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 Kuik Laurens van Kuik Laurens van Kuik (1889, 's Gravenmoer, Netherlands – 1963, Den Haag) was a teacher before he, in 1911, fascinated by the arts, started working as an autodidact painter. In 1913, he became so enthralled and driven as artist that he became a teacher at the school in North Brabant, and went to live in Rotterdam. In 1917, he became one of the founders of the Rotterdam-based artistic movement known as "De Branding". Other members included Herman Bieling, Ger ladage (aka Gerwhl), Bernard Toon Gits, Jan Sirks and Wim Schmacher. Van Kuik's early works are to some extent