Hell in the Pacific is a 1968 wartime survival film directed by John Boorman and starring Lee Marvin and Toshirō Mifune, the only two actors in the film. Set in the Pacific War, it follows an American pilot and a Japanese naval officer who are stranded on the same uninhabited island. It is about the importance of human contact and the bond that can form between enemies if they lack external influences.

Plot

In the Pacific Theater of World War II, an Imperial Japanese Navy captain is marooned alone on an uninhabited island somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. One day, an American plane crash survival kit washes up on the shore, and he overhears an American military pilot, also recently stranded on the island, musing to himself in the jungle. The American hides from the Japanese's search and confronts him while he salvages the kit at his camp on the beach. Both men have visions of killing each other, but ultimately engage in a silent standoff over the Japanese's supply of drinking water, which the American loses as he is forced to retreat into the jungle. The Japanese sparks a fire to smoke out the American but encounters him again while checking his offshore fish trap; when negotiations over the water fail, the American uses the fire as a smoke screen to quickly steal some water before hiding atop a tree.