I'm still waiting for the definitive film of this (or any other) raid to be made.

Rating: 3/10 (21 April 2013)

This movie seems to trade right-wing sentimentality and propaganda for World War II Pacific Theater history, and there's nothing wrong with that if that is your goal. This movie claims to portray the raid "based on true events", and yet it loses its authenticity in its zeal to emphasize Japanese brutality and American virtue. The Japanese WERE brutal, of that there is no question. It does not need to be pounded into us by making the Japanese secret police commander into a T-2, virtually indestructible in addition to being completely evil. That's not history or drama, it's just stereotype.
Among the Americans there is no one who presents a compelling character to focus on, everyone is a clichÃ© from countless war flicks that have gone before. The obligatory "dead meat" characters are quickly identified and dismissed as inevitably doomed. The non- historical love connection between the historical Margaret Utinsky and the non-historical composite character of Major Gibson added nothing to the story, functioning only as a distraction from the drama and the actual history of Utinsky's contributions. Probably the most irritating supposed historical assertion in the movie, the claim that it "remains the most successful rescue in US Military history", might be argued with by any one who participated in the raid a month later on the prison compound at Los Banos where over 2100 people were rescued in a massive raid by Army Airborne troops and Filipino Guerillas. I'm sure that hairs could be split over which was "more successful", but the raid at Cabanatuan was hardly even unique to the times. There was heroism aplenty and enough glory to go around.
If you're looking for right-wing validation of "American values" irrespective of actual history then this flick is for you, watch it and have a ball. If you're looking for insight into a little known episode of history well told, keep looking and pass this one up.