read the book first

Rating: Null/10 (30 July 2005)

Read, "Ghost Soldiers," before you watch the movie. It's the best book I've ever read. If you can read it without crying, then you don't have a soul.
If the movie was done right, it will have the same effect. Some critics have complained that the movie has too much drama and not enough action. But you can't really set up the story without seeing the background. The book has it all. The Death March, the imprisonment, people dying every day of malnutrition and disease. When you finally get to the end and the attack takes place, all that drama will lead into, if the movie was done correctly, one of the most climactic endings in the history of cinematography. Period.
Action movies are a dime a dozen. These POW's waited for years for even the smallest glimmer of hope. What little hope they did receive, in the form of Red Cross care packages, were pillaged by the Japanese before making their way to the POW's. Their world was bleak and hopeless. How can we expect to understand the frustration and gradual loss of hope they felt if we don't have ample time to understand their suffering?
If this movie portrays the anguish, despair, and finally the redemption as well as the book does, it will absolutely be nominated for every award they can come up with. But that's a big, "if." The movie has the potential to redefine the word, "hero," not only in the way we associate the word with movies, but in the way we apply it to real life. That just cannot be accomplished in the average 90 minute action film.
If you want nonstop action, watch Predator (which I do really like, by the way.)
If the movie is going to give us any appreciation at all for the horror these POW's endured, if it's intent is to give us even the vaguest idea how important this raid was to the POW's and their families, then without question it needs to be long and full of drama. The ending will take care of itself.