This film poster is an extremely effective and informative one, for a number of reasons. The first thing that you notice is the word 'Platoon', printed in blood red. The word Platoon is an American word- 'regiment' is the British version- used for sections of the US army. From this we can tell, immediately, that the film will be about the American army, backed up by the use of dog tags (used to identify the bodies of dead soldiers) in place of the O's in the word Platoon. The fact that the word is printed in red points towards gore and violence. The colour red is often linked to blood, and the audience therefore link the two together when looking at this poster.
Another thing you can notice when looking at this particuar film poster is the character in the centre. He is dressed up in a soldiers uniform- backing up the theory that the film is about the US army. His uniform is dirty, showing us that he has been through a lot of traumatic fighting, and he looks extremely distressed, shown by the way his arms are thrown up in the air, and the fact that we cant see his face. In the background, we can see four guerilla looking soldiers looking at the character- very clearly supposed to be his enemy- holding AK-47s. This suggests that the film is set somewhere in Asia- in around the 1950s-60s- most likely Korea or Vietnam (considering America's history). The palm trees in the background also back up this assumption.
Finally, the explosion in the background confirms to the audience that the genre of the film will be war/violence. The way the explosion is shown suggests that it was caused by a napalm strike, making Vietnam the most likely setting for the film, over Korea. The explosion also confirms the theory that the film focuses on the efforts of the American army in the Vietnam war (only the Americans used napalm in Vietnam) rather than the Vietcong's viewpoint, or a Vietnamese civilians.
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