not quite as unthinkable has been the ascension of a young actor named Russell Crowe who, in his first film role, plays the assistant to the great Australian actor Bryan Brown who took on the role of the prosecutor Captain Cooper, based on my father (seen here with my father), and who gives the performance of his outstanding career, in my view – and one that actually encapsulates the lifting of a curtain of silence within himself. One for whom, initially, the guilt of all the Japanese he is to prosecute is self-evident.

                                                                                                        ©Estate of John M. Williams 1994

Until the intervention of both the post war geo-political designs of the US, as represented by the excellent actor Terry O'Quinn playing US Liaison Major Beckett, and Cooper's meeting with the young Japanese Lt. Tanaka, superbly played by Toshi Shioya, (so courageous and pivotal to getting the film screened in Japan) alters Cooper's view.

Also critical to his journey is his meeting with Ikeuchi, played with such subtle menace by Japan's leading Shakespearean actor Tetsu Watanabe and the Japanese defense lawyer, played with such finely nuanced sympathy by Sokyu Fujita.

©2002 Blood Oath Prods., FFCA & Roadshow Entertainment

Indeed Bryan and the Japanese actors found the nature of both the American intervention, Japanese experience and that of their Australian captives something of a revelation, even though Bryan knew of the experiences of relatives who had returned from Changi and the infamous Burma Thailand Railway's Hellfire Pass.

For Russell, this era also has special significance as the Pacific War saw his grandfather Stan Wemyss capture so much of its horror as a cinematographer, which left a deep, life long effect on him.

We're grateful to Russell for his support on the DVD by the provision of the tribute song to his grandfather, lifting his particular curtain of silence and for his heartfelt words about how important the experience of Blood Oath was to be to him as an actor.

We also salute George Takei, known to many for his portrayal of Mr. Sulu of "Star Trek", who gives a chilling portrayal of the Vice Admiral Takahashi in our film. His presence in the film leads to the showdown between Cooper and Beckett – and whether the future of the world can ever be worked out on the basis of justice tainted by geo-political scheming.

©2002 Blood Oath Prods., FFCA & Roadshow Entertainment.

George had no knowledge of the level of atrocities we presented and the subsequent immunity deals brokered with the Japanese Navy and Army post WW2 and for him this was the lifting of a major curtain of silence as a citizen of the U.S. - almost parallel with his autobiographical revelations of his internment during WW2 as a Nisei Japanese, recounted in his 1994 book 'To The Stars'.

His own words and many of the original war crimes documents, published in procedural order for the first time, are included on the DVD-Rom section of the DVD, along with a Study  Guide - some 400 documents in all, possibly the largest DVD-Rom so far created (and now resized from our A4 standard to US Letter standard for printing out in the US by students, academics and film buffs).

I commend them to you for study and reflection. Perhaps some more curtains of silence will be lifted for those who take the time to enter this world of our forbears, and by close study of the testimony of their experiences, we may feel more able to better comprehend the times we now face.

                                                                                           --Brian A. Williams

Dedicated to the memories of all those who died in the Pacific War

 - as soldiers, and as POWs -

and to those who survived to bear witness to that history

we now honour with this film and DVD

"Lest We Forget"