In 1954 while the Battle of Dien Bien Phu is being fought, the 317th Platoon, composed of Laotian suppletive troops, a French officer and several NCOs, is ordered to go to the Tao-Tsai post in North Cambodia.
The leaders of the platoon are the fresh Second-Lieutenant Torrens and Warrant Officer (Adjudant) Willsdorff, a highly experienced soldier who is in his third turn in Indochina.
The Laotian troops place their trust in cautious Willsdorff who knows the ropes and leads hardly by proxy through the marshes and tropical forests of Cambodia.
Extreme realism is constant throughout a gripping film shot barely ten years after the actual events took place.
[2] In 2018, military historian Sir Antony Beevor named The 317th Platoon as "the greatest war movie ever made", "followed closely by 1966's The Battle of Algiers".