When an Australian warship is sunk by Japanese fighter planes, the surviving soldiers are thrown into an all-out battle for survival against a giant shark. A film by Kiah Roache-Turner, starring Mark Coles Smith, Joel Nankervis, Maximillian Johnson, Lee Tiger Halley, Sam Parsonson, Tristan McKinnon, Aswan Reid, and Sam Delich.
BEAST of WAR
Kiah Roache-Turner
(2025)
Australia, 1942. A battle-hardened Sergeant (Steve Le Marquand) stands before a platoon of green recruits, preparing them for what’s to come. He tells them the story of how he lost it back in 1915 in Turkey. He was making a run for the dugout with an wounded soldier named Percy Sullivan on his back when a shell landed right next to them. Sullivan died on the spot. The Sergeant lost his arm at the elbow.
Now, facing these young men about to ship out, he gives them the only truth that matters: forget about king and country, forget about honor. When the battle starts, there’s only them and the men standing next to them. That’s all they’ve got.
In the pouring rain, the Sergeant orders the soldiers to return to camp within four hours, warning that anyone who’s late will have to repeat the run until they get it right. Halfway up a slippery hillside, Leo Bennet (Mark Coles Smith) reaches out for help. But Des Kelly (Sam Delich), standing at the top, only looks down at him and walks away without a word.
Will O’Conner (Joel Nankervis) crawls up the hill right behind Leo but slips, loses his footing, and falls into a muddy pond below. He screams for help, but no one hears him. Summoning his last strength to free himself, only his hand breaks the surface. Fortunately, Leo returns and pulls Will out of the mud. Grateful for the rescue, Will befriends Leo. Leo carries Will’s pack and supports him as they run back to camp, making it just before time runs out.
Impressed, the Sergeant rewards Leo and Will, ordering them to head to the mess tent to rest and have some oranges. He then instructs the remaining soldiers to get back on their feet and continue training. Feeling the Sergeant is favoring Leo and Will unfairly, Des confronts him and questions why they were excused from the training. The Sergeant explains that a soldier helps his mate, and on the battlefield, all they have are their mates. He then asks Des why he doesn’t understand that.
Des appears to hold a grudge against Leo and Will. During close-quarters combat training, Will gets assigned to come up behind Des and practice a knife attack to the neck. Des is supposed to play the enemy soldier and just let it happen. But the second Will gets close, Des spins around and drives his elbow straight into Will’s face. The Sergeant sees it and demands an explanation. Des apologizes, says his arm slipped. Leo’s not buying it, though. He walks up behind Des and kicks him square in the groin, says his boot slipped. That sets Des off. He charges at Leo and they go at it hard. They struggle back and forth until Leo lands a clean shot that knocks Des out.
When the soldiers finally deploy to the frontline, they’re packed onto a warship crossing the Timor Sea. Japanese fighter planes come in low and fast. The attack is brutal. Explosions tear through the ship and break it apart. It goes down before anyone can react. Most of the men don’t make it. Leo survives. He finds Will floating face-down and hauls him through a jagged tear in the ship’s side. There’s a large piece of wreckage drifting nearby. Leo gets Will onto it and pounds on his chest until he coughs up water and gasps for air. Once Will’s breathing, Leo leaves him there and dives back into the debris field, looking for supplies, anything that will keep them alive.
Meanwhile, a lone soldier (Matthew Scully) sitting on a floating barrel gets attacked by a shark from below. Will spots him from a distance and shouts out, but the shark drags the soldier under and kills him. Moments later, Leo surfaces and pushes several crates and barrels toward the wreckage. Will ties everything together with rope like Leo told him to. Thompson “Tommy” (Sam Parsonson) makes his way to the wreckage, and Will hauls him out of the water, noticing Tommo’s head is badly injured.
Later, they’re joined by other survivors: Des, Teddy (Lee Tiger Halley), Stan (Maximillian Johnson) bleeding from a gunshot to the face, and Bobby (Tristan McKinnon) with a gut wound. They soon realize they’re drifting in a fog bank in the middle of the Timor Sea. Without wind, the fog could last for days, making it impossible for rescue planes to spot them.
Waiting becomes the least of their worries when a massive shark, drawn by Bobby’s blood seeping into the water, suddenly surges up and drags him under as the others watch in horror. They must find a way to survive the scorching heat, thirst, and hunger, all while a relentless shark circles below.
Written and directed by Australian filmmaker Kiah Roache-Turner, BEAST of WAR is a survival thriller about a group of recruits who survive an attack that sinks their warship and find themselves stranded on floating wreckage in the middle of the sea. The film draws inspiration from the true story of the sinking of the Australian warship HMAS Armidale in 1942 during World War II.
HMAS Armidale was a Royal Australian Navy Bathurst-class corvette commissioned in June 1942 during World War II. On 1 December 1942, while operating off the coast of Portuguese Timor, the vessel was engaged in a critical mission to resupply and evacuate Australian and Dutch soldiers. The ship was attacked by 13 Japanese aircraft in the Timor Sea. Despite initially avoiding damage, Armidale was hit by two torpedoes: one struck the mess deck, killing many soldiers, and the other hit the engine room, causing severe damage. As crew and soldiers abandoned the sinking ship, they were strafed by Japanese aircraft. Ordinary Seaman Edward “Teddy” Sheean famously manned a 20mm anti-aircraft gun despite being wounded, firing at the attackers until the ship sank and he went down with it. Out of 149 men aboard, only 102 survived the ordeal. The survivors endured several days adrift on a makeshift raft and remaining boats before rescue.
On a modest budget, what the filmmaker accomplished is nothing short of remarkable. The script is lean and focused, steadily ratcheting up tension while keeping viewers on edge, wondering when the shark will strike next and how the desperate soldiers will respond.
The practical effects deliver genuine terror, making us feel like we’re trapped on that wreckage with them. The cast turns in strong performances, though some character decisions feel a bit off.
While Leo’s tragic backstory about his dead son adds layers to his character, the constant flashbacks and nightmares become a distraction, disrupting the momentum of the survival story. The film would benefit from sharper editing that cuts these memory fragments and gives more screen time to the other soldiers fighting to stay alive. Since Leo keeps his past locked inside and never opens up to anyone, these internal sequences feel detached from what’s actually happening around him.
BEAST of WAR premiered at Melbourne International Film Festival on 15 August 2025. The film received a limited theatrical release in Australia and New Zealand on 9 October 2025.
