World War II · Film · 2014
Unbroken
Olympic runner Louis Zamperini survives a bomber crash and weeks adrift on a raft in the Pacific, only to face something harder: Japanese prison camps and a guard determined to break him.
Where it happened
Follow the story across 7 places.
Stop 1: Torrance, California
A troublemaking son of Italian immigrants is pushed into running by his older brother and becomes the 'Torrance Tornado'.
Stop 2: Olympic Stadium, Berlin
At the Nazi-hosted Games, Louie finishes eighth in the 5,000 metres with a blistering final lap that gets him noticed.
Stop 3: Nauru
His B-24 is shot up over the Japanese-held island and barely makes it back, with crewmen wounded and the plane full of holes.
Stop 4: Open Pacific south of Oahu
Key location
On a search mission the worn-out bomber ditches; three survivors drift on two rafts, fighting sharks, thirst and a strafing Japanese plane.
Stop 5: Kwajalein Atoll
Captured by the Japanese Navy, the two airmen are caged and interrogated about American aircraft and bombsights.
Stop 6: Ōmori POW camp, Tokyo Bay
In a camp on an artificial island, Corporal Watanabe makes Louie his favourite target, and Louie refuses to read propaganda on the radio.
Stop 7: Naoetsu POW camp, Niigata
Shipped to a coal-hauling camp on the Sea of Japan, Louie finds Watanabe waiting for him again.
What really happened
Louis Zamperini ran the 5,000 metres at the 1936 Berlin Olympics and became a bombardier on B-24 Liberators in the Pacific. On 27 May 1943 his plane, the Green Hornet, went down during a search mission south of Oahu; he and pilot Russell Allen Phillips survived 47 days on a raft, drifting some 2,000 miles west before the Japanese Navy picked them up in the Marshall Islands.
He was held at Kwajalein, then at Ōmori in Tokyo Bay and from 1945 at Naoetsu, where Sergeant Mutsuhiro Watanabe, known as 'the Bird', singled him out for beatings. Watanabe was listed as a war criminal but was never tried. The film follows Laura Hillenbrand's 2010 biography closely, but compresses his later conversion and reconciliation into closing titles.
Where to watch
Checking streaming services…
Full details
- Original title
- Unbroken
- Directed by
- Angelina Jolie
- Countries
- United States
- Languages
- English, Japanese
- Released
- 2014
- Period
- –
- Theaters of war
- Pacific
- Themes
- Prisoners of war
- Air war
- Biography
- True story
