During World War II, a team of Australian soldiers from Z Special Unit, including Ivan Lyon and Robert Page, successfully lead an expedition to destroy ships in Singapore harbour, Operation Jaywick.

An attempt to duplicate this success, Operation Rimau, ends in disaster, with the team either killed or captured.

[5] Producers John McCallum and Lee Robinson had previously made a film about Z Special Unit, Attack Force Z (1981).

[9] The widow of Bob Page and survivors of Z Force were furious with the film, claiming it was far too complimentary to the Japanese.

Robinson admitted the film was "50 percent fiction" and that "there is no doubt that the whole picture is designed as an apology, but with facts as dramatic as these, why play around with it?

"[2] Robinson admitted there was an occasion when the Japanese producers wanted the prison set to have pillows and sheets on the bed to make them look nicer, but he refused.

[2] McCallum later said that "Stuart Wilson was very good in" the film but: It got bogged down with too much Japanese dialogue, because they were co-producing, and put up half the money.