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Well, yeah. There WAS a raid. It occurred in late January 1945. 500+ prisoners WERE liberated. Colonel Mucci WAS in charge. Bob Prince DID plan and execute the raid. The Japanese WERE bad guys. Doctor Jimmy Fisher was wounded (and later died). There was only one other Ranger killed (accidently, by another Ranger). But:

There was no love story as presented in the movie. According to Ghost Soldiers, there was no tension between Mucci and Prince. In fact, Mucci loved Prince so much (he called him "my wonderful Captain Prince") it was a subject of embarrassment to Prince. The men did not misunderstand Mucci, they worshipped him. The Filipino guerrillas did not beg to fight, they were part of the plan from the beginning. There was no execution of 11 prisoners the day before the raid. The Japanese who took over the camp after the guards left were NOT special police forces. They were merely Japanese army personnel who left the prisoners pretty much alone (unlike the previous landlords). The plan was to destroy the bridge, not just to make it unusable for vehicles (which is what actually happened). The evil Japanese commander, the last to survive? Please!

They should have left out the love story and focused more on character development.

But what do I know? I thought Mel Gibson unforgivably botched the end of We Were Soldiers.

oh, now, come on....that is all dealt with in the prince interview...any adaptation has variances...i didn't think the so-called tension between mucci and prince was anything extraordinary in the movie and their affection for one another was pretty clear.

movies are a funny thing, ya know...i LOVED the lord of the rings trilogy, and yet one interviewer i hear on the radio gave the first film a d, because it was too complicated with too many characters.

imagine...an epic film with too many characters. that film reviewer went on to give cat in the hat a b plus...go figure...

i thought the love story was pretty stupid in the great raid...you never really understood where it came from.

that's hollywood though. did you read that article a week or so ago by the screenwriter confessing he was a republican, and how incredibly ill informed and stupid the people with whom he works are? how they want to pc everything so it fits into their world view? they don't understand true patriotism or nobility.

i loved the great raid....and wish we had more movies like it, flaws and all.

Okay, I just have to post again. I have not read either of the books the film was based on and I can still tell you what's wrong with your critique. The movie was a dramatization, not a documentary. Filmmakers make choices in presenting a historical subject. In the movie Patton the general is shown saying things at different times and places than he really made them, and there were actually two, not one soldiers he slapped. But does that detract from the film? Not really, since it showed the man and his achievements in their proper light.

So what if there was a love story? My wife hates war movies. I made her go anyway. She was as moved as I was, but I'm sure she'd be thinking about all the wives and girlfriends who lose lovers in war, even if there was none shown on screen. This element was added to diversify the audience, and perhaps to represent all the loved ones lost, and the general sense of sacrifice experienced in WWII. The tone and outcome of the relationship was perfectly in keeping with the film. It was not a melodramatic PEARL HARBOR style love triangle.

The conflict between Prince and Mucci is called dramatic tension, You've got to give the audience a reason to think the raid will fail. Will the troops overcome their personal conflicts and the Japanese to save the prisoners? That sort of thing. As for the Filipino guerrillas, perhaps the writer wanted to use them to symbolize the somewhat second class treatment they have gotten after the war, as some have been denied the US citizenship they were promised.

So what if prisoners weren't killed right before the raid. Enough were throughout captivity that showing the brutality of the guards is not out of place. I suspect that using "special police forces" was a sop to the Japanese to try and imply that the worst treatment did not come from regular Japanese soldiers. Complain if you like about that one, but it did not hurt the film to me.

Finally, I suspect that the lack of enough explosives to destroy the bridge again was symbolic of the Filipinos having to fight an enemy they could not destroy, but could harass and obstruct.

The movie was a very, very good film. Not great as in all time best, but I think it was a fine piece of filmmaking. Again, if you haven't seen it, go do so!