 windtalkers is a 2002 american war film directed and produced by john woo, and starring nicolas cage and christian slater. the film was released in the united states on june 14, 2002. ==plot== during world war ii, usmc cpl. joseph f. 'joe' enders rallies himself to return to active duty with the aid of his pharmacist, rita, after previously surviving a gruesome battle on the solomon islands against the imperial japanese army that killed his entire squad and left him almost deaf from a japanese grenade explosion. enders' new assignment is to protect navajo code talker pvt. ben yahzee, promoting enders to sergeant. sgt. pete 'ox' anderson also receives a parallel assignment protecting navajo code talker pvt. charlie whitehorse. the navajo code, as it was known, was a code based on two parts: 1) the navajo language (notoriously difficult to learn or to understand); and 2) a code embedded in the language, meaning that even native speakers would be confused by it. supposedly, this code was close to unbreakable, but so difficult only a few people could actually learn it. yahzee and whitehorse, lifelong friends from the same navajo tribe, are trained to send and receive coded messages that direct battleship bombardments of japanese entrenched positions. enders and anderson are told that since captured navajos are always tortured to death the code cannot fall into enemy hands, implying that they are to kill their code talkers if capture is imminent. the invasion of saipan is yahzee and whitehorse's first combat experience. after the beachhead is secured in vicious fighting, the marines come under friendly fire from american artillery. yahzee's radio is destroyed and the convoy is unable to call off the bombardment. without the ability to communicate and american artillery shells raining down on them, yahzee disguises himself as an imperial japanese soldier and slips behind enemy lines taking end
2000s_war_films 2002_films 20th_Century_Fox_films American_films American_war_films Cryptography_in_fiction English-language_films Film_scores_by_James_Horner Films_about_Native_Americans Films_about_language_and_translation Films_directed_by_John_Woo Films_set_in_Oceania Films_set_in_the_1940s Films_shot_in_California Films_shot_in_Hawaii Films_shot_in_Utah Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer_films Pacific_War_films United_States_Marine_Corps_in_popular_culture War_drama_films