Print edition: 
You know you're watching an intense war film when being machine-gunned is an act of mercy. That's the predicament for many Japanese soldiers in "The Pacific," a 10-part World War II miniseries that begins Sunday on HBO at 8 p.m.
Better a bullet than to roast to death, which is the alternative after U.S. troops wielding flamethrowers turn the enemy into screaming human torches.
Produced by Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg and Gary Goetzman, "The Pacific" is the Asia-focused complement to "Band of Brothers," their 2001 series about the European theater in World War II.
We follow the lives of three Marines — Robert Leckie (James Badge Dale), Eugene Sledge (Joe Mazzello) and John Basilone (Jon Seda) —who were swept into war after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The main characters are all real people, and the series is based on memoirs written by Leckie and Sludge, along with interviews conducted by the filmmakers.
Everyone seems to smoke, including Sledge's father, a doctor who chomps on a pipe as he monitors the heart murmur that stalled his son's entry into the Marines until 1942, by which time the ailment had disappeared.
These were pre-hug times, with fathers and sons parting ways with handshakes, and there's no question where the Almighty stands. One officer ends a pep talk by proclaiming the Americans will "sail across God's vast ocean where we will meet our enemy and kill them all."
You don't have to wait long for combat. While the Marine landing at Guadalcanal was unopposed, the Japanese were waiting in the jungles for the sun to go down. Though night-vision equipment wasn't routine back then, flares, tracer bullets and muzzle fire illuminate a ferocious slaughter. The sun rises on a vast plain of bodies — proof the Japanese believed dying in combat was a sacred honor.
Comparisons to "Band of Brothers" are inevitable. "The Pacific" is more gripping, perhaps because much of the combat is set in the jungle, where there seems to be a sniper behind every palm tree, and because the degree of slaughter is astounding.
The body count makes a Schwarzenegger film look like a gathering of Quakers. In one scene, piles of Japanese corpses have to be pulled down to provide a clear field of fire.
The series, filmed mostly in Australia, also details other horrors of war: bowel disorders, running sores, low rations (with a bloody Japanese skull decorating one mess area) and mental strain, a theme that picks up steam as the series moves on.
It's not all blood and guts. After being evacuated to Melbourne, Leckie hooks up with a comely Australian woman (Claire van der Boom). Basilone, after winning the Medal of Honor, returns home and has a brief romance with a gal he meets at a military base before returning to the battlefront.
Basilone's reception at one bond rally illustrates the jarring disconnect between a soldier's grim experiences and the gung-ho attitude of the folks back home.
The grimness depicted in the battle scenes never lets up as the action shifts to Cape Gloucester, Peleliu, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Some of the footage is almost unbearable to watch. Even wounded soldiers are raked with gunfire as litter- bearers try to carry them out of harm's way.
The mental toll of war seems harshest on Sledge, a mild-mannered Southerner whose father, recalling his treatment of World War I veterans, warns him about soldiers getting "their souls torn out." When the younger Sledge finally comes marching home, he is a haunted man.
Many films claim to be epic. This series, which airs Sunday nights through May 16, delivers.
