{"id":199056,"date":"2025-10-09T00:36:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T00:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/199056\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T00:36:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T00:36:10","slug":"beast-of-war-is-the-indie-shark-movie-that-bit-off-a-lot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/199056\/","title":{"rendered":"Beast of War is the indie shark movie that bit off a lot"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kiah Roache-Turner, writer\/director of WWII-set shark attack movie Beast of War, says he didn’t so much cast Mystery Road: Origin<\/a> star Mark Coles Smith as pray he’d say yes.<\/p>\n

Fast facts about Beasts of War<\/p>\n

What: An action-packed WWII adventure pitting a ragtag bunch of soldiers led by Mark Coles Smith’s Leo against a rampaging great white shark<\/p>\n

Starring: Mark Coles Smith, Aswan Reid, Joel Nankervis, Sam Delich<\/p>\n

Directed by: Kiah Roache-Turner (Wyrmwood; Sting)<\/p>\n

When: In cinemas October 9<\/p>\n

Likely to make you feel: Like you’re never going back in the water<\/p>\n

“He’s got that handsomely gruff, leading man thing, like Gary Cooper or an Indiana Jones type, but he also has joyful, humorous luminosity, like in Last Cab to Darwin,” the Wyrmwood franchise<\/a> director says.<\/p>\n

“He’s a star, and we’ve been circling each other for years now.”<\/p>\n

His choice of words has me duh-duh, duh-duh, da-da-da-ing reflexively. Shark-related chat always dredges up the startling strings and brass of John Williams’s seminal Jaws score from the depths of our collectively scarred subconscious.<\/p>\n

“I desperately didn’t want to embarrass myself in the shadow of [Steven] Spielberg,” Roache-Turner says of swimming in Jaws’s wake.<\/p>\n

“Anybody who’s a cinephile has read all about the trouble he had with that shark<\/a>. He was out there in Martha’s Vineyard for months, trying to deal with a one-tonne, basically armour-plated animatronic.”<\/p>\n

As an indie filmmaker, Roache-Turner didn’t have that time or money.<\/p>\n

“We couldn’t afford for the shark not to work,” he says.<\/p>\n

While Beast of War might not have had a Hollywood budget, there was no lack of ambition in realising it. Brisbane-based special effects wizards Formation Effects crafted the world’s most technologically advanced animatronic great white, named Shazza.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The Beast of War team built the largest water tank purpose-built for filming in the southern hemisphere for Shazza the shark to call home. (Supplied: Rialto)<\/p>\n

“Shazza’s one of the easiest actors I’ve ever worked with,” Roache-Turner reveals.<\/p>\n

“I told her to go left, right, and to bite the person, and she did all the things.”<\/p>\n

While Roy Scheider’s Chief Brody memorably says in Jaws, “You’re going to need a bigger boat”, Shazza required a more titanic fish tank.<\/p>\n

“There wasn’t one in Australia big enough to hold our vision, so we had to build our own,” Roache-Turner reveals.<\/p>\n

“It was 40 metres on an indie budget and filled with nearly 2 million litres of water.”<\/p>\n

VFX company ModelFarm wrapped it with volume screens, enabling Roache-Turner and cinematographer Mark Wareham to project fighter jets into the action.<\/p>\n

“It’s the biggest thing I’ve ever attempted,” Roache-Turner says. “But we pulled it off, because our crews in Australia are a lot like those over in New Zealand. We just pull up our sleeves and get it done.”Childhood dreams<\/p>\n

For Nyikina actor Smith, working with Shazza was a childhood dream come true.<\/p>\n

“My nickname was Marky Sharky,” he grins. “When I was seven years old, I was obsessed with and could name them all.”<\/p>\n

The Savage River<\/a> star is a talented spearfisher used to spending a lot of time underwater. But even with his impressive lung capacity, Beast of War pushed him to the edge.<\/p>\n

“I didn’t account for a dimly lit environment with multiple cameras, trying to figure out what my eyeline’s meant to be while achieving neutral buoyancy just using my rib cage,” Smith says.<\/p>\n

“There was a ferocity to it.”<\/p>\n

\"Men<\/p>\n

Mark Coles Smith’s Leo (far right) must lead his troop to safety from a hungry predator in Beast of War. (Supplied: Rialto)<\/p>\n

Beast of War is loosely based on the real-life sinking of the HMAS Armidale corvette in 1942<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Opening with the actors filming lifelike soldier training in the Byron rainforest, their characters then set off to then-Portuguese Timor. But their ship is strafed by Japanese fighter planes, leaving the lads fighting for their lives, clinging to flotsam as Shazza picks them off, one by one.<\/p>\n

“You need to care about them before you’re stuck on this twisted, fiery, bloody raft and they start to get munched,” Roache-Turner says.<\/p>\n

Humour was a vital salve.<\/p>\n

“It can’t just be blood and guts,” he says. “You’d get sick of it. There has to be laughter before the horror, tears and action, then back to laughter.”<\/p>\n

Troop leader Leo (Smith) bonds with Joel Nankervis’s young soldier, Will, who he rescues from a mud pit in the opening jungle training sequence.<\/p>\n

“That was his first day of his first film, and within 7 minutes,” Roache-Turner says.<\/p>\n

“It’s June, he’s shivering, it’s so cold, and he’s like, ‘So this is acting?’ It wasn’t even mud. It was ground organic coffee. Death by latte.”<\/p>\n

Beast of War also features The New Boy<\/a> star Aswan Reid, in flashbacks, teasing out a tragedy in Leo’s past.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Not all of the young men in Beast of War make it past Shazza’s snappers. (Supplied: Rialto)<\/p>\n

The pair were recently reunited on the set of season two of Mystery Road: Origin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“I love being on set with Aswan,” Smith says. “There was a little brother thing going on in Beast that was wonderful, because I remember the older actors I looked up to when I was starting out. But when he came onto Mystery, he didn’t need me to lead him any more. He’s got something special.”<\/p>\n

Honouring the brave<\/p>\n

While many First Nations service people fought for their country in both World Wars, they returned to the same prejudice that did not regard them as equal citizens.<\/p>\n

What sets Mystery Road: Origin apart<\/a><\/p>\n

With the help of Mystery Road: Origin’s steely detective Jay Swan, an all-Indigenous writing team tackles one of Australia’s biggest issues.<\/p>\n

“I felt really proud to have the opportunity to help tell this aspect of Australian history through Leo’s story,” Smith says.<\/p>\n

While Leo’s bond with Will is rock-solid, he cops a fair bit of racist abuse from Sam Delich’s sneering Des.<\/p>\n

“That gave me more opportunity to showcase Leo’s dignity,” Smith says.<\/p>\n

“He’s not upset by the bullying until he sees it happening to others. The audience is drawn into caring about him because he’s caring for others.”<\/p>\n

Smith valued the opportunity to play such a staunch man at a difficult time for Indigenous communities in Australia.<\/p>\n

“I’m somebody who tries to focus on the way forward and what are the good things I can be a part of,” he says,<\/p>\n

“But I’ve got family and friends who are really struggling with the racial tension we’ve never resolved, but that’s been frothed right up, like someone shook the beer glass, since the failed referendum.”<\/p>\n

Movies might not change the world single-handedly, but they do reflect it back at us. Who we cast as the hero makes a difference to those who see themselves looking back.<\/p>\n

“We’ve got Neo-Nazis openly walking in the streets, ripping down sovereign camps and all sorts of crazy shit going on,” Smith says. “Then you get Beast of War, where we’ve got an Indigenous lead showcasing the importance of mateship and the futility of racism.”<\/p>\n

Beast of War opens in Australian cinemas on October 9.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kiah Roache-Turner, writer\/director of WWII-set shark attack movie Beast of War, says he didn’t so much cast Mystery…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199057,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,64199,124678,124680,124679,124677,124681,134,64200,122590,105021,122585],"class_list":["post-199056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-beast-of-war","tag-beast-of-war-film","tag-beast-of-war-movie","tag-beast-of-war-shark-movie","tag-beast-of-war-where-to-watch","tag-besst-of-war-release-date","tag-entertainment","tag-kiah-roache-turner","tag-mark-cole-smith","tag-mark-coles-smith","tag-mystery-road-origin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}