The inspirational true story of Louis "Louie" Zamperini didn't end where the hit movie about his life, "Unbroken," left off.
Many Christian filmgoers, in fact, were disappointed the movie didn't do more than reference the decorated World War II hero's conversion and legacy of forgiving the very men who tortured him in a Japanese prison camp.
But now Zamperini's son, Luke Zamperini, has told WND what really happened after the film's conclusion, and he is inviting Christians to join him in sharing the testimony of God's faithfulness in his father's life.
"Unbroken" chronicled Louie Zamperini's childhood, Olympic career, military service, survival on a raft adrift for 47 days in the Pacific and his endurance of brutal conditions in prison camps under a cruel guard nicknamed "The Bird." At the end, it briefly summarized Zamperini's later turn to faith and forgiveness of his former captors.
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But on Tuesday, March 24, a special edition of "Unbroken" will be released, specifically for faith audiences through Family Christian Stores, Mardel Christian bookstores and at ChristianBook.com. It includes a "Legacy of Faith" bonus disc with interviews of Zamperini and his children, archived footage from Zamperini's return trip to Japan and contributions from Billy Graham, Pastor Greg Laurie and others.
Luke Zamperini explained to WND how this additional footage not only extends the story of "Unbroken," but also gives Christians an opportunity to turn lingering questions about the film into evangelism opportunities.
"The rest of the story is alluded to in 'Unbroken,'" Luke told WND in an exclusive interview. "The scene on the life raft when [Louie] prays to God that if He gets him home alive he'll seek Him and serve Him all of his life – that really did happen, and the prayer was repeated many times throughout the ordeal at sea and at the prison camps. Then the tiles at the end of the film say he made good on his promise to serve God and he went back and forgave his captors. The full story is alluded to, but it's not all there.
"See, a motion picture is a three-act play told in about two hours. But Louie Zamperini's life was a six-act play," Luke said. "He sold his rights to Universal in 1957, and they never could figure out how to tell the story in a two-hour window. Angelina Jolie came along and with the help of the Coen brothers was able to pick a portion of the story to dramatize and then use those tiles at the end to hint at things that happened later on.
"We actually loved the movie," Luke said. "My dad never wanted the film to be just a movie for Christians. My dad's style of evangelism was never heavy-handed. He would tell people his story and let their curiosity get to them. They'd start asking questions, 'How were you able to forgive those people?' And then he would have the opportunity to tell them about his conversion.
"My dad wanted his movie to be a mission field," Luke continued. "He wanted to get through to people who would say, 'There's got to be something more to it than meets the eye. How could someone forgive his captors like that?'
"I was polling people coming out of a screening who were not necessarily people of faith," Luke related. "This guy, a reporter, not a Christian, said, 'Wow, how could that guy forgive people like this?' That's when I knew what we wanted to happen was happening."
Luke Zamperini also told WND what happened after his father finally got free of his Japanese captors.
The Zamperini story continues …
"Almost from the moment he met The Bird, my dad began to have nightmares about being beaten by this guy, and in his nightmares he was always trying to kill The Bird," Luke related. "He brought this home with him at the end of the war. It happened almost every single night. It was post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, before anyone know what it was. This went on for four years.
"He met my mom and married her a year after he got home," Luke continued. "He tried to self-medicate with alcohol, he was getting into fights for no reason at all, he was falling apart. He had the key to every city he would visit, the studios in Hollywood gave him cart blanche to any party, to any movie set at any time, but none of it helped him.
"In November 1949 my mom had told him she was going to seek a divorce," Luke related. "But then a young couple living in the same apartment building in Hollywood said, 'We'd like you guys to come with us to see this young preacher teaching at a tent in downtown Los Angeles.'
"My dad didn't want to go: 'That's the last thing I want to do is go to a revival meeting,'" Luke explained. "But they talked my mom into it, and when she came home that night, she said, 'Louie, I've decided because of the newfound joy in my heart through Jesus Christ, I'm not going to divorce you. But I want you to go with me tomorrow night to see this preacher.'
"It took some convincing. Eventually he said, 'I'll go along. But when it gets to the part where he tells us we're all sinners, I don't need to hear that. When it gets to that part, we are leaving,'" Luke said. "He showed up at what was called the 'Canvas Cathedral,' and there on the outside of this tent was a big banner with a picture of the preacher, and Dad says, 'That doesn't look like a typical Bible preacher. This guy is tall, good-looking, athletic.' His name was Billy Graham.
"So he went in, listened to the sermon, starting getting agitated and uncomfortable, and when it got to that part of the sermon where Billy talked about everyone being guilty of sin and falling short of the glory of God, my dad got mad and said, 'We're out of here.' He got Mom, went out the tent and said, 'Don't ever take me back to that place again.'
Luke's mother, however, prevailed on Louie to give Billy Graham one more try, but only with the same condition: "When it gets to that point, I'm still leaving."
"They went, and when it got to that part of the sermon where he was starting to get uncomfortable, Dad grabbed Mom's hand and started heading for the aisle," Luke said. "But as he's getting closer to the aisle, he hears Billy saying, 'When you get to the end of your rope and there's no place else to turn, that's when people turn to God to save them from whatever situation they're in.' Suddenly Dad remembered the promises he made on the life raft and in the prison camp, and he later told me, 'I really felt like a heel. God had taken care of His part of the bargain and got me home alive, but Louie Zamperini did not take care of his part of the bargain.'
"Instead of leaving the tent, he went down to the stage to a little reception area and found a young guy to help him," Luke explained. "He went down on his knees and prayed, and he told me that when he stood up, he realized that he was done getting drunk, he was done fighting, he'd even forgiven his prison guards, every single one of them, even The Bird. He went home that night, and it was the first night in five years that he didn't have that recurring nightmare. He didn't have it for the rest of his life. His PTSD was gone.
"People used to ask my dad, 'How can that be? How can your life change in an instant?'
"He would always say, 'Well, your life changes in an instant when you say, "I do," at a wedding ceremony.'
"For him, it was instantaneous," Luke said. "He went home and was a different man. He began to read his Bible, and for the first time in his life the Bible made sense to him. He grew in the Lord, and about a year later he decided he was going to go back to Japan. But instead of looking up The Bird to kill him, like he had meant to all along, he went back to find his prison guards, to see them face to face, to test his faith and make sure it was real.
"It was easy to find the prison guards, because they were in a Japanese prison for war crimes [though The Bird had eluded capture]," Luke said. "Dad was able to get in, speak to them in a big assembly, and he recognized faces in the audience. He told his story, how he had forgiven them and offered them the chance to become Christians. Even after they were told it would it no way commute their sentences, a number of hands went up [to give their lives to Christ]. Dad went up to the guards he knew, shook their hands and told them he loved them with the same love God had for Louie Zamperini when God forgave Louie's sins.
"He came home from that and in 1953 started a non-profit foundation called Victory Boys Camp," Luke explained. "He took kids out of reform schools, took them up to the high Sierras, and he and his Olympic buddies taught these boys survival skills, mountaineering skills, hunting and fishing as a way to get through to them. Dad knew from his own experience being a juvenile delinquent that although he had self-esteem – he could outrun the police and steal any pie in town – he had no self-respect. He only began to gain self-respect through athletic accomplishments. So he gave these boys things they could accomplish on a daily basis. He began to get through to these kids, and they began to listen to him.
"Now that my dad is dead and gone, the family decided to keep Victory Boys Camp going. My son, Clay, who is Louie's only grandchild, is now taking over. We're going to try to continue the work he did in the way he did it."
Learn more about the ongoing Zamperini ministry at VictoryBoysCamp.org
Watch a portion of the extended footage to be released March 24 below:
Years later, just four days before his 81st birthday, Zamperini carried the Olympic torch for the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, not far from the prison camp where he had been held captive over 50 years earlier.
The Bird, whose real name was Mutsuhiro Watanabe, never agreed to meet with Zamperini, never served time for his torture of Allied prisoners and died in 2003.
Zamperini died at home in Los Angeles on July 2, 2014, at the age of 97.