The sequel to The Heroes has even stronger material, albeit with a very different tone - the disastrous Operation Rimau, which ended with 23 men dead, either killed in action or executed by the Japanese. It means there's this aura of melancholy doom hanging over the whole operation - very unusually for a guys on a mission story, you know that there's going to be no happy ending (well, unless you count the fact that they maybe blew up a few ships... no one's sure).
I liked this even better than the original - there's more story, less training, less standing-around-tensely-waiting-for-the-Japanese-to-attack-then-realising-oh-no-they-don't, more action (the Aussies kick some arse and have their arses kicked), some incredibly moving death sequences. Peter Yeldham did a terrific job with the adaptation - the first half isn't that great, a bit too close to the first one (training, getting the gang together, lots of officers saying "by crikey I tell you it can't be done") but then it gets better when the mission goes haywire, and the second half is excellent.
It starts with the war over and Simon Burke investigating what happened to the men - a brilliant solution to avoid shooting gallery story telling. It also ensures the piece is historically accurate while still being exciting because you get different points of view what happened (e.g. how the Aussies met their deaths in Singapore - some versions say they were honourable about it, others claim they went screaming and fighting as they were killed; being unsure whether the mission was a success).
Some gripes - the fact so many men went on the mission means it's hard to tell who is who. Yeldham focuses on a few men, to personalise them - but the cast is mostly (to my eyes in 2012 at least) unfamiliar. A bit more stunt casting like Craig McLachlan (who is fine) actually would have been better. Also I wish it was better directed - Don Crombie does an okay job, but you wish it was better. Cutting back to Miranda Otto, as the wife of one of the men, gets repetitive. (I know why they did it - to have some female presence - but there's not a lot of variation.) The beards in the final act are a little hokey.
But a worthy tribute to a great yarn. A typically Aussie war story, like Gallipoli on a small scale - a reckless mission that almost worked but failed due to blunders, Aussies being extremely brave and gutsy, ultimately to no avail, everyone dying.
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