A four-man US fire-team on patrol seizes a dying young Vietnamese girl and continue to torture, rape and kill her. One soldier refuses to take part and reports the incident.A four-man US fire-team on patrol seizes a dying young Vietnamese girl and continue to torture, rape and kill her. One soldier refuses to take part and reports the incident.A four-man US fire-team on patrol seizes a dying young Vietnamese girl and continue to torture, rape and kill her. One soldier refuses to take part and reports the incident.
- Awards
- 2 wins & 2 nominations total
Ewald Prechtl
- Private Manuel Diaz
- (as Ewald Precht)
Friedrich von Thun
- Sergeant Toni Meserve
- (as Friedrich Thun)
Rosl Mayr
- Schwester Josefine
- (voice)
Senta Berger
- Senta Berger
- (uncredited)
Peter Brandt
- Curly
- (uncredited)
Hanna Burgwitz
- Schwester Josefine
- (uncredited)
Featured reviews
A group of G.I. soldiers in the jungles of the Vietnam War meet a native young girl. They are raping and torturing it brutally and finally kill it. One soldier is disgusted by this inhuman behavior and reports this crime to his officers, who try to turn him down. Finally his former mates are sentenced to military jail or have to leave the army.
This whole story really happened in Vietnam in 1967. It was the turn of German independent film maker Michael Verhoeven make a film about it in 1970, in real underground style, with b/w steady cams and German actors down in the forests of Bavaria. There is no jungle but just European forests. The actors are speaking with Bavarian German accents and wear groovy seventies' style haircuts. It wasn't Verhoeven's idea to make a "real" Vietnam war movie but rather a reflection of the war brutality on the human soul.
The brutal rape sequences are shown in full and long details which appears rather like a mondo cane documentary or snuff movie. There is no space left here for any kind of humanity in this scene - all of the soldiers are turning to animals are torturing the girl in most disgusting ways. Only G.I. Eriksson, played by director Verhoeven himself, tries to withdraw from the scene but is forced by his mates to rape the girl as well. Another soldier who becomes eye witness to the scene is shot.
The real touch of this movie is sometimes really unbearable, and although it was filmed in Bavaria with a low budget it has more impact on the spectator than many Hollywood Vietnam movies like Joel Schumacher's visually similar "Tigerland". The pain, cruelty and inhumanity of the soldiers can be felt in every second of this movie with its harmless title, and at its peak, "OK" reaches such a high level of emotions than another great German anti-war-movie, Bernhard Wicki's "Die Bruecke" (The Bridge, 1959).
There can be seen some popular German actors in this film such as Rolf Zacher and Friedrich von Thurn as soldiers, Eva Mattes as the girl and Gustl Bayrhammer ("Pumuckel") as an army officer. At the beginning of the film, the actors are all introducing themselves with their real names, ages and marital status. In the end, Verhoeven probably seemed to calm down the high emotional story by showing the whole cast and crew behind the scenes and finally the main actors going out to a pub after filming. There is also a very strange moog synthesizer score, repeating an electronic loop every few minutes again.
The story of his first performances was nearly as thrilling as the plot itself. During his debut at the Berlin Film Festival in 1970, the movie became a big scandal, and many critics left the first screening in disgust - the whole festival was closed down just after this first screening. There's been a big media hype with lots of negative reviews, and later on, "OK" was shown again at a San Francisco film festival where it became a big hit and a minor cult movie for the anti-war movement.
Today, this early Michael Verhoeven direction is a rather forgotten German movie diamond, but its power and impact can still be felt after more than 30 years. In Germany it was shown on TV for the first time in 2001. In 1990, it was Brian de Palma's turn to do a remake with Michael J. Fox, entitled "Casualities of War", based on the same real incident in a lonely Vietnam jungle in the late sixties.
This whole story really happened in Vietnam in 1967. It was the turn of German independent film maker Michael Verhoeven make a film about it in 1970, in real underground style, with b/w steady cams and German actors down in the forests of Bavaria. There is no jungle but just European forests. The actors are speaking with Bavarian German accents and wear groovy seventies' style haircuts. It wasn't Verhoeven's idea to make a "real" Vietnam war movie but rather a reflection of the war brutality on the human soul.
The brutal rape sequences are shown in full and long details which appears rather like a mondo cane documentary or snuff movie. There is no space left here for any kind of humanity in this scene - all of the soldiers are turning to animals are torturing the girl in most disgusting ways. Only G.I. Eriksson, played by director Verhoeven himself, tries to withdraw from the scene but is forced by his mates to rape the girl as well. Another soldier who becomes eye witness to the scene is shot.
The real touch of this movie is sometimes really unbearable, and although it was filmed in Bavaria with a low budget it has more impact on the spectator than many Hollywood Vietnam movies like Joel Schumacher's visually similar "Tigerland". The pain, cruelty and inhumanity of the soldiers can be felt in every second of this movie with its harmless title, and at its peak, "OK" reaches such a high level of emotions than another great German anti-war-movie, Bernhard Wicki's "Die Bruecke" (The Bridge, 1959).
There can be seen some popular German actors in this film such as Rolf Zacher and Friedrich von Thurn as soldiers, Eva Mattes as the girl and Gustl Bayrhammer ("Pumuckel") as an army officer. At the beginning of the film, the actors are all introducing themselves with their real names, ages and marital status. In the end, Verhoeven probably seemed to calm down the high emotional story by showing the whole cast and crew behind the scenes and finally the main actors going out to a pub after filming. There is also a very strange moog synthesizer score, repeating an electronic loop every few minutes again.
The story of his first performances was nearly as thrilling as the plot itself. During his debut at the Berlin Film Festival in 1970, the movie became a big scandal, and many critics left the first screening in disgust - the whole festival was closed down just after this first screening. There's been a big media hype with lots of negative reviews, and later on, "OK" was shown again at a San Francisco film festival where it became a big hit and a minor cult movie for the anti-war movement.
Today, this early Michael Verhoeven direction is a rather forgotten German movie diamond, but its power and impact can still be felt after more than 30 years. In Germany it was shown on TV for the first time in 2001. In 1990, it was Brian de Palma's turn to do a remake with Michael J. Fox, entitled "Casualities of War", based on the same real incident in a lonely Vietnam jungle in the late sixties.
Hi there, by chance I saw a documentary about Mr. Michael Verhoeven about a week ago. While writing him, I also looked up the IMDb for data, and stumbled across your comment on his film "OK".
I was the sound engineer who dubbed and mixed the film back then.
Mike W comments: "There is also a very strange Moog synthesizer score, repeating an electronic loop every few minutes again." This "loop" was mainly caused by a machine fault during the recording of the music in the studio. We increased the fault mechanically - no modern effects black-box at that time! - and the result is what finally went into the the music track at the mix.
As I speak "bavarian" I still have some clue lines present - after more than 30 years! Best regards from Costa Rica, Haymo Henry Heyder haymohenry@gmail.com
I was the sound engineer who dubbed and mixed the film back then.
Mike W comments: "There is also a very strange Moog synthesizer score, repeating an electronic loop every few minutes again." This "loop" was mainly caused by a machine fault during the recording of the music in the studio. We increased the fault mechanically - no modern effects black-box at that time! - and the result is what finally went into the the music track at the mix.
As I speak "bavarian" I still have some clue lines present - after more than 30 years! Best regards from Costa Rica, Haymo Henry Heyder haymohenry@gmail.com
Michael Verhoeven´s "O.K." is a Vietnam war drama that takes place in the forests of Bavaria and all actors permanently speak with a Bavarian accent, although they play US-soldiers... Sounds funny, but it isn´t: the story is based on a true incident, when four American G.I.s brutally raped a 16 year old Vietnamese girl and murdered her afterwards. Only on member of the group, who didn´t take part at the crime tried to bring his companions to court-martial...
Sounds familiar? Brian de Palma later filmed the same story under the title "Casualties of War" that starred Michael J. Fox and Sean Penn. But in comparison to de Palma´s stereotype Hollywood-pathos, Verhoeven´s movie is a legendary cult flick, which caused an immense scandal on the greatest German film festival in Berlin what even led to the break-off of the event.
The film itself is shot in muddy black&white-pictures, it contains no score and this idea was later used in "I spit on your grave" again. However, "O.K." is not as loud as the US-movie! It is another hidden gem, notorious for its reputation and one of the most interesting cinematic experiments I´ve ever seen!!
Sounds familiar? Brian de Palma later filmed the same story under the title "Casualties of War" that starred Michael J. Fox and Sean Penn. But in comparison to de Palma´s stereotype Hollywood-pathos, Verhoeven´s movie is a legendary cult flick, which caused an immense scandal on the greatest German film festival in Berlin what even led to the break-off of the event.
The film itself is shot in muddy black&white-pictures, it contains no score and this idea was later used in "I spit on your grave" again. However, "O.K." is not as loud as the US-movie! It is another hidden gem, notorious for its reputation and one of the most interesting cinematic experiments I´ve ever seen!!
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaDue to its controversial plot and its nomination in the competition at the 1970 Berlin International Film Festival, the jury president that year, the American director George Stevens, demanded that the film be removed from the festival. This caused such controversy that the festival directors offered their resignation and the festival broke down before it ended.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Im Reich der Filme (2020)
- How long is O.K.?Powered by Alexa
Details
- Runtime1 hour 20 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.66 : 1
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content
