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It was always going to be very difficult for documentary filmmakers Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin to equal their sweaty palms masterpiece Free Solo, but they come close enough with The Rescue. Unlike their 2018 Oscar-winner, which focused on one dare-devil climber’s attempt to scale something close to a sheer cliff, the team’s new effort involves a vast operation to save the lives of a dozen teenaged athletes and their coach trapped in a labyrinthian cave in far northern Thailand in June and July of 2018. The suspense and unique character of the widely followed story guarantees vast international viewer interest in this cogently reported National Geographic offering.

It may be difficult for viewers who suffer from claustrophobia and/or fear of the dark to cope with long stretches of this tightly told chronicle. But this is nothing compared to what the participants had to have felt when rapidly rising waters prevented the team,...

Already making a splash on the festival circuit with a Telluride premiere followed by Toronto later this month is “The Rescue.” “Free Solo” Oscar winners Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin detail the harrowing 2018 rescue of the Thai soccer team trapped in a cave for 16 days. National Geographic and Greenwich Entertainment will release the film in theaters this October. Watch the trailer below.

Per the official synopsis, “The film chronicles the enthralling, against-all-odds story that transfixed the world in 2018: the daring rescue of 12 boys and their coach from deep inside a flooded cave in northern Thailand. Academy Award-winning directors and producers E. Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin keep viewers on the edge of their seats as they use a wealth of never-before-seen material and exclusive interviews to piece together the high-stakes mission, highlight the efforts of the Royal Thai Navy SEALs and U.S. Special Forces, and detail the...

“Free Solo” thrilled the audiences and picked up a handful of awards along the way. Now, directors E. Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin are back with their follow-up documentary film, “The Rescue.” The first trailer gives viewers a taste of the thrills they can expect in the duo’s upcoming film.

Read More: Telluride 2021 Preview: 10 Must-See Films To Watch

In 2018, the world held its breath when a Thai soccer team and its coaches were trapped in a dangerous, flooding cave.

Continue reading ‘The Rescue’ Trailer: The ‘Free Solo’ Directors Document The Harrowing Cave Rescue Of A Thai Soccer Team at The Playlist.

National Geographic Documentary Films and Greenwich Entertainment said Friday that they will release Nat Geo’s Thai cave rescue documentary The Rescue in theaters in October. That’s the same month as the theatrical bow of one of Nat Geo’s other feature docs, Becoming Cousteau, which earlier this week set an October 22 release date.

Both are part of a Nat Geo doc foursome bowing this week at the Telluride Film Festival, joined by the Dr. Anthony Fauci feature Fauci and Torn.

The Rescue, which world premieres tonight at Town Park in Telluride, hails from Oscar-winning Free Solo directors E. Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, who also produced with Storyteller Productions’ P.J. van Sandwijk, Ventureland’s John Battsek and Bob Eisenhardt. It chronicles the daring 2018 rescue of 12 young boys and their soccer coach from deep inside a flooded cave in northern Thailand, using never-seen material and exclusive interviews to piece...

Taken together, boundless courage, physical stamina and emotional resilience form the magnetic core of co-directors E. Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s nonfiction oeuvre. The duo behind Oscar-winning nail-biter “Free Solo” naturally gravitate toward real-life you-have-to-see-it-to-believe-it tales, extracting from them a great deal more than beautifully photographed and entertaining accounts of perseverance and survival. Far greater than mere extreme sports docs, their movies raise philosophical queries about life and the universe, bringing an existential edge to the challenges they capture.

Still, no risk that Chin and Vasarhelyi have depicted thus far has been more significant or more unreservedly worth taking than the one they chart in “The Rescue,” a stunning documentary of bone-deep moral resonance and cinematic mastery that deserves to be experienced on the big screen. The extraordinary story they tell this time takes us to the summer of 2018, when the Wild Boar soccer team — a dozen young boys...

In 2018, 12 children were trapped in a narrow, serpentine cave system in the mountains of Northern Thailand, and wouldn’t you know it? The entire subterranean labyrinth was also flooding with countless gallons of water. The government does everything in their power to save them, the Navy SEALs are enlisted with all their expertise, but in the end, there was one small group of people who saved the day:

Hobbyists.

Oscar-winning filmmakers E. Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin (“Free Solo”) are back with a new documentary whose basic premise is so Hollywood-friendly that even Adam Sandler has already done it. When aliens attacked the Earth in “Pixels,” only a handful of middle-aged arcade game experts were equipped to save the day. In “The Rescue,” only a small group of weekend cave-divers have what it takes to save a dozen children and their soccer coach.

Vasarhelyi and Chin go to great lengths...

The problem with making a successful documentary – commercial success, critical raves, Academy Award – is eventually, you have to make another one. Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s “Free Solo” is one of the great non-fiction films of recent years, a nail-biting extreme sports chronicle with an intimate personality profile nestled firmly inside, Russian doll-style. Perhaps if its follow-up had gone in an entirely different direction, they could’ve sidestepped comparisons.

Continue reading ‘The Rescue’: A Sturdy Doc From The ‘Free Solo’ Team Suffers A Little In Comparison [Telluride Review] at The Playlist.

“The Rescue” is first and foremost . “Free Solo” filmmakers E. Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin — further cementing their reputation as rock stars of the extreme non-fiction cinema scene with their most absorbing and ingeniously crafted stress-fest to date — so intimately embed us with the ragtag team of cave divers who attempted the impossible that we feel worthy of a medal just for watching them do it.

And yet, the documentary’s ample suspense is never so overwhelming that it obscures this story’s poignant sentiment, nor is the selfless heroism on display so overwrought that it washes away the bittersweet aftertaste “The Rescue” leaves behind. Yes, Vasarhelyi and Chin have cobbled together a true life men-on-a-mission movie intense enough that even Michael Bay and Peter Berg should be able to recognize that no mega-budget dramatization could match up to it. But “The Rescue” ultimately isn’t as fraught a story...

Hollywood superhero and disaster movies pale in comparison to the thrills offered by the new documentary directed by the husband-and-wife team of Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin. Relating the story of the heroic efforts of an international team of rescuers to save the members of a teenage soccer team and their coach from a flooded cave in Thailand, The Rescue keeps you on the edge of your seat for every minute, even if you already know the outcome. The doc, premiering at the Telluride Film Festival, proves even more compelling than the duo’s acclaimed efforts Meru and the Oscar-winning Free ...

In April 2021, filmmakers Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin were nearly done with their National Geographic documentary “The Rescue,” the first non-fiction look at the dramatic underwater rescue mission that saved the lives of 12 young Thai soccer players and their coach in 2018. The married couple were two years out from winning the Oscar for the daring rock climbing saga “Free Solo” and had made peace with a new project that was devoid of the exclusive access they achieved on their previous effort.

But it was still a frustrating ride. “We never made a film where we weren’t present during the principle action,” Vasarhelyi said in an interview with Chin over Zoom. The pandemic forced them to interview their key subjects, the British divers who drove the mission, from afar. Underwater reenactments were shot with the divers at Pinewood Studios in the U.K. rather than at the actual Tham Luang cave in Chiang Rai.

The Woodstock Film Festival has announced the slate for its 22nd edition, with 11 world premieres among the 43 features on the bill.

The festival will take place September 29 to October 3 in three Hudson Valley communities about two hours north of New York City. In-person screenings and events will be featured throughout the fest’s five days, but online options will also enable attendees to connect amid the ongoing challenges of Covid-19.

Panels, concerts and comedy sets along with film screenings are planned in Woodstock, Kingston and Saugerties. Neon chief Tom Quinn is slated to receive the festival’s Honorary Trailblazer Award, an honor announced in 2020 but postponed due to the pandemic.

The festival will kick off with Fanny: The Right to Rock, a documentary about a pathbreaking Filipina-American garage band, with a performance by some of the band’s members following the screening. Music is an annual touchstone for Woodstock’s lineup,...

Previously confirmed titles include ‘The Electrical Life of Louis Wain’.

Reinaldo Marcus Green’s King Richard and Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast are among the world premieres on the programme for the 48th Telluride Film Festival (September 2-6).

The festival has confirmed a line-up of 80 films across features, shorts and retrospectives. Francis Ford Coppola, who said this week he is willing to invest up to $100m of his own money to get passion project Megalopolis made, will be among filmmakers attending in person. Coppola has a new cut of The Outsiders and The Rain People playing in Special Screenings.

Barry Jenkins...

Documentaries are front and center at this year’s Telluride Film Festival, far more than usual, with 18 new releases in the main program (not classics) and a total of four from NatGeo Documentary Films. How did that happen? NatGeo is no stranger to quality nonfiction, from Oscar, BAFTA, and Emmy-winning “Free Solo” to Oscar-nominated Syria-under-siege documentary “The Cave.”

For one thing, one of the films booked for last year’s canceled festival is in the 2021 selection, as Tff co-director Julie Huntsinger welcomed rookie filmmaker Max Lowe back with “Torn,” the true story of a family hit hard by the loss of his father, legendary mountaineer Alex Lowe, killed in a Tibet avalanche in 1999.

Much like Bing Liu’s Oscar-winning “Minding the Gap,” “Torn” explores untapped emotions as Lowe seeks answers to complex and uncharted family dynamics, helped by his younger brothers, his mother, and her second husband, his father’s mountain partner,...

Yes, today’s announcement of films playing the Telluride Film Festival, which starts Thursday and runs through Labor Day, features many of the usual suspects spotted on the fall fest circuit and eyeing awards attention for their hot Oscar prospects. Netflix has multiple movies, so does Amazon. Focus, Warner Bros, Searchlight, Neon, A24, Sony Classics and more will also be there with some prime prospects.

But perhaps most surprisingly, National Geographic is leading the pack and taking four, count ’em four 2021 documentaries to world premiere at Telluride. And actually it would have been five but the festival passed on another (great) one, but more on that momentarily.

When I sat down recently for lunch and a preview of all five movies on Nat Geo’s impressive slate this year with Carolyn Bernstein, EVP Global Scripted Content and Documentary Films for National Geographic, among the first things she pointed out before...

As usual, Telluride Film Festival has unveiled their 2021 lineup just moments before the event gets underway. Taking place from Thursday, September 2 through Monday, September 6, 2021, the lineup features Mike Mills’ C’mon C’mon, Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog, Pablo Larraín’s Spencer, Paolo Sorrentino’s The Hand of God, Reinaldo Marcus Green’s King Richard, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Lost Daughter, as well as Cannes highlights Bergman Island and Red Rocket, and more.

See the lineup below.

The Automat (d. Lisa Hurwitz, U.S., 2021) In person: Lisa Hurwitz

Becoming Cousteau (d. Liz Garbus, U.S., 2021) In person: Liz Garbus

Belfast (d. Kenneth Branagh, U.K., 2021) In person: Kenneth Branagh, Jamie Dornan

Bergman Island (d. Mia Hansen-Løve, France/Germany/Sweden, 2021) In person: Mia Hansen-Løve

Bitterbrush (d. Emelie Mahdavian, U.S., 2021) In person: Emelie Mahdavian, Colie Moline

C’Mon C’Mon (d. Mike Mills, U.S., 2021) In person: Mike Mills,...

Mike Mills’ Joaquin Phoenix drama “C’mon C’mon,” Joe Wright’s adaptation of the Broadway musical “Cyrano” and Reinaldo Marcus Green’s “King Richard,” with Will Smith in the story of the tennis-titan Williams sisters and their father, Richard, are among the films that will play at the 2021 Telluride Film Festival, Telluride organizers announced on Wednesday.

The annual Colorado festival, which was canceled last year because of the Covid pandemic, has been expanded by one day this year, beginning on Thursday instead of Friday. As usual, it did not announce its relatively small and carefully curated lineup until the day before the festival begins.

Among the films that will join “C’mon C’mon,” “Cyrano” and “King Richard” as Telluride world premieres are a number of documentaries, including Liz Garbus’ “Becoming Cousteau,” E. Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s “The Rescue,” John Hoffman and Janet Tobias’ “Fauci” and Julie Cohen & Betsy West’s “Julia.

Keeping its lineup as secret as possible until the eve of its opening on Thursday, the Telluride Film Festival just announced an eclectic, varied and in some cases likely Oscar-contending group of movies, most of which will have their U.S. debuts, and some world premieres, even though the fest doesn’t use labels like that themselves.

The hotly anticipated Warner Bros Williams family tennis drama King Richard starring Will Smith will have its world premiere at Telluride, along with MGM/Uar’s musical Cyrano starring Peter Dinklage, Amazon’s Encounter with Riz Ahmed plus their The Electrical Life of Louis Wain with Benedict Cumberbatch, and from Focus Features director Kenneth Branagh’s very personal coming-of-age black-and-white 1969-set film Belfast. The latter has previously been announced as a world premiere for the Toronto Film Festival, but movie fans in Colorado this Labor Day weekend will get the first look at it.

Netflix has revealed the cast and showrunners for its limited series about the 2018 rescue of trapped soccer players in a Thai cave.

Dana Ledoux Miller and Michael Russell Gunn, both veterans of “Designated Survivor,” will serve as showrunners for the series, slated to premiere globally in 2022.

The limited series, set to start shooting in Northern Thailand, will tell the story how 12 young soccer players and their coach — known as the Wild Boars — were finally rescued after being trapped in a flooded cave in Thailand after more than two weeks.

The rescue mission received worldwide attention, with the likes of tech billionaire Elon Musk offering to help. The story also caught the attention of Oscar winning documentary filmmakers Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin (“Free Solo”), who directed “The Rescue,” a documentary about the rescue that is headed to the Toronto Intl. Film Festival.

The Netflix production has cast “Beam” Papangkorn Lerkchaleampote as “Coach Ek.

Now that the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences has revoked the honorary 'Emmy' it awarded to then New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the credibility of the Primetime Emmy Awards airing September 19, 2021, has been reinvigorated with impressive TV series from Walt Disney receiving 166 nominations across 85 categories and 38 titles including "The Falcon and The Winter Soldier", "WandaVision", "The Mandalorian" and a whole lot more:

The Falcon And The Winter Soldier

"...six months after being handed the mantle of Captain America at the end of 'Avengers: Endgame' (2019), 'Sam Wilson' teams up with 'Bucky Barnes' in a worldwide adventure that tests their abilities and their patience...."

The Falcon and The Winter Soldier (Disney+/Marvel Studios)

5 Nominations

Outstanding Guest Actor In A Drama Series—Don CheadleOutstanding Sound Editing For A Comedy Or Drama Series (One Hour)—“One World, One People”Outstanding Special Visual Effects In A Season Or A MovieOutstanding Stunt...

Just last year, The Mandalorian’s unforgettable second season finale provided the post-Original Trilogy version of Luke Skywalker some Star Wars fans have long craved. As he sliced through his Imperial enemies on his way to rescue our heroes, it was apparent that the original Star Wars protagonist’s powers had increased exponentially in the five years since Return of the Jedi. It was a notion that reinforced the belief that Luke is the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy.

But is that really the case?

The impressive live-action debut of animated icon Ahsoka Tano earlier in the season invited a debate on Jedi powers. It’s a topic that was recently reignited, thanks to comments from executive producer Dave Filoni.

The recent premiere of Disney+ documentary series Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian Season 2, Episode 2 has proven profoundly revelatory about the technological magic that brought a Return of the Jedi-era Mark Hamill...

The documentary awards race always begins at Sundance, where “Flee” (Neon) and “Summer of Soul” (Searchlight) broke out as Oscar frontrunners; Tribeca debuted high-profile “The Lost Leonardo” (Sony Pictures Classics) and “Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain” (Focus), while Todd Haynes’ “Velvet Underground” (AppleTV+) and “Val” (A24/Amazon) played well at Cannes.

Every September, the Toronto International Film Festival documentary lineup introduces more top non-fiction titles to the list of Oscar contenders — and this year, without many clear frontrunners, TIFF’s influence will be greater than ever. In the good old days when the TIFF selection was a sprawling smorgasbord, Thom Powers lead the TIFF documentary programmers through an enormous number of submissions to cull 22 selections. In the slimmed-down pandemic era, his team had to winnow TIFF Docs down to 13 features (announced so far)..

“Every year it’s a painful part of the process,” Powers told IndieWire, who is able...

If you haven’t yet caught up on “The Mandalorian” Season 2, we suggest staying away from the 2021 Emmy ballots. They are chock-full of spoilers, including the fact that Mark Hamill has been submitted in the guest star category for playing a de-aged Luke Skywalker in the finale. Plus, fired cast member Gina Carano contends for the last time for her supporting role as mercenary Cara Dune. In all, 22 “The Mandalorian” cast members have been submitted for Emmys, including lead actor Pedro Pascal as the titular masked bounty hunter who seeks to protect his cute, green sidekick, Baby Yoda (aka Grogu).

SEEGiancarlo Esposito is trying to pull off what only his own co-star has done at the Emmys

Last year, this “Star Wars” offshoot turned out to be a surprise Emmy magnet, winning seven below-the-line trophies. It also received high-profile bids for drama series, guest actor for Giancarlo Esposito and voice-over performance for Taika Waititi.

I recently had the chance to check out a preview/demo of the upcoming Dog Shelter simulator, To the Rescue, and it’s as adorable as you’d hoped. Freedom Games held their first E3 showcase and I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to preview a handful of their titles. One game in particular had me […]

The post E3 First Impression: To The Rescue! Dog Shelter Simulator appeared first on Cinelinx | Movies. Games. Geek Culture..

Two markets stand at $2.201bn and $2.137bn, respectively.

Chinese box office for the year to date has overtaken that of North America.

The two markets stand at $2.201bn and $2.137bn, according to Artisan Gateway and ComScore, respectively, after local war film Sacrifice led the charts in China on $28.6m.

That compares to the $3.2m number one debut of Focus Features/Amblin’s Come Play in North America, where box office is generating in the region of $10m-12m each weekend.

As of Monday (November 2) North American box office trailed ticket sales by the same stage of 2019 by 76.9%.

North America delivered...

Chinese moviegoers can expect to see Dante Lam’s “The Rescue,” Jackie Chan film “Vanguard” and two titles involving helmer Zhang Yimou this year, says a top Chinese distribution executive. He also confirmed National Day releases for two propaganda films — the first concrete information on upcoming theatrical debuts for new titles in months.

China’s cinemas shuttered in late January to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus. A bevy of blockbusters expecting to see record box office returns over the Lunar New Year holiday were pulled at the eleventh hour and have not been given new release dates.

But new information from Fu Ruoqing, chairman of major state-owned distributor Huaxia, says audiences will be able to catch the delayed Chinese New Year films “The Rescue,” Dante’s epic actioner about the Chinese coast guard, and Stanley Tong’s “Vanguard” in the second half of 2020, as well as Zhang’s new spy thriller “Impasse.

Germany’s film industry has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, but the sector remains teeming with opportunities for domestic and international productions and looks set to spring back into action in the coming months.

Boasting 10 federal and regional film funders with more than €330 million ($359 million) for film and TV production and a number of major studio and VFX facilities, the country has become a favorite location for international producers.

Warner Bros.’ “The Matrix 4” and Sony Pictures’ “Uncharted” were all set to shoot at Studio Babelsberg near Berlin before work stopped amid the Covid-19 outbreak in March. While the studio initially let go hundreds of film crew members following the shutdown, it has since reinstated them after securing financial assistance from the federal labor agency, staving off a potential legal dispute.

Other recent international projects that lensed in Germany include Abel Ferrara’s Berlinale screener “Siberia,” starring Willem Dafoe,...

Director Dante Lam is back once again with his latest big-budget action film “The Rescue”. The impressive trailer for the film promises a high-stakes action film filled with big set-pieces that warrant to be seen on the big screen.

Synopsis

A rescue unit within the Chinese Coast Guard are forced to overcome their personal differences to resolve a crisis.

In addition to China’s most in-demand actor Eddie Peng in the lead role, the film also stars Xin Zhilei (“Crosscurrent“), Wang Yanlin (“Operation Red Sea“), Lan Yingying (“Pacific Rim Uprising”), Xu Yang, Li Mincheng (“A Better Tomorrow 2018“) and Wang Yutian. It releases in China on January 25th, 2020. Whether it is able to replicate the success of Lam’s last film “Operation Red Sea”, which went on to become the 2nd highest grossing film of all time in China last year before falling to 5th spot this year with the...

Cmc Pictures has acquired rights in North America to “The Rescue,” the Chinese big-budget action film that is expected to dominate Chinese New Year.

The distributor will release the film in theaters on Jan. 25, 2020 in the U.S. and Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the U.K.

The film is directed by Dante Lam and reunites the Hong Kong director with his regular star and “Mekong” partner Eddie Peng.

The timing puts the film in a day and date pattern synchronized with its outing in mainland China. That capitalizes on Chinese social media reactions, and minimizes cross-border online piracy.

The story focuses on five characters who form the nucleus of a Coastguard Rescue team. They face diverse emergencies in the air and at sea that force them into joint problem-solving and reveal their different personalities. Alongside Peng, the cast includes Xin Zhilei (“Crosscurrent”) as a female helicopter pilot, Wang Yanlin (“Operation Red Sea”), Lan Yingying,...

After a busy FilMart in March, at which Hong Kong’s film industry leaders promised to lobby for greater access to mainland audiences, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam was able, only a month later, to announce that the lobbying had succeeded. But the past months of political protests in Hong Kong have increasingly impacted the film business.

Back in April, fees and conditions attached to mainland-Hong Kong co-productions were waived, as part of a five-point plan to treat the Special Administrative Area’s once mighty film industry as welcome in the mainland, where the local industry has grown big and arrogant, but not yet mature.

Dropping the rules that required all mainland-Hong Kong co-productions to have mainland stories, and other regulations that put ceilings on the number of Hong Kong crew on each production, seemed set to help Hong Kong filmmakers tell their own stories and yet still to...

Explosions in the Sky are celebrating their 20th anniversary as a band with a double set of reissues and a global tour. The Austin group will unveil remastered and repackaged versions of 2000’s How Strange, Innocence and 2005’s The Rescue on August 16th on vinyl and digital via Temporary Residence Limited. Two tracks, “A Song for Our Fathers” and “Day Six,” are now streaming ahead of the release. Both reissues are available for preorder.

The band will also tour in support of the reissues, with U.S. dates taking places...

Big-budget action blockbusters “Raging Fire” and “The Rescue” headlined Emperor Motion Pictures’ (Emp) star-studded announcement at FilMart on Tuesday, which also saw many familiar Hong Kong faces returning for locally focused projects.

Emp also highlighted its mainland Chinese projects at the event, including “Two Tigers,” a black comedy produced by and starring Vicky Zhao Wei and directed by Li Fei, and “Caught in Time,” a crime thriller produced by Han Sanping, the producer-director who previously headed state-controlled China Film Group. “Caught in Time” is directed by Lau Ho-leung and stars Daniel Wu, who has not appeared in a Chinese film since 2015.

New Emperor title “Raging Fire” reunites director Benny Chan and singer-actor-turned-celebrity chef Nicholas Tse for the first time since their last collaboration, 2011’s “Shaolin.” The film, which recounts the rivalry of a former cop and his mentor, also stars Donnie Yen; Yen also is a producer.

Emp’s “The Rescue...

We’ve got three new episodes to share with you for Lucasfilm’s animated series Star Wars: Galaxy of Adventures. I’ve really enjoyed watching these shorts and they have such a fun, cool and playful style. These new episodes feature classic scenes from the films involving Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, and Yoda fighting Count Dooku!

The series of animated shorts are being produced to celebrate the characters and stories of a galaxy far, far away, and they feature “a bright and colorful art style, exciting action, and insight into the saga's greatest themes.”

The series was also designed as fun and educational add-ons to “help older fans, parents, and other mentors to welcome the kids in their lives to explore the galaxy far, far away.”

You’ll find three new episodes of the series to enjoy below!

Princess Leia - The Rescue

Princess Leia proves, again and again,...

How do you follow “Operation Mekong” and “Operation Red Sea,” two of China’s biggest hit films in recent years?

For Dante Lam, who directed those two movies, it’s not by further cranking up the body count or delivering yet more on-screen patriotism. Instead, he and producer Candy Leung are now working on one of the costliest films in Chinese history, “The Rescue,” a thriller with four massive action sequences that each could drive a movie like “Deepwater Horizon” or “xXx.” The film focuses on an emergency rescue operative and his pilot girlfriend, whose team find courage and camaraderie in adversity.

The $90 million budget is more than double the $38 million cost of “Operation Red Sea,” at a time when the Chinese industry is currently undergoing a painful slowdown. But with Lam’s last two films clocking up a combined $750 million at the Chinese box office, the project has been...

Ace Hong Kong director Dante Lam has begun work on “The Rescue,” which is set to be the biggest-budget Chinese film made this year. The $90 million action-adventure picture has already claimed a coveted Chinese New Year release slot in 2020.

Lam was recently responsible for two of mainland China’s highest-grossing films: “Operation Mekong” and last year’s “Operation Red Sea,” which raked in a combined $750 million in their target home market. Both were drenched in blood and Chinese patriotism, which failed to connect with audiences overseas.

For the long-gestating “Rescue,” Lam – whose track record includes upscale Hong Kong thrillers “The Viral Factor” and “The Stool Pigeon,” as well as sports dramas “Unbeatable” and “To the Fore” – has changed direction again. “There are no guns or martial-arts things,” he told Variety. “‘The Rescue’ is focused on courage, which I show through action. This has the energy of song and dance, or...

Like a lot of folks, my movie watching is heading more towards a digital future rather than a physical one – and that’s despite my love of Blu-ray and all the cult movies the format has brought us thanks to the likes of Olive Films, Kino Lorber/Scorpion Releasing, Scream Factory, Vinegar Syndrome et al.

Whilst many will decry abandoning discs for digital files there are some bonuses, especially for genre fans here in the UK. The advent of iTunes has brought with it, in a lot of cases, a dropping of the borders. Movies are hitting Apple’s stores that haven’t seen the light of day since the VHS era – there’s even some films available digitally that have never previously been made available to rent or buy on these shores. Ever.

With that in mind, I’ve been trawling iTunes to find some hidden gems, the real...