World War II - Soldiers of Valour Box Set (DVD)

Triple bill of World War Two dramas. 'Everyman's War' (2009) is an American drama based on the personal wartime experiences of director Thad Smith's father. Don Smith (Cole Carson), a young sergeant in the 94th Infantry Division, finds himself unarmed and wounded on the frontline of the Battle of the Bulge, the largest and bloodiest battle involving American forces in the entire war. As the Allies advance through the snow-packed, densely-forested mountains of Ardennes, Don's sweetheart Dorine (Lauren Bair) waits at home in Oregon, desperate for news. 'Anonyma: The Downfall of Berlin' (2008) is a German drama set in Berlin in the final days of the war. The events of the film are based on the real diary of an anonymous woman who lived through the liberation of Berlin by Soviet troops in 1945, suffering shockingly brutal treatment by the city's captors. Living in the basement of her bombed-out apartment building with a handful of similarly destitute neighbours, the woman - known only as 'Anonyma' (Nina Foss) - endures repeated rape by Russian soldiers, and tries to wrestle a modicum of control over her destiny by using sex as a tool for survival, forging an uneasy sexual alliance with Russian leader Major Andrei Rybkin (Yevgeni Sidikhin). Brad Haynes directs the Australian drama 'Broken Sun' (2008). In 1944, a group of Japanese soldiers held in a P.O.W. camp deep in the Australian outback make an escape attempt. One young soldier, Masaru (Shingo Usami), ends up hiding in the remote hilltop farm of reclusive farmer Jack (Jai Koutrae), a World War One veteran who never recovered from the traumas he experienced as a soldier. Despite their differences and mutual suspicions, it soon becomes evident that the two men share the understanding that war is not simply a question of good versus evil but a complex set of rules by which each of them is duty-bound to abide.