This movie starts out in black and white. It shows the history of the war and how the prisoners of war got where they are. World War 2 was coming to an end and the Japanese were holding surviviors of the Bataan Death March as prisoners.
All of the prisoners were held at a POW camp at Cabanatuan. The prisoners were being treated harshly by the Japanese. They were all in bad health, many couldn't walk, and some were struck with Malaria. They barely got much food and were extrememly skinny. Some of the prisoners could bribe the guards with money to get extra pieces of food. The guards were getting harder to bribe though.
While the POWs were being held captive, General Walter Krueger at the Lingayen Gulf ordered the 6th Ranger Batallion to liberate the POW camp before it was too late and the Japanese killed them off. They got a map of the POW camp and they create a plan to rescue them. Their plan is difficult though and they're unsure that everything will be able to go as planned.
A Filipino resistance group works against the Japanese. One of the leaders, Margaret Utinsky smuggles drugs into the POW camp at Cabantuan. She is a nurse and also a lover of one of the men at the camp. She tries hard to get the drugs to the camp but she struggles a lot. At one point, the Japanese evacuate the hospital Margaret works at and shoots several people. Luckily Margaret isn't chosen and gets away with the drugs she needs to give her lover.
The soldiers get closer to the camp as the movie goes on. They run across obstacles though, but find a way around them. They plan to blow up a bridge that the Japanese use to cross and carry supplies over. The Rangers set it to blow up a little while after they begin the raid.
Someone discovers what Margaret is up to as she continues to smuggle more drugs to the POWs. He tries to get information out of her about the Filipino resistance group she runs called the Underground. She doesn't tell him anything and denies any contact she has with the prisoners being held at the camp. She gets put in jail until the Japanese find the other members of the Underground without her help and kill them anyways. Margaret is let out of the jail and sent back to work.
Finally, the movie ends when the soldiers enter the camp killing all the Japanese guards. It takes quite a while to liberate all the POW's and their plan to accomplish the raid didn't go as planned. Since half the prisoners weren't able to walk, the soldiers had to slowly help them out of the camp. Then they traveled quite a way until they got back to safe ground. The prisoners were all ill and some didn't make it back. Including Margaret's lover. She arrives at the place where all the prisoners are being nursed back to health and find him laying under a blanket dead.
I thought this movie was a really good story. I was sort of shocked that the people were treated so badly. I knew that they were but having a visual makes everything seem a lot worse. I couldn't believe there were so many POWs that the Japnese captured. It was pretty cool to see that the soldiers went through all the trouble to get their men back home. They rescued so many men from being killed.
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