Enjoyed the film but I have a few questions and I was wondering if anyone could answer them?
1. Why did Mac die but Phil and Louie survive?
2. Why did the Japanese keep so many prisoners that they had no use for? Why not just kill them?
3. So when they are all in the river and the american plane flies over head signalling that they've won the war, why don't the Japanese kill them like Fitzgerald said they would? And then the Japanese just seemingly run away?
1) He died of malnutrition and dehydration
2) Also, the Japanese were using them as slave labor. As for killing them,at some point the war will be over, and if you lose, the winners will get payback. If you win, you will have a public relations issue to deal with.
3) If the US Army shows up to rescue the prisoners and everyone has been killed - after Japan has surrendered - they US Army would probably have killed every Japanese in site in retaliation, then killed some more. Then they would round up every Japanese in the area they didn't kill, and haul off to war tribunals where they would be convicted and hanged.
Also, if you noticed that when the plane flew over them in the river, it was taking pictures, so they knew how many prisoners would be there.
shareMac died because it's a true story and Mac died. That was a long time to be out in the elements.
When the Americans flew over the prison camp there waa no denying that American prisoners were there so they couldn't just kill them all. You are not allowed to treat POWs any way you want, although it would seem so by watching how poorly they were treated.