Few days ago I found out that this biggest Chinese movie of 2018 would be playing in the Celestial Movies channel, so I decided to give it a try. I read it was a war action movie so should be fun. It premiered for the first time last night at 9 PM and I was ready for it fifteen minutes earlier as I do not want to miss the beginning. Well we shall move on to the movie now.
Brief Story Line
The country Yewaire near Africa was on the verge of a potential civil war between the rebel group who were planning to coup and the official government and army. There were quite a number of Chinese personnel and workers in that country whose lives could be in danger. A small team from the Chinese Naval army called Jiaolong Assault Team led by Yang Rui (Zhang Yi) was assigned to infiltrate the country and evacuate these Chinese citizens to board the vessels outside the country.
Meanwhile a French-Chinese reporter working in Morocco found out about the rebels who might be working with terrorist group called Zaka. They were also trying to make a dirty bomb and capturing some Chinese civilians who they wanted to use to threaten the Chinese armies.
With so much at stake, the Jiaolong team that consisted the vice team leader Xu Hong (Du Jiang), the sniper Gu Shun (Huang Jingyu), his spotter Li Dong (Yin Fang), the machine gunners Zhang Tiande (Wang Yutian) & Tong Li (Jiang Luxia) who was also the only female member, the signaler Zhuang Yu (Prince Mak) and the medic Lu Chen (Guo Jiahao) had to do their best to fight off the rebel and terrorists while helping the Chinese and also the local civilians. Could they finish their task and survive the onslaught from so many of the terrorists? Find them all in this full action movie.
End of Brief Story Line
This movie was truly a war action film. From the first moment, we would be given glimpses of what the Jiaolong assault team could do when fighting off pirates on a Chinese vessel. Then when we moved on to the country in conflict, we would be shown the effectiveness and the good cooperation of all the team members with everyone seemed to be the best in their area. The action sequence were really top notch and amazingly done which I thought credit should be given to the director Dante Lam who was famous for directing good action movies such as Beast Stalker (winning him the Best Director award in 2008), The Stool Pigeon, Operation Mekong and many more. His experience in making those were certainly a major factor in making such grand war action movie.
Watching this movie with a duration of 139 minutes was pretty tiring. There were times where I actually felt it was probably enough, but then we were given one final crazy stunt which was supposed to be the climax. Though I personally felt the climax would have been better if it was the one when Jiaolong team tried to infiltrate the rebels headquarter. The last one felt a bit too much and made me felt it was too long. As comparison, the highest grossing Chinese movie till date Wolf Warrior 2 which coincidentally also having a similar tone of rising patriotic sense for the Chinese, only had 121 minutes duration. Even that one I already felt absorbing my energy, so you can imagine this one having 18 minutes longer.
The movie special effects were actually quite good. It did not have too much computerized scenes and the explosion effects were awesome. There were quite a lot of gruesome violent scenes with blood shown occasionally (not all the time) but I think was suitable for such movie. There was very little room for drama here, though there were a bit of dramatic moments towards the end. The actors and actresses here performed their roles quite convincingly, though some of the actions might be a little bit exaggerated and probably difficult to accept if you use your logic. But that would be the risk for watching this kind of war action movies anyway.
I also saw that there was the wording of based on true event in the movie. When I read articles about the movie, it was said to be loosely based on evacuation of foreign nationals and Chinese citizens from Yemen's southern port of Aden in the 2015 Civil War. Which would mean that this special unit really should be highly appreciated.
In addition to the too long duration, I actually have another difficulty at first in enjoying the film. It was due to the Jiaolong team consisted of 8 people who dressed and looked very similar with their same uniform and haircut, making it hard to tell them apart (even the female member had the same short haircut). The fact that most of the team were practically unknown to me made it even harder. But luckily as the movie progressed, I was able to recognize them better (with more scenes shown to make us familiar with them). Only few stars like Simon Yam as Chief Editor and Zhang Hanyu as Fleet commander that I have known previously but they were only in minor roles.
Overall, I think this movie was a good war action movie with emphasis on the action. Fans of movies such as this should be able to really enjoy it. But with focus on showing off the awesomeness and greatness of the Chinese unit, I could understand why the movie was a major hit in China (and some other countries with a lot of Chinese) but not in Western countries. Which is why if you do not look for such attributes in a movie, you would most likely unable to appreciate it. But if you are looking for a 2+ hour war movie full of exhilarating action sequences then you can give this a try. It is currently playing in Celestial Movies channel.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
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