Unwanted Soldiers

For filmmaker Jari Osborne, November 11 was as unremarkable a day as the next. Watching her father, Alex Louie, during his annual Remembrance Day ritual, Osborne always thought of him as sentimental. However, in discovering her father's involvement in World War II, she uncovers a legacy of discrimination and politically sanctioned racism against British Columbia's Chinese-Canadian community. Sworn to secrecy for decades, Osborne's father and his war buddies now vividly recall their top-secret missions behind enemy lines in Southeast Asia. Theirs is a tale of young Chinese-Canadian men proudly fighting for a country that had always mistreated them. Told in the voice of a thankful daughter, this multi-layered documentary does more than reveal an important period in Canadian history. It pays moving tribute to a father's quiet heroism.