as Corporal Alridge Craig McLachlan as Lieutenant Riley Sam Worthington as Private First Class Lucas Kenny Doughty as Pitt Natalie Mendoza as Mina Paolo Montalbán as Sergeant Valera Masa Yamaguchi as Lieutenant Hikobe (Japanese: 陸軍中尉彦部, Rikugun-Chūi Hikobe Paul Nakauchi as Sergeant Shigeno (Japanese: 茂野軍曹, Shigeno Gunsō) Motoki Kobayashi as Major Nagai (Japanese: 陸軍少佐永井, Rikugun-Shōsa Nagai) Laird Macintosh as Lieutenant O'Grady Jeremy Callaghan as Lieutenant Able Dale Dye as Lieutenant General Walter Krueger Brett Tucker as Major Robert Lapham Eugenia Yuan as Cora Ryan Eigenmann as Refugee Profiter Filipino veteran actors Rez Cortez and Bembol Roco also made a cameo appearance. Production notes The Americans used a Northrop P-61 Black Widow night fighter to divert Japanese attention while the Rangers were crawling toward the camp; the aircraft used in the movie was a Lockheed Hudson, because none of the four surviving P-61s were airworthy when the film was made. The movie was filmed in south-east Queensland, Australia utilising a huge, authentic recreation of a prisoner of war camp. In addition, numerous local Asian students were employed to play Japanese soldiers. The movie was shot in 2002 but it was pulled from its original 2003 release schedule on several occasions. It was finally released in August 2005, by Miramax Films, which coincided with the formal departure of co-founders Bob and Harvey Weinstein from the company. James Franco wrote about the making of the movie in his novel Actors Anonymous. Reception As of August 2014, the film had a score of 48 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 29 reviews. , on Rotten Tomatoes, the film had an approval rating of 38%, based on 119 reviews with an average score of 5.32/10. The consensus on Rotten Tomatoes was that the film was too long with too many subplots, although the actual raid was exciting. However, it received more praise from Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert, who gave it three stars. Ebert praised the film, saying, "Here is a war movie that understands how wars are actually fought." He continued, "[The film] has been made with the confidence that the story itself is the point, not the flashy graphics. The raid is outlined for the troops (and for the audience), so that, knowing what the rescuers want to do, we understand how they're trying to do it. Like soldiers on a march, it puts one step in front of another, instead of flying