Missing in Action 2: The Beginning 1985

Ten years before Braddock would free the U.S. POWs, Colonel James Braddock (Chuck Norris) is held in a brutal North Vietnamese POW camp run by the sadistic Soon-Tek Oh as Colonel Yin, who forces the prisoners to grow opium for a French drug runner named François (Pierre Issot). In the camp, Braddock’s fellow soldier Captain David Nester (Steven Williams) has been convinced that their country has abandoned them and has become Yin’s henchman, a detestable role that earns him scorching words from their fellow captives. The men endure brutal tortures: Sergeant Opelka (Joe Michael Terry) suffers as an unloaded pistol is fired into his head; Braddock and Nester are forced into a violent fist fight; Braddock is hung by his feet and a bag with a rat is placed over his head, while Yin taunts him about his wife.

Franklin, another US POW, falls ill with malaria, and Braddock trades an admission of guilt for medicine. Yin breaks the deal, administers an overdose of opium, and later burns Braddock to death right in front of the others. Enraged, Braddock escapes and resolves to free the prisoners and wreck the camp. Yin betrays François by taking his helicopter and seizing control of the drug operation.

Braddock mounts a counterattack, inflicting losses on Yin’s men. Yin’s second-in-command stages a ruse, dressing a Vietnamese soldier as Yin, shooting him, and taking hostage Anthony Mazilli (Cosie Costa) to draw Braddock into the open. Braddock notices the decoy’s boots are not Yin’s, and he cuts down Yin’s guards while Nester sacrifices himself in a gunfight to enable Mazilli to escape. The climactic hand-to-hand clash with Yin follows, and Braddock emerges victorious in Yin’s quarters, guiding the prisoners to a waiting helicopter as explosive charges around Yin’s lair are set off to seal the camp’s downfall.