This word today about the JAPS sounds very cruel and offensive to the Japanese people, but during the War Years during WW II in the Pacific this word was used in most American Newspapers and spoken about during this horrible war with a nation that killed and raped many people in Nanking, China. In this film many of U.S. Service Men are trapped in a Japanese Concentration Camp who inflicted horrible tortures and slaughter hundreds of American Soldiers and women who are treated worse than animals. America makes every effort to find these lost prisoners of war and is horrified how the Japanese soldiers treated our people and make a great effort to free all these prisoners. However, it took many men and women lives in order to accomplish this mission. This is a great picture which still remembers all the men and women who gave their lives to fight back at the mistreatment of American soldiers. GREAT FILM.

In the notorious POW camp at Cabanatuan in occupied Philippines, the Japanese hold about 500 American prisoners who had survived the Bataan Death March. The Japanese are getting orders to liquidate the prisoners. Over the course of 5 days starting at Jan 27, 1945, Lieutenant Colonel Mucci and Captain Prince (James Franco) lead the 6th Ranger Battalion along with the Alamo Scouts and Filipino guerrillas to liberate the prison camp some 30 miles behind enemy lines. The movie switches back and forth between the rescue, people like Margaret Utinsky (Connie Nielsen) who is a nurse in occupied Manila, and the prison camp where men led by Major Gibson (Joseph Fiennes) suffer under Japanese brutality.

It's an old fashion traditional war movie. It does stray into melodrama from time to time. It's also scattered among the various character sideplots. The scale of production is just below epic. There are a lot of good actors at work. However that does make me question why Benjamin Bratt is cast as the soldier in charge of the rescue. That seems to be the more important role and a more established actor like Fiennes should be doing it. This would work better if the movie picks between a prison movie or a rescue movie and put Fiennes in the lead of either. The final rescue action is done well and the movie is generally good but not great.

This is a very expensive and carefully scripted scenario of a real raid staged by Army Rangers in the Phillipines towards the end of World War II. The raid was designed to liberate a prisoner-of-war camp before the Japanese could kill all the inmates. The raid was successful and the cost not as high as it might have been without the help of the Phillipine resistance.

The Japanese occupation of the islands was undeniably brutal. Germans treated their prisoners relatively well, as if they were captured warriors. But for the Japanese, the code covering treatment lay not in the Geneva Accords or, for that matter, in Bushido. The traditional warrior's code usually called Bushido varied a great deal over time. Earlier versions counseled patience and mercy.

The Japanese militarists had subverted Bushido and turned it into an ideology in which all conquered people were characterologically inferior. The result was described to me by a friend who had grown up in Ilo-Ilo. "The river was filled with heads."

The producers shot the film in swampy northern Australia and the city scenes in Shanghai. The period detail is impeccable -- right down to the herringbone pattern of the GI fatigues and the leather (not rubber) soles of their boots. The action scene is believable if confusing. It all rather resembles "Saving Private Ryan", which is understandable in view of SPR's success: a small elite unit sneaking through enemy territory on an important, life-saving mission. I suppose many other films would qualify too -- "The Guns of Navarron," "The Professionals," et al.

But there are problems with both the writing and the performances. It's not one story but three: (1) the mission led by Benjamin Bratt to rescue the prisoners; (2) the misery of the captives; and (3) the true experiences of a nurse, played by Connie Nielson, living in Manila on a forged passport.

The film is too long and seems sluggish. Way too much time is spent on the prisoners, whose abject despondency, if not taken for granted, could have been sketched in more briefly while remaining just as compelling. The nurse's story could have been dispensed with. As it is, a fictional romance is constructed to link her to the prisoners.

Joseph Fiemannes must have lost a lot of weight because he looks extremely drawn, but again, too much time is spent with him for no discernible reason except that he's a movie star. At least his malaria is shown for what it is -- a crippling and sometimes lethal disease that involves more than a spasm of shivers.

I enjoyed Benjamin Bratt as Detective Ray Curtis on "Law&Order". He was just relaxed enough in his role. Unfortunately, the role of commander of this raid requires a character with more power. My God, imagine George C. Scott! Bratt's money scene is when he gives his Rangers a pep talk, and the scene wilts as he recites his lines.

Another problem, not an uncommon one, is that few of the other faces are familiar, and in their dark, sweat-stained uniforms and fatigue caps they're hard to tell apart. No particular performance stands out in any way except, perhaps, that of the Japanese major played by Motoki Kobayashi, a handsome and convincing but humorless officer.

The director had a hell of a time getting the Japanese to be brutal but finally persuaded them by explaining they were playing soldiers who were "just following orders." It may not have worked in Nurenberg but it worked in Australia.