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Kota Kinabalu: Two-time Oscar winner Gene Hackman who was found dead along with his wife and dog last Thursday in his New Mexico mansion in the US starred in a Vietnam war movie that was shot in Sabah in 1986.

The movie “Bat 21” was about the Vietnam jungle ordeal of an Air Force colonel (Hackman) who was shot down in Vietnam, and the subsequent rescue attempts.

The movie also starred Danny Glover and hundreds of Kadazans played Viet Cong extras in the film that was mostly shot at Papar beach. The film was shown in Sabah cinemas in 1988.

The movie’s opening weekend raked in $982,080 with average screening duration of two weeks earning only some $4 million worldwide.

It is understood that the movie nearly didn’t materialise when enforcement personnel at the Kota Kinabalu International Airport insisted that the reels had to go through the airport X-ray machine, despite a letter advising against such. 

The officials relented only when the courier who was tasked with personally carrying them told the personnel they would be held responsible should the movie’s producers sue for the reels being compromised by the scanning machine.