From the decade of action films — that is, The '80s — the Missing in Action series is a trilogy of action films (one a prequel and the other a sequel of sorts), each starring Chuck Norris in the role of Colonel James Braddock, a Vietnam veteran.
The series is centered around Braddock, who survived and escaped a North Vietnamese P.O.W. camp ten years prior, single-handedly fighting his way through Vietnam for various reasons. In the first film, Braddock investigates and discovers there are still prisoners of war being held in the country. Since the American government has done nothing about it, he heads in undercover. Travelling to Thailand for the info and teaming up with an old friend-turned drug kingpin Tuck (played by M. Emmet Walsh), Braddock sets out to liberate the prisoners from General Trau (played by James Hong).
The second film The Beginning, was filmed back-to-back with the original, and was supposed to come out first. The studio however decided the other film would be more successful, releasing this film the year after. The plot follows Braddock trying to survive within his P.O.W. camp. The prisoners have been forced by the Colonel Yin to make opium for drug trafficking. After Braddock is betrayed and one of his fellow prisoners is killed, he breaks out of the camp. He then plots to help his fellow men get out, while being hunted by Yin's men.
The third film Braddock was released three years later. It focuses on Braddock searching for his missing wife Lin Tan Cang, and Van, the child he never knew he had. When they try to escape the country, they are captured and Lin is killed by the wicked General Quoc. Now Braddock must once again face innumerable odds, not only to save his son, but also all the children of a missionary commune.
Despite disparaging comparisons to Rambo, a fellow popular series about the Vietnam War, the trilogy was very successful. It was the beginning of a working relationship between Norris and The Cannon Group, becoming one of the studio's biggest stars.
The 1989 video game M.I.A.: Missing In Action is not related to the film, despite the similar title and premise of rescuing POWs in Vietnam.
Not to be confused with Never Found the Body, the actual missing-in-action trope.
Films in the series:
- Missing in Action (1984)
- Missing in Action 2: The Beginning (1985)
- Braddock: Missing in Action III (1988)
These films provide examples of:
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Shared tropes
- Artistic License – History: The series, along with Rambo: First Blood Part II, popularized the myth that American prisoners of war were deliberately left behind in Vietnam
, but covered up by both the American and Vietnamese governments. - Beard of Evil: General Vinh, the NVA officer who tortures Braddock in MIA 1, as well as General Quoc in MIA 3.
- Big Bad: General Trau in MIA 1, Colonel Yin in MIA 2, and General Quoc in MIA 3.
- Colonel Badass: Braddock holds this rank, and is indeed a certifiable badass.
- Dirty Communists: The Vietnamese are depicted as villains running torture camps for POWs out of nothing but sadism, even decades after the end of the war.
- Dynamic Entry: Braddock does a magnificent case in one of the films, as he flies down from a tree.
- More Dakka: Especially in the first film, courtesy of Braddock's M60.
- Negative Continuity: There are enough major inconsistencies between all three movies that it would honestly make more sense if they each starred a different guy played by Chuck Norris who always just so happened to be named Col. James Thomas Braddock, or perhaps separate legends spawned around the same badass soldier, similar to Mad Max.
- Rated M for Manly: As any movie with Chuck Norris in it.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: Braddock is still haunted by his memories of being tortured in Vietnamese POW camps, and losing his Vietnamese wife.
- Title Drop: Several times in MIA 1 and 2.
Missing in Action
- Action Prologue: The film begins with a Dream Sequence where Braddock relives his experiences in Vietnam.
- Affably Evil: Trau is spiteful towards Braddock and is intentionally covering up the existence of America POWs, but he is unfailingly courteous to the other diplomats that come with Braddock to Vietnam.
- Blatant Lies: General Trau declaring there were no American POWs left in Vietnam. If he were telling the truth, there would be no film.
- Bolivian Army Ending: The global implications of the POW rescue is not explained.
- Bookends: The film begins with Braddock leading a retreat and evacuation. The movie ends with him leading POW's back to Saigon.
- Disc-One Final Boss: General Trau was killed 35 minutes into the film. From then on he is replaced by General Vinh, who himself is taken out well before the climactic rescue operation.
- Fake-Out Make-Out: Braddock and Ann pretend to be having sex to give Braddock an alibi after he killed General Trau.
- Fanservice with a Smile: Braddock hooks up with an old army buddy in Thailand, leading to plenty of gratuitous fanservice involving totally naked bar girls. One notable scene has Braddock talking to a bartender; as he walks offscreen a beautiful naked Thai girl is placed on the bar for no apparent reason (security for a bar tab?).
- Insistent Terminology: Braddock still refers to Ho Chi Minh City as Saigon.
- Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: "The answer you give me will decide whether you live... or die".
- Jumping on a Grenade: Braddock is so badass he jumps holding a couple of grenades, surviving the subsequent explosion without loss of limbs (though this was part of a Dream Sequence).
- Never Found the Body: The POWs who were declared MIA.
- Non-Action Big Bad: General Trau is the only villain in the series who doesn't fight Braddock.
- Oh, Crap!:Helicopter pilot: "Where to?"Braddock: "Saigon."Helicopter pilot: "Oh, shit!"
- P.O.W. Abuse: Braddock and his fellow men are tortured by the NVA.
- Ripped from the Headlines: The premise of the film, as with the film it ripped off (Rambo: First Blood Part II), was inspired by a conspiracy theory — widely believed in the 1980s — that there were many American soldiers from the Vietnam War who were still being kept prisoner and tortured by the Vietnamese. After several Congressional investigations into the matter in the decades since, it's now generally believed to be a myth.
- The Remnant: Braddock rescues some former ARVN soldiers who vow to continue fighting the Communist regime.
- This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman!: Braddock infiltrates Vietnam on an assault raft with silent engines. It works and enemy soldiers never hear him coming. It also helps that the soldiers always have their backs to him and never think to turn around.
- Throwing Your Sword Always Works: General Trau dies when Braddock lands his knife into his stomach.
- You Shall Not Pass!: Tuck takes over the gunboat when its previous owner was killed by a patrol boat. The outcome is exactly as one might expect.
- Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: Braddock finds the POW camp but the American POWS have been moved.
Missing in Action 2: The Beginning
- And This Is for...: Happens at the end in which Braddock puts the beatdown on Colonel Yin for killing Nester (with a slight neck snap) and Franklin (belly punch and grabbing his stomach). And finally finishes him off by detonating a bomb in the cabin, blowing him up. "And this is for me."
- All Asians Know Martial Arts: Colonel Yin can hold his own in martial arts against Braddock.
- Bavarian Fire Drill: An Australian spy sent to take photographic proof of the presence of POWs in Vietnam bluffs about being a pointman of a major rescue operation. Subverted, as it ultimately fails.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: Colonel Yin breaks neck of Mazilli's pet chicken in front of Mazilli's eyes.
- Black Dude Dies First: Of Braddock's squad, only Franklin and Nester die. Both are black.
- Bodyguard Betrayal: Happens to Francois. He is killed by Yin so the latter could take over the former's cartel.Yin: They needed a new leader after they heard that you had died.
- Yin also pretends to have been betrayed and killed by his own men to flush out Braddock.
- Creepy-Crawly Torture: Braddock is tortured by stringing him upside down and tying a burlap sack over his head containing a large, hungry rat. The rat never stood a chance.
- Dressing as the Enemy: After escaping the camp, Braddock for some reason dresses up in a Vietnamese uniform.
- Faux Affably Evil: Colonel Yin always refers to Braddock by his rank and speaks to him in a courteous manner, but it's clear he enjoys tormenting Braddock and his fellow POWs.
- French Jerk: François is an arrogant French drug lord who the Vietnamese barely tolerate.
- Giant Mook: One of the guards is played by Prof. Toru Tanaka, so obviously he's huge.
- I Lied: Colonel Yin promises to provide malaria medication to the grievously ill Franklin if Braddock signs a false confession about being a war criminal. He instead gives Franklin an opium overdose and later burns him alive.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Dou Chou meets his end when Mazilli sticks a makeshift bamboo spear through his guts.
- Kick the Dog: Colonel Yin and his men spend the whole movie doing this, until The Dog Bites Back hard at the end.
- Loophole Abuse: Braddock's first lines of dialogue to Yin is telling him the Geneva Convention forbids having POWs after a war has ended. Yin's response? They're not POWs, but war criminals. He spends a good portion of the movie trying to coerce Braddock to sign a false confession in order to give his abuses a veneer of legality.
- No One Could Survive That!: Said almost verbatim by one of Braddock's men after Yin's cabin is decimated by a pair of grenades. Soon after they leave, Yin emerges unscathed from a trapdoor in the floor. Subverted however, both because they see a body part they believe to be Yin's... and because Braddock stays behind to make sure he's dead.
- Plot Hole: This movie establishes that Braddock and his men were still being held in a Vietnamese camp well into the Reagan administration. If the two movies are in continuity with one another, Braddock ought not have needed to stage a daring rescue mission to prove there were still American POWs being held by the Vietnamese government, because by the end of this movie he and his fellow escapees should already be sufficient proof of that.
- Prequel: This film is about Braddock's time as a POW before the events of the first Missing In Action movie, even though it was produced first. There are no Call Forwards to the "first" Missing in Action and it never directly references the characters and events in this film (almost to the point of Negative Continuity), so the two movies can be watched in either order with no worry of spoilers.
- Prison Episode: Most of the movie is set in a POW camp.
- Redemption Equals Death: When Mazilli is recaptured, Nester, who had been kissing Colonel Yin's butt the whole movie, looks like he's about to execute him. He instead shoots the guards holding Mazilli, and gets killed in response.
- The Quisling: Nester. He pulls a Heel–Face Turn at the end.
- The Dragon: Dou Chou, the skinny mustache wearing guard.
- We ARE Struggling Together: Despite working together, it's clear that both Colonel Yin and François doesn't get along well. This ultimately ends with the latter getting killed by the former.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: General Vinh, who appeared in the POW camp flashback scenes in the first film, is completely absent here.
- You No Take Candle: Dou Chou speaks broken English.
Braddock: Missing in Action III
- Artifact Title: Despite this film being called Missing in Action, there are no POWs. In fact, this film pretty much seems to ignore the previous two MIA films, since Braddock couldn't possibly have witnessed the Fall of Saigon if he was being held prisoner by the NVA.
- Artistic License – Geography: There is no direct overland border between Vietnam and Thailand, unlike what this movie shows.
- Attempted Rape: A Viet Cong soldier tries to rape one of the orphan girls held hostage. Since Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil, Braddock dispatches him in the most awesome way possible.
- Badass Boast:Braddock: I don't step on toes, Littlejohn. I step on necks.
- BFG: When assaulting the base where the orphaned children (and his son) are being held hostage, Braddock carries with him a H&K G3A4 assault rifle with a rotary six-shot underslung grenade launcher. It even has a retractable bayonet!
- Big "NO!": Braddock and Van when General Quoc guns down Lin and during their Cold-Blooded Torture.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: General Quoc inflicts this on Braddock and his son.
- Crapsack World: As seen in the film's prologue, Saigon during the Fall wasn't the happiest of places.
- Damsel in Distress: Braddock's wife, Lin.
- Disappeared Dad: Braddock was this to his son until his return to Vietnam.
- Establishing Character Moment: When General Quoc first appears, he guns down Lin in cold blood and later tortures Braddock and his son. He gets worse from there.
- Evil Laugh: General Quoc, during his Cold-Blooded Torture of Braddock and his son.
- General Ripper: General Quoc.
- Hellish Copter: You know General Quoc is doomed when he decides to give Braddock and the orphans chase in an attack chopper.
- Kick the Dog: General Quoc, again. He takes Reverend Polaski's mission hostage in an attempt to trap Braddock.
- Just Plane Wrong: The Hind gunship used by Quoc is actually a Sikorsky S-62 that was never used by the PAVN. The American gunship in the movie is also a Sikorsky S-76A instead of an Apache or a Cobra.
- The Lost Lenore: Zig Zagged. Braddock had a wife in Vietnam, whom he thought died during the Fall. She turns out to be alive, prompting Braddock to return to Vietnam to see her again. Then General Quoc murders her in cold blood, fulfilling this trope.
- Mistaken Death Confirmation: During the opening scene, Braddock assumes Lin was killed when her house got bombed, finding only a charred corpse. However, the corpse actually belongs to Lin's friend who happened to be wearing identical clothes to Lin. Lin herself was traveling to the US consulate but lost her documents during the chaos, and was barred from entering.
- Not Hyperbole: Braddock makes good use of his Badass Boast earlier in the film during the final battle when we see him literally stomping on the neck of a border guard.
- Obstructive Bureaucrat: Littlejohn, who tried to persuade Braddock from traveling to Vietnam, leading to the Badass Boast above.
- Papa Wolf: Braddock becomes this to not just Van, but for the Amerasian children.
- Passing the Torch: The climax is the opposite of the first film. Its Braddock who has to be carried to safety by his son Van.
- Recycled Soundtrack: While Jay Chattaway did write an original score for this one, the movie also reused music composed for previous Cannon productionsnote (including Chattaway's scores for the first movie and Invasion U.S.A. (1985)).
- Series Continuity Error:
- Braddock managed to witness the fall of Saigon while being imprisoned in a POW camp.
- Also, he has a Vietnamese wife he thought dead during the Fall. In MIA 2, it's mentioned Braddock has a wife, but she's not only NOT presumed dead, it's implied she lives in America and Colonel Yin, in one of his numerous Kick the Dog moments, told Braddock she was about to remarry.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: Averted. Ron Bloom's song, "Freedom Again," is used appropriately.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Try to rape a woman, and Chuck will make sure you get a closed casket funeral. Try to rape a teenaged orphan, and he'll see to it there's Not Enough to Bury. The one NVA stooge who dares ends up bayoneted, blasted out through a door with a live grenade lodged in his guts, and then blown to pieces while writhing in agony on the ground.
- Vocal Dissonance: During the final battle, Van's voice changes from a little boy to that of a teenager when he yells "DADDY!" when running to Braddock.