A Hollywood movie 'The Great Raid' was screened here on Sunday at Abhirang Auditorium, Bharat Bhavan. Organised by Chhavi series of classical cinema the movie was screened under the weekly film screenings held every Sunday.

The Great Raid is a 2005 war film about the raid at Cabanatuan on the island of luzon, Philippines during World War II. It is directed by John Dahl and stars Benjamin Bratt, Joseph Fiennes, James Franco, Connie Nielsen, Motoki Kobayashi and Cesar Montano. The principal photography took place from July 4, to November 6, 2002, but its release was delayed several times from the original target of fall 2003.

Notably, the film is adapted from two books, William Breuer's The Great Raid on Cabanatuan and Hampton Sides' Ghost Soldiers. Taking place towards the end of WWII, 500 American soldiers have been entrapped in a camp for three years. Beginning to give up hope they will ever be rescued, a group of rangers goes on a dangerous mission to try and save them.

In 1944, American forces were closing in on the Japanese-occupied Philippines. The Japanese held around 500 American prisoners who had survived the Bataan Death March in a notorious POW camp at Cabanatuan and subjected them to brutal treatment and summary execution. Many prisoners were also stricken with malaria.

The film opens with the massacre of prisoners of war on Palawan by the Kempeitai, the Imperial Japanese military's secret police though factually, it was committed by the Japanese Fourteenth Area Army. Throughout the film, the viewpoint switches between the POWs at Cabanatuan, the Rangers, the Filipino resistance and the Japanese.

The film received an average response and only youngsters were spotted at the show to watch the film.