The incredible story of the irrepressible Dieter Dengler, a German born pilot in the U.S. navy who was shot down, captured, tortured and interred in a POW camp during the beginning of the Vietnam war. One of the few American prisoners to escape such captivity, Dengler accompanies Werner Herzog to Laos to recreate his remarkable story in this fascinating documentary that manages through Herzog's inimitable style and Dengler's preternatural optimism and humour to transcend it's unsettling subject matter to become a powerful and uplifting testament to the human spirit.