The Rescue is one of the most anticipated Chinese release of the year, and the latest action thriller from legendary director Dante Lam, whose films Operation Mekong and Operation Red Sea were stellar box office hits in China and internationally. Released in time for Chinese New Year through CMC, distributor of global phenomenon The Wandering Earth, the film hits cinemas across the UK day and date with China on 25 January.
The first Chinese film to focus on China’s Coast Guard rescue organisation, The Rescue has an all-star cast of top Chinese talent including Eddie Peng (Operation Mekong), Wang Yanlin (Operation Red Sea), Xin Zhilei (Brotherhood of Blades) and Lan Yingying (Pacific Rim Uprising).
The film is one of the biggest Chinese productions of recent years, with a budget of over 700 million RMB, shot on location in China and with underwater scenes shot at the world-famous Baja Studios in Mexico, where James Cameron produced Titanic. Five years in the making, the film had a high caliber Chinese and Hollywood crew headed up by Dante Lam’s long-time production partner Candy Leung, Academy Award winning cinematographer Peter Pau (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), production designer Martin Laing (Titanic) and Special Effects Supervisor John Frazier (Spider Man, Transformers and The Pirates of the Caribbean series), working together to bring this audio-visual spectacular to the silver screen.
The film sees Dante Lam tackling yet another challenging subject, and features four heavy-weight set pieces, each of which is almost equal to the scale and difficulty of shooting a big budget disaster film in their own right. As with all of Lam’s films, the director insisted on authenticity to make the action as hard-hitting as possible, including the use of a real aircraft in a plane crash scene, and with the cast undergoing strict professional training before the shoot and performing their own stunts during filming. At the same time, the film has a powerfully human story at its core, with its team of down to earth characters showing incredible heroism and bravery as they sacrifice everything to save lives in the face of deadly danger.
The Rescue arrives in UK cinemas nationwide on January 25 through CMC.
