Back in 2014, Angelina Jolie directed a war drama with a Coen Brothers script, which adapted an incredible true story of World War 2.
Unbroken, which is storming the Netflix UK film chart, stars Jack O’Connell as US Army officer Louie Zamperini.
During the Pacific War, he survived on a raft for 47 years after his bomber hit the ocean. He then spent the rest of the conflict in a series of brutal Japanese prisoner of war camps.
Zamperini was also a famous professional runner who qualified for the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
The film finishes at the end of the war, but did you know there’s an official sequel that was released in 2018?
The film is called Unbroken: Path to Redemption and focuses on Zamperini’s life after World War 2, including his post-traumatic stress and alcoholism due to his POW camp suffering. Yet in 1949, he attended Billy Graham’s Los Angeles Crusade with his wife Cynthia, whom he was on the brink of divorcing. At the Christian event, the couple found faith in Jesus Christ, renewed their marriage vows, and Louie was finally able to forgive his wartime captors, including his main torturer, Mutsuhito Watanabe, because of how God had forgiven him at the Cross.
Zamperini later became a Christian evangelist and, from 1952, devoted himself to at-risk youth. Prior to the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, he carried the Olympic flame through Naoetsu, not far from the POW camp that held him. Despite Watanabe being interviewed by 60 Minutes on Zamperini, the former Japanese soldier who evaded prosecution turned down an attempt by the American vet to see him. Nevertheless, his former prisoner had forgiven him in his heart.
Unbroken: Path to Redemption is available to rent for £3.49 and buy for £5.99 on Apple TV+, Amazon Prime Video, Sky Store and YouTube.