Operation Red Sea

Dante Lam .. I think it has been too long since I saw a movie of his. And watching this, I have to say, if he can do one thing right, it is the action sequences. No prisoners taken and all that. A lot of (CGI) blood and a lot of death. The stunt work here is amazing to say the least! The sound effects, the tension, the adrenalin ... everything is working just fine here.

There may be a little patriotism, but other than that ... also like with Wolf Warrior, it's not like we are not used to that from US/Hollywood output. So it is more or less the same, just in chinese. But the action actually is one might say better choreographed than the American counterpart ... or at least as good.

"Wolf Warrior 2" is popular in the summer vacation, and madly swept more than 5 billion.

But as long as you dare to say that it is not good at all, you will be besieged by brains, be greeted by your family, and even rise to an unpatriotic level.

Everything is afraid of comparison. The advent of "Operation of the Red Sea" makes "War Wolf 2" look quite ridiculous in comparison, just like the children of kindergarten have played with each other.

We would like to thank Director Lin Chaoxian, who proved how high Chinese military films can be, he improved our aesthetics, and he made us understand that War Wolf 2 is indeed not good enough.

I finished the movie yesterday, still fell unreal. It's like a civilian first time experiencing real war, not the kind of wars that were shown in the Hollywood war movies, but an extremely realistic one, the one that you will experience when you walk right into the middle of an ongoing armed conflict . I have watched countless war movies from all over the world but I have never felt the way like I had on yesterday. I heard from my Chinese friends about modern Chinese young netizens love to see China gets into a war with other countries to demonstrate the ability of their Military force. I strongly advice them to see this movie, to see what will really happen in a war.

Actually, most of the film is just above average, and the score would be like 7/10. However, the action sequences between Minute 100 and Minute 120 are incredibly brutal, realistic, bloody, traumatizing and unbearable, and are among the finest action scenes I've ever seen. Thus, I would give the film a 8.5/10 overall rating.

Similar to the Chris Nolan's "Dunkirk" and the action flick "Operation Mekong" in 2016, also directed by Dante Lam, this film "Operation Red Sea" sacrifices plot and character development for action, and fortunately it works. The cinematography, film editing, sound editing, sound mixing, visual effects, action choreography, original score and production design are just speechless. The film borrows ideas from several Hollywood blockbusters, such as the moral debate in "Saving Private Ryan", the special force fights of "Black Hawk Down", the war scenes at "Hacksaw Ridge", the tank battles from "Patton" and most importantly "American Sniper"'s sniping sequences.

It recently came to Netflix, so I figure more US audience would be watching the movie, then I see so many reviews saying it's bad because it's propaganda. Thanks for showing how double standard works guys. It's not the best movie, but it's fun, thrilling to watch, based on real event and reasonablly realistic, so I give it an 8. On the other hand, If it is pure propaganda, I'm glad to know that when things go down, Chinese government get stuff done, fast.