Watch The Great Raid

The Great Raid is the 2005 film adaptation of a book of the same title, a story of the liberation of over 500 prisoners of war during a raid on Cabanatuan City on the island of Luzon in the Philippines during World War II. The prisoners of war who were rescued are noteworthy for having survived the Bataan Death March, which began in Mariveles, with a small reprieve in using railways to transfer from San Fernando to Capas.

The film begins as prisoners of war are being slaughtered by the Kempeitai, or Imperial Japanese secret police (rather than Japan's 14th area Army), during the Palawan Massacre. Elsewhere, within the Lingayen Gulf, Lieutenant General Walter Krueger (played by Dale Dye) orders Lieutenant Colonel Henry Mucci's (played by Benjamin Bratt) 6th Ranger Battalion to free all prisoners of war before their execution by the Japanese.

Instead of focusing entirely on Mucci's Rangers, the film switches viewpoints at several moments, alternating between the crucial Cabanatuan prisoners of war, Lt. Col. Henry Mucci's Ranger Battalion, the United States Alamo Scouts (also known as the 6th Army Special Reconnaissance Unit), the guerillas of the Filipino resistance movement, American Red Cross nurse Margaret Utinsky (played by Connie Nielsen), and even the Imperial Japanese.

The Great Raid has a total running time of 2 hours and 12 minutes and is directed by John Dahl, co-produced by Marty Katz and Lawrence Bender, co-written by Doug Miro and Carlo Bernard, filmed in Southeast Queensland, Australia, and was distributed by Miramax Pictures. Despite the film's completion in 2002, The Great Raid was not released by Miramax until three years later after multiple changes to its release schedule. Notably, the American premiere of the film occurred three days prior to the 60th anniversary of V-J Day, also known as "Victory over Japan Day."