Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (Japanese: ), also known in many European editions as Furyo (俘虜, Japanese for "prisoner of war"), is a 1983 British-Japanese wartime drama film directed by Nagisa Oshima, produced by Jeremy Thomas and starring David Bowie, Tom Conti, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Takeshi Kitano and Jack Thompson. The screenplay by Oshima with Paul Mayersberg was based on Sir Laurens van der Post's experiences as a Japanese prisoner of war during World War II as depicted in his works "The Seed and the Sower" (1963) and "The Night of the New Moon" (1970). Sakamoto also wrote
Laurens van der Hem January 1668. On 9 March 1711, the German travelling scholar Zacharias Conrad von Uffenbach paid a visit to Laurens' daughter Agatha ("Jungfer van der Gemm") to view her "Blauischen Atlas", for which the Comte d'Avaux had offered her 20,000 guilders, but which she valued at 50,000 guilders. Conrad von Uffenbach was reportedly highly impressed by the colouring done by the master he referred to as "Dirck Janssen van Santen". After Van der Hem's death in 1678, the atlas was inherited by his wife and after her death by his daughter Agatha and then his other daughter Agnes. After Agnes' death