Latest news with #POWs
India Today
6 days ago
- Politics
- India Today
No ceasefire progress as Russia, Ukraine conclude third round of talks in Istanbul
Russia and Ukraine discussed further prisoner swaps on Wednesday at a brief session of peace talks in Istanbul, but the sides remained far apart on ceasefire terms and a possible meeting of their leaders."We have progress on the humanitarian track, with no progress on a cessation of hostilities," Ukraine's chief delegate Rustem Umerov said after talks that lasted just 40 said Ukraine had proposed a meeting before the end of August between Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Russian President Vladimir Putin. He added: "By agreeing to this proposal, Russia can clearly demonstrate its constructive approach." Russia's chief delegate Vladimir Medinsky said the point of a leaders' meeting should be to sign an agreement, not to "discuss everything from scratch".He renewed Moscow's call for a series of short ceasefires of 24-48 hours to enable the retrieval of bodies. Ukraine says it wants an immediate and much longer talks took place just over a week after US President Donald Trump threatened heavy new sanctions on Russia and countries that buy its exports unless a peace deal was reached within 50 was no sign of any progress towards that goal, although both sides said there was discussion of further humanitarian exchanges following a series of prisoner swaps, the latest of which took place on said the negotiators agreed to exchange at least 1,200 more prisoners of war from each side, and Russia had offered to hand over another 3,000 Ukrainian said Moscow was working through a list of 339 names of Ukrainian children that Kyiv accuses it of abducting. Russia denies that charge and says it has offered protection to children separated from their parents during the war."Some of the children have already been returned back to Ukraine. Work is under way on the rest. If their legal parents, close relatives, representatives are found, these children will immediately return home," Medinsky said Kyiv was expecting "further progress" on POWs, adding: "We continue to insist on the release of civilians, including children." Ukrainian authorities say at least 19,000 children have been forcibly TALKS YETBefore the talks, the Kremlin had played down expectations, describing the two sides' positions as diametrically opposed and saying no one should expect 40 minutes, the meeting was even shorter than the two sides' previous encounters on May 16 and June 2, which lasted a combined total of under three Bevz, a member of the Ukrainian delegation, said Kyiv had proposed a Putin-Zelenskiy meeting in August because that would fall within the deadline set by Trump for a turned down a previous challenge from Zelenskiy to meet in person and has said he does not see him as a legitimate leader because Ukraine, which is under martial law, did not hold new elections when Zelenskiy's five-year mandate expired last has patched up relations with Zelenskiy after a public row with him at the White House in February, and has lately expressed growing frustration with sources close to the Kremlin told Reuters last week that Putin, unfazed by Trump's ultimatum, would keep fighting in Ukraine until the West engaged on his terms for peace, and that his territorial demands may widen as Russian forces advance.- EndsMust Watch
Gizmodo
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
‘Monster Island' Feels Like a ‘Predator' Movie Set During World War II
Near the end of World War II, a ship carrying POWs captured by Japan comes under attack. Somehow, despite being shackled together at the ankles, two prisoners manage to swim to a nearby island. Saito (Dean Fujioka) is Japanese, and Bronson (Callum Woodhouse) is British, which means they obviously clash at first. But survival requires them to work together—especially when they realize the island is… well, the movie's called Monster Island, so you know what's coming. With just enough backstory for these characters—the sensitive Saito has been branded a traitor, while the more brash Bronson is a known escape artist—and performances that quickly flesh them out into people who feel real despite the rather unreal circumstances they find themselves in, Monster Island clearly establishes what's at stake from the start. We like these guys, who go from trying to punch each other's lights out to realizing they make a good team pretty quickly. There's a language barrier, but the film gets around that by implying that Saito and Bronson have sort of an intuitive understanding. What they're trying to say to each other is mostly variations on 'Hey, let's do this' anyway, especially when a couple of fellow survivors stumble onto their beach, including Japanese officers still brandishing weapons. Seeing as how both soldiers have recently escaped from prison, they're in no hurry to be recaptured—but those worries are soon replaced by a much more vicious problem when the thing we've been sensing has been watching them makes its presence fully known. There's an almost Predator feeling to the build-up. We get stealth POV shots, a distinctive sound cue whenever the creature is lurking, and very early on we see a scaly arm try to grab Bronson. While the island is full of thick jungle, sheer cliffs, spiky trees, and at least one enormous alligator, its greatest threat is something far more cryptid in nature—or even mythological, as one of the men with the officers shrieks in fright as he realizes it's 'Orang Ikan!' Orang Ikan happens to be Monster Island's original title—clearly it was changed to be more universal, since many Shudder viewers likely aren't familiar with figures from Malay folklore. But a more recognizable touchstone stateside is another one of writer-director Mike Wiluan's acknowledged inspirations: The Creature From the Black Lagoon, which the Orang Ikan strongly resembles. The story setup is similar, too, as outsiders barge into an isolated habitat and disrupt the natural order of things, infuriating the resident monster holding down the top of the food chain. Just imagine the Gill-Man with many more razor-sharp teeth and claws, plus a spine-tingling vocalization, somewhere between a shriek and a wail, that echoes across the landscape. The war Saito and Bronson left behind was hell, but their new foe is just as gruesome. And once Monster Island rips the bandage off with its creature reveal, which happens early on, the monster fully becomes the third main character. There's no hiding in the shadows; we see it from head to toe and are made well aware of its violent power. The suit work and attendant special effects are fantastic, as the Orang Ikan chases the men around a wild environment that'd be treacherous even without a territorial sea monster. The terrors of the plot are further enhanced by the looming specter of war, which haunts both soldiers and has also left wreckage and other debris upon the island, letting us know this isn't the first time the creature has tangled with unwanted visitors. And while the Orang Ikan clearly the antagonist here, Monster Island also makes room to show us why it's behaving with such aggression—for reasons the viewer will certainly sympathize with, even if Saito and Bronson don't as they fight for their lives. At just over 80 minutes, Monster Island offers a fast-paced race to the end. You almost wish there wasn't a coda that contains flashbacks to scenes we just saw, but it also gives a conclusion that's both satisfying and leaves the potential for more. And for what it's worth, Return to Monster Island is definitely something we'd be interested in after this first visit. Monster Island streams on Shudder starting July 25. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what's next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
Irish Times
21-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
The Narrow Road to the Deep North review: Unflinchingly savage war tale starring Ciarán Hinds is a gruelling watch
There are war movies and there are movies about war, and The Narrow Road to the Deep North ( BBC One, Sunday nights, 9pm), Justin Kurzel's adaptation of Richard Flanagan's Booker -winning novel about the forced construction of the Burma-Thai Railway by Australian prisoners of war (POWs), falls unambiguously into the latter category. This is Kurzel's first foray into television, but he gives short shrift to the conventions of the medium, essentially making a five-hour film of unflinching savagery and darkness. The darkness is both figurative and literal. The Narrow Road is a gruelling watch. It is also a strain on the eyes, with much of the action shrouded in shadow, making it often difficult to discern what is going on. That is perhaps a mercy. Much like the book, the series is a rebuttal to cinema's historic tendency to portray the second World War as a jolly jaunt in distant climes. The moral centre of the piece is Belfast actor Ciarán Hinds . He plays the older version of Dorrigo Evans, a surgeon from Tasmania captured by the Japanese in Indonesia and forced to labour on the notorious Burma Death Railway. READ MORE As empathetically brought to life by Hinds, Evans is a successful doctor who reluctantly recalls his war years for a journalist. But just below the patrician surface lurks unresolved trauma. The source of that pain is made dreadfully clear in the flashbacks to the war, where the young Evans is played with charismatic stoicism by Jacob Elordi . Flanagan's novel drew on his own father's experience of war. Kurzel's version hits like a sort of negative image of David Lean's Bridge on the River Kwai. That film depicted the war in southeast Asia as a triumph of stiff upper lips over Japanese cruelty. But the Narrow Road to the Deep North removes all the romance. In its place, there is nothing but cruelty and humiliation, exposed ribs and unmasked savagery. The awfulness to come is hinted at in an early scene in which Evans' unit is taken prisoner by the Japanese, who declare their incarceration an incomprehensible shame and that the only way the POWs can redeem themselves is by building a railway. To their captors, Evans and his comrades are dead already. What follows is not a punishment but natural retribution for their lack of honour. Horror is blended with heartache through flashbacks, in which Evans embarks on an enthusiastic affair with his uncle's wife (Odessa Young) shortly before shipping out to war – and despite being engaged to his girlfriend (Olivia DeJonge). Oddly, the same plot device is central to Sebastian Faulks' first World War elegy, Birdsong. What is it about young men who are about to potentially meet their maker and the forbidden rhapsody of the love of an older woman? Sunday nights on the BBC tend to be dedicated to superior, cosy crime or binge-worthy drama. The Narrow Road to the Deep North is something else. It's slow, difficult TV. But it is worth the effort, and Hinds has never been more commanding as a man who has left hell but knows hell will never leave him. The Narrow Road to the Deep North is on BBC 1, Sunday, 9pm
Telegraph
18-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Ciarán Hinds: ‘A sex symbol? If that's the way you want to put it, OK'
The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan is one of the most viscerally challenging novels ever written about war. Set among a group of Australian POWs who have been forced to work on the construction of the Burma railway in 1942, the Booker Prize winner is unsparing in its depiction of violence, starvation and never-ending toil. A new adaptation, which starts on BBC One on Sunday, is equally graphic, and The Telegraph's critic Tim Robey said that one ' would need superhuman stamina to consider binge-ing it '. Yet perhaps the most devastating moment comes at the end when Ella Evans turns to her husband Dorrigo and tells him: 'You're the loneliest person I've ever met.' It's a damning comment after decades of marriage, but Evans is a man still carrying the weight of guilt and failure from his time commanding the POWs, and is also haunted by a doomed love affair. When asked by a journalist to be interviewed about the Second World War, Evans (now a respected-if-maverick surgeon) shuts down. 'There were people who just saw too much,' says Ciarán Hinds, who plays him. 'They'd been through hell. And you don't want to share hell with anybody, do you?' We are talking over Zoom because Hinds is filming in Dublin. He looks fit and relaxed, with those large, slightly sad eyes still penetrating. His voice is warm and rich, his Belfast accent still resonant. While viewers may find his latest project harrowing, Hinds says it is necessary to show such horrors, 'to try and understand the brutality that humans can inflict on each other, and also the suffering that people go through. All that is part of the same life package to me. It's not about indulgence or grossness, it's elemental.' The young Evans is played by Australian heartthrob Jacob Elordi, best known to UK audiences as the Byronic, indolent aristocrat in Emerald Fennell's Saltburn. Is he flattered by the casting? 'I was quite surprised,' admits Hinds. 'But poor Jacob Elordi. Look what he turns out like! The horror for his future!' Hinds is perhaps being somewhat disingenuous. At 72, he is still considered a sex symbol. 'Oh, if that's the way you want to put it, OK,' he says, waving the comment away. 'Some of my bones feel old, but my spirit feels kind of lively, just let down by the physical attributes. People tell me I look much younger, [that I am] a much younger spirit when I'm on screen.' It was probably the role of Captain Wentworth, smouldering and secretly sensitive, in Roger Michell's 1995 take on Jane Austen 's Persuasion (considered by many Austen fans as the best adaptation of any of her novels) that set the tone. 'I think it was rather short-lived, but you put any guy in a sailor's frock and people's heads will turn, no matter what.' You would imagine that Hinds has been turning heads since arriving in London from Belfast to study at Rada in the early 1970s. 'I arrived with a bit of a chip on my shoulder just because of what was happening over there [during the Troubles]. It was 1973, it was mayhem. I was at university for a few months, ostensibly studying law, but I applied to drama school in London because there weren't any in Northern Ireland, or I might have stayed. Hinds paints me a picture of a young man 'with flared jeans and really long hair, going round in sandals – Irish hippies were always a bit behind the times, what was hitting London in the late 1960s, we were getting in the early 1970s – but there was a look about me that made my friends a bit scared of me. Why? 'They said it was because I came from Belfast. 'You were different, you just had this hair, you're going like, 'Who wants it?'' But I was lucky because they were very open with me, asking seriously about what was going on back home because they knew there were problems, but they didn't really understand them.' Hinds tells me that as he started to grow accustomed to London life, he began to understand the English. 'I saw the goodness in people. And I was hearing about things like divorce, which didn't happen in Ireland – people suffered each other. I was amazed to hear that parents could still be friends despite it. It was a great revelation.' Hinds doesn't live in Northern Ireland. He has a home in London and one in Paris, in the shadow of the Père Lachaise cemetery, which he shares with his French-Vietnamese wife, actress Hélène Patarot (their daughter, Aoife, is also an actress and appears in the Dune: Prophecy series on Sky). His home in the French capital represents relaxation. 'You know when you go home at the end of the day and just want to put the kettle on? That's what I do when I get to Paris. You know, I have a box of Barry's tea bags. I don't do the cafe life that you should do in Paris, but it's because I live there.' Hinds is relaxed and charming company, yet there is still a residual sense of the 1970s firebrand. When we talk about returning to the country of his birth, he does not rule it out, cheered by what he sees as its evolution. 'I see a lot of changes, in both north and south. I go back a couple times a year to see family, and thank God, it's just a lot more open,' he says. 'I mean, there's still too many flags, and there is still the dark underbelly, but at least it's contained.' It is clear that coming of age during the Troubles (he starred in Kenneth Branagh's award-winning Belfast and was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor) have left their mark on Hinds. Raised as a Catholic, he tells me he was fortunate enough to do dance and drama out of school where there were no religious boundaries. Yet he also had to endure a segregated education system, and today supports the Integrated Education Foundation charity. 'It's so important that you don't separate Catholic and Protestant kids at the age of four and educate them separately, filling them with versions of 'them' and 'us'. I think [integration] has been happening – very slowly – over the last 30 or 40 years, but it'll take generations to really happen. 'A positive move to integrated education doesn't mean to say that you can't have religion.' It's strange to consider that Hinds has been on our screens for half a century. (He thinks so too: 'God, have I? I haven't been counting!') But then his career has been a slow burn, gradually building up credits in the 1980s in high-profile films such as John Boorman's Excalibur, as well as some meaty theatre (notably Peter Brook's celebrated 1987 staging of The Mahabharata). Today, he is one of a small selection of actors who carry weight in big-budget blockbusters (Frozen, Justice League, Game of Thrones) and high-end passion projects such as a Broadway revival of The Crucible opposite Saoirse Ronan and Ben Whishaw. His performances are all, however, marked by a thoughtfulness, his characters always rooted in a psychological reality. Hinds will soon be seen in a new adaptation of John Steinbeck's East Of Eden for Netflix. I wonder if quality roles such as this are getting harder to come by. 'I think there are still roles out there,' he says carefully. 'It depends on how you look at things. 'If you set your sights high about what your pay grade is or who you expect to be working with, that then obviously narrows your choices and closes doors. 'Things have changed since the big corporates have come in, you know, Netflix and Amazon and Apple,' he says, alluding to the amount of money such companies have at their disposal. 'But it's not about the amount of money they need, because usually they can make them on relatively sane budgets, it's about how much you need to tell the story with authenticity and truth, as opposed to what we made with these special effects. Much of the cinematic universe is turning into one big PlayStation.' Hinds does, however, feel optimistic for the future. 'There will always be space for storytellers and great filmmaking. Maybe the adventure is still on.'
Yahoo
06-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Japan's emperor begins a weeklong visit to Mongolia that will honor POWs
TOKYO (AP) — Japan's Emperor Naruhito began a weeklong visit to Mongolia on Sunday during which he plans to honor thousands of Japanese prisoners of World War II who were held under harsh conditions in the country. Naruhito's visit marks the 80th anniversary of the end of WWII. In recent years, he has toured some of the places where the bloodiest battles and bombings occurred, including Iwo Jima, Okinawa and Hiroshima. The emperor has said it's part of his effort at atonement and remembrance of the tragedy of war fought in the name of his grandfather, Emperor Hirohito. While the vast majority of Japanese soldiers were taken to Siberia, around 12,000 to 14,000 ended up in Mongolia, which was fighting alongside the Soviets against Japan. Most of the POWs were put to hard labor and construction work for the Mongolian government's headquarters, a state university and a theater that are still preserved in the capital Ulaanbaatar. The prisoners toiled under harsh conditions and scarce food. Japanese records show about 1,700 of them died in Mongolia. 'As we mark the 80th anniversary of the end of the war this year, we should never forget the pain and sorrow of the people,' Naruhito said last week. 'I believe it is important to not forget those who died, deepen understanding of the wartime past and to nurture the peace-loving heart.' Naruhito and Masako were scheduled to meet Mongolia's President Ukhnaa Khurelsukh and his wife. The couple will also attend the opening ceremony of Naadam, Mongolia's annual festival that focuses on three traditional games of horseracing, wrestling and archery. Naruhito had previously visited Mongolia as crown prince in 2007. ___ Associated Press writer Mari Yamaguchi contributed to this report.
