[1] The film is an adaptation of a memoir by a then Italian prisoner of war in 1942 British East Africa who challenges his English captor in a climb of Mount Kenya.

The camp is staffed mainly by African subjects overseen by a few British soldiers and their commander, the stiff-lipped Major David Farrell (Ben Cross), who lost both his wife and child to the war.

After an initial misunderstanding with the occupants, an industrialist and his daughter, Patricia (Rachel Ward), Franco fixes their truck and stays for lunch.

The demoralized commanding officer of the Italians, Enzo (Tony Lo Bianco), devises a scheme to regain his and the others' honor: a select band will escape to climb Mount Kenya with the aim of reaching the 16,300 ft Point Lenana and planting the Italian flag there before returning to the camp, a feat that will also humiliate their captors.

Gear is produced by artisan prisoners, including the German Kist (Rico Vanden Hurck), who trades his compass for a place on the three-man climbing team.

When the Major, who had pressed his own unsuccessful suit with her, finds out, his ensuing rage pushes the POWs to put their plan in motion immediately, with Franco, Enzo, and Kist making good their escape.

Once over the wire, however, Kist betrays the Italians and flees but is quickly captured, revealing their plan to the Major, who prepares to give chase up the mountainside.

Mountain sickness leaves Enzo unable to continue, so Franco proceeds alone for days, sometimes catching a glimpse of the Major across the canyons.

[4][5] Njeri Karago is a native of Kenya who earned master's degrees from UCLA in film studies and human resource management before becoming a producer at RHI (later Hallmark Entertainment).

[12] Todd McCarthy reviewed the film in Variety after its Toronto premiere: "Donald Shebib has mounted the proceedings in presentable fashion and the performances are agreeable enough, but it's the unbeatable locations that provide the greatest diversion here", going on to fault the national stereotype-laden script as "devoid of ironies or complexity", the sort of "passable but instantly forgettable wartime" action film that was once reasonable double-bill fodder but for which there is no room in the modern theatrical marketplace: "mid-range fare, spelling a video/cable/TV fate", with the possible exception of the Italian market where it might do well theatrically.

[11] TV Guide's review similarly finds the film "efficiently directed and often gorgeous to look at," but with an "ultra-traditional narrative, easy masculine camaraderie, and uncomplicated wartime bonding," like some "artifact of simpler, less cynical times.