“Operation Red Sea” Chinese Theatrical Poster
Director: Dante Lam
Cast: Zhang Yi, Huang Jingyu, Hai Qing, Du Jiang, Zhang Hanyu, Henry Prince Mak, Michelle Bai, Wang Qiang, Simon Yam Tat-wah, Wang Ian, Guo Jiahao
Running Time: 138 min.
By Paul Bramhall
A couple of years after the successful Operation Mekong, in 2018 Operation Red Sea finds Dante Lam, one of Hong Kong’s brightest directors, sticking to his action guns. He may be sticking with the Mainland heroic military genre to do so, but with a waning appetite for Hong Kong action, it’s understandable that Lam has decided to follow the money. Thanks to a certain Wu Jing’s Wolf Warrior franchise, Mainland China has found itself more than happy to throw buckets of money at anyone willing to replicate Jing’s love letters to Chinese military muscle. Unlike many Mainland blockbusters though, Lam is a director who knows what he’s doing, having debuted as a director with 1997’s Option Zero (which became a similar franchise).
So while Operation Mekong focused on the army, Operation Red Sea is all about the navy, essentially giving us a 2018 version of Chang Cheh’s 1977 opus The Naval Commandos. Unlike the Shaw Brothers productions of yesteryear though (and indeed, even Operation Mekong), Operation Red Sea doesn’t really have established names to anchor it, instead opting to focus on a group of rather bland and one dimensional stereotypes. The cocky sniper, the simple guy with a heart of gold, the guy who has the skills but hesitates in real combat… they’re all here, and to a large degree feel interchangeable.
Much like Operation Mekong, Lam’s latest initially appears to be aiming to break the record for how much text you can have pop up onscreen. In the first half hour it literally feels like text appears every few seconds. A barrage of characters are introduced showing their name and job title (sometimes even pointing out their gender – Jiang Luxia is a ‘Female Gunner’, in case you didn’t notice the first part), timeframes are constantly thrown at us stating how many days or hours have passed since the last scene, and we’re frequently told where we are despite it having little or no bearing. Frankly it’s tiresome, and feels like Lam is treading water as quickly as possible to start having things get blown up and shot at.
Also much like Operation Mekong, the events here are based on a recent real life incident, this time the rescue of a group of Chinese citizens from war-torn Yemen (here doubled by Morocco) in 2015. However the foundations in real life are all but superfluous, as it quickly becomes clear that Lam’s real mission here is to create as much onscreen mayhem as possible. Admittedly, some of it feels derivative of Wolf Warrior 2, especially with an opening sequence that features Somalian pirates attacking a container ship, just like Wu Jing’s sequel, and the extended finale containing a tank versus tank battle. However, by force of the sheer volume of action that Lam throws at the audience, these similarities gradually become forgivable.
For the first time since 2012’s Viral Factor Lam also takes on action director duties, this time going solo, and the guy is clearly having a ball. It almost feels like he resigned himself to the fact that, making a movie which is partly produced by the Chinese Navy, a certain level of blatant China flag waving has to be included by default. So, since there’s nothing he could do about it, why not just put those necessary scenes in the beginning and end, and treat the 2 hours in-between as an extended exercise in how much ridiculous action can be created on such a handsome budget? It’s a theory, and regardless of if it’s true or not, it hardly makes for respectable filmmaking. But damn, it makes for some rollickingly loud entertainment.
So yes, while most of the characters do little to register, when you have this many explosions, vehicular chaos, bullets flying through the air, and military hardware on display, at some point you simply get on and enjoy the ride. Lam’s action sequences aren’t as stylized as what’s found in Wolf Warrior 2, nor as gritty as in the likes of Extraordinary Mission, however if a comparison had to be made, I would likely go with Black Hawk Down on steroids. Once our heroes start their extraction mission (which we’re told even comes with a mission message – “Terrorists will never harm a Chinese citizen.” Yeah!), which naturally starts with some slow motion running towards the camera, the action rarely lets up. It’s fair to say that the final third of Operation Red Sea is basically one long set piece, as 8 soldiers face off against 150 rebels while trapped in a village.
What makes the action in Operation Red Sea particularly stand out is its decision to not shy away from the gore. Recalling a similar style used in Fire of Conscience, when explosions go off we also get to witness the aftermath, as charred bodied with various limbs strewn around them twitch on the ground. It’s a harrowing sight, and somehow doesn’t come across as exploitative, despite the macho hyper-reality the action scenes take place in. One particular scene would make Chang Cheh proud, as a soldier literally has a bullet shoot half his face off and his arm blown to bits, only for him to carry on pumping rounds into the bad guys. The frantic nature of the sustained finale is no doubt Operation Red Sea’s biggest strength, somewhat making it the 2018 equivalent of those old-school kung-fu movies, were you forgive everything that’s come before, because the final fight is so good.
Thankfully the lulls in the action are few and far between, however when they do come, they’re usually painful to watch. From cheesy speeches about what it means to be a soldier, to the bizarre decision to have all the evacuees carry mini Chinese flags while being rescued (where did they come from!?). The biggest weakness though is the inclusion of actress Christina Hai Qing as a ‘Chinese-French Journalist’. Ladened with some horrendous English dialogue about yellowcake (which I had to Google, shame on me, but even then it didn’t make the scene any less funny), and generally overacting in every scene she’s in, I was genuinely hoping at some point she’d become collateral damage. Alas it wasn’t to be. Her character also shares a scene with Simon Yam, in a strange 1 minute cameo as a scarf wearing, pipe smoking editor of a newspaper.
Amongst the interchangeable soldiers, there are thankfully some solid performances. Zhang Han-Yu, the lead from Operation Mekong, here returns in a supporting role as a ship based captain helping the crew on the ground complete their mission. He may not have much to work with, but as always having an actor of his calibre on-board always elevates a production. Perhaps the biggest surprise though is Jiang Luxia, once touted as the next Yukari Oshima with her 2009 debut Coweb, here she comes across more like a 2018 version of Vasquez from Aliens. With a close cropped haircut and a furious temper, seeing her running out from a cargo plane wielding an oversized missile launcher was one of the highlights, and I hope we’ll see her in more roles like this.
For all the good will that Operation Red Sea builds with its non-stop barrage of bullet riddled mayhem, ultimately it leaves a bad taste in the mouth, thanks to a completely left of field tagged on scene at the end. Having nothing to do with anything else in the movie, the final scene switches to the South China Sea, a source of much contention due to the various territorial disputes China is engaged in with the Philippines. Showing a fleet of Chinese Navy vessels, we hear a speaker announce and repeat, “You are about to enter Chinese waters, please turn around immediately!” Then the credits roll. Talk about politicizing a slice of cinematic entertainment in a matter of just a few seconds. Clearly the price of Lam’s latest being funded the way it was, if you can swallow the thinly veiled threat at those it’s targeted at, Operation Red Sea still delivers where it counts.
Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 7/10
It’s playing in Maryland. I’m gonna try and catch it, but this review sounds just about right.
I’ve heard people say the movie may appeal to those who are really into online first person shooters since everything plays out like one.
It seems like Dante Lam is stuck with making military recruitment movies, and is trying to pump them full of Red Bull to make them fun.
Wolf Warrior 2’s flag waving “China is superior” sentiment was more mild and accessible though. It’s too bad other films have to be much more forceful with thier patriotism.
“It seems like Dante Lam is stuck with making military recruitment movies, and is trying to pump them full of Red Bull to make them fun.”
– I’d agree with this. In terms of getting access to such a sizable budget for an action movie, it seems the best way to frame it is as a military actioner. Action-wise, it is a heap of fun (and the awful green screen helicopter work from ‘Operation Mekong’ is nowhere in sight), however I do miss the Dante Lam that could balance both character and action with movies like ‘Fire of Conscience’ (for the record, Bingo the dog still has the most personality out of all the characters featured in both ‘Operation Mekong’ and this one).
I know some American films like Rambo 2 and 3 are all about the “America F*ck Yeah” messages, so people shouldn’t complain when an Asian film does the same thing. But Red Sea’s patriotic messages seem like too much.
I didn’t think it could get worse than Gerard Butler’s “Pride of America” speech in London Has Fallen. (You’re Scottish, Motherf*cker!)
Totally agree with you there Andrew. It’s always fun mentioning/reading it in a review though. 🙂
Personally I find Hollywood flicks like the Rambo movies and China’s recent output to be quite different. You nail it when you describe the Rambo flicks as being all about the “America F*ck Yeah” attitude…but that’s all they were, nothing more.
My problem with the context in ‘Operation Red Sea’, is that cinema is being used to assert the Chinese governments agenda.
It was proven in the Court of Arbitration that China have no rights to the area they claim in the South China Sea, so to then tag a scene onto the end of a movie that bears no relevance to the rest of it, for the sole purpose of blatantly threatening to not enter into waters that aren’t even theirs, is just kind of preposterous and uncalled for.
It kind of feels like we’re being told “you just spent the last 2 hours being entertained by how awesome the Chinese Navy is, and hey, now you know what will happen to you if you ever cross them.”
But hey, on the bright side, there’s no Eddie Peng.
I should clarify that I don’t think Red Sea and Mekong are simply doing what the Rambo movies did. I do think that they take the sentiment too far.
Cold War 2 was like that as well when Aaron Kwok says in the beginning “God bless our Homeland.”
I’ve read comments from Chinese viewers who all say that nobody talks like that in China.
The thinly veiled threat Paul describes does sound awful. Maybe I should walk out before that part comes.
You should definitely stick around, because you’ll also be treated to a screen giving you information on what to do if you’re a Chinese citizen in trouble overseas, and the Foreign Ministry hotline number…all useful to know! 😛
I definitely don’t blame Lam for the final scenes inclusion, it seems pretty obvious that it was a requirement of the producers (re: Chinese government) to have it in there somewhere, so if anything we should be thankful that he tagged it on the end taking up just a few seconds of screentime.
I agree with you re: Bingo the dog, Paul, but I’m not sure that’s a slight against the other characters as much as it is a reflection of just how awesome Bingo was… 😛
Rambo II, Rocky IV, Iron eagle, Rocky III, Top gun,… All American propaganda movies, and not masterpieces. Operation Red Sea crushes them, and is REALLY well directed (not the case of the films just mentioned). It’s all that matters to me. I’ll get the Well Go USA Blu-ray.
I just watched this film yesterday and I was more than positively surprised. Action and shootouts it promised, and indeed it delivers.
The scenes in question are stunning at every level and over the runtime of a bit over 2 hours there’s not not much time for breathers between all the blood, pyrotechnics and explosions. While there were was some use of CGI, I thought it was on a appropiate level. The filming location in Morocco was also very convincing and the filmmakers definitely made the most out of it.
Personally, I liked this even better than the already decent Wolf Warriors 2. The only downsides were the bits and tads of poltics and PLA-hyping that were indeed annoying, but it’s clear as day to expect that since the Chinese Navy was heavily involved in the making of this movie.
Other than that, expect a bloody action blast like rarely experienced from Mainland China before.
“Bits and tads of politics?” That’s a light way of putting the movie’s message of “stay out of our seas which we don’t own, or we’ll kill you!”
I finally caught this movie a few days ago (thanks, Well Go USA!), and, well, I thought it was superb entertainment. I’ve made it no secret that I think Dante Lam may be the greatest action director working today, and “Red Sea” is what happens when you give the man a $70 million budget (massive by Chinese industry standards) to craft the ultimate military tech-fetishist dream. While I’m sure the Mainland censors saw the movie as one big recruitment ad for the PLA, I woulda argue that Lam’s constant emphasis on brutal and stomach-churning violence made his view of war quite clear.
Seriously, this movie is gorier than three “Texas Chainsaw” movies put together. Expect to see charred bodies, blown up faces and limbs, and worse. Sure, our team are soldiers are portrayed as virtuous defenders of Chinese nationals in the middle of a foreign country’s civil war, but they’re up against a merciless enemy who has no qualms about using innocent civilians as car bombs. By the end, I’m sure some of them – and Lam – are tacitly wondering if the sacrifice is worth it.
Luxia Jang stole the show for me. I was a big fan of hers when she first emerged on the scene in movies like ‘CoWeb’ and ‘Bad Blood,’ but I didn’t even recognize her here with her shaved head and tough look. Vasquez is a great reference point.
Overall, I recommend ‘Operation Red Sea’ for anyone who loves military action movies, as this managed to top just about any contemporary I can think of, whether it’s Michael Bay’s ’13 Hours’ or Ridley Scott’s ‘Black Hawk Dawn.’ The relentless action left me utterly exhausted by the end, but once again I am in awe of Dante Lam’s technical proficiency in this genre.
This certainly reinforces the image of a first person shooter come to life. I intend on checking out Red Sea even though the propaganda of Mekong put me off.
I’ve missed Luxia Jang, and it would be great to see her in action again. She really needs to team up with Jeeja Yanin and Amy Johnston.