CHINESE SPECIAL FORCES: Operation Red Sea (2018)

                “Operation Red Sea” is a Chinese war movie loosely base on the rescue of 225 foreign nationals and 600 Chinese civilians during the 2015 Yemeni Civil War.  Chinese special forces participated in the operation.  The movie was timed to the 90^th Anniversary of the Peoples’ Liberation Army.  It was directed by Dante Lam, who had been an assistant director under action icon John Woo.  The apprenticeship shows in this movie.  It has been described as China’s “first modern naval film”.

                The movie begins in the Gulf of Aden in 2015.  Somali pirates capture a Chinese cargo ship and hold the crew for ransom.  Their leader wears an eye patch, but he does not have a parrot on his shoulder.  The Jiaolong Assault Team (basically the equivalent of Navy SEALs) is sent in.  The movie does not bother with the negotiation or planning stages.  Who cares?  We’re here for the action.  And that action includes super slo-mo.  So slow that we see the entire trip of bullets.  Now that the aperitif is downed, it’s time for the main meal and it will have several courses.  There is an ISIS type terrorist group called Zaka that will have to be dealt with.  They are trying to get yellow cake to build a dirty bomb.  A female reporter named Xia is hot on the trail.  She will link up with the eight-person (one of them is a woman) commando unit, but first they have to rescue the Chinese embassy staff from an ambush.  Then survive their own ambush.  Then rescue a Chinese diplomat from a village full of Zaka.  Not subtly.  Then stop the acquisition of the yellow cake by Zaka’s Bin Laden.  There’s a little talking in between the set pieces.

                “Operation Red Sea” is combat porn, but it is done with flair and a big budget.  There are breathers shoe-horned in, but the movie is basically a series of gonzo action scenes.  There is a very high percentage of action in this film.  Although supposedly based on actual events, it jumps the reality fence early and never looks back.  In some ways it copies from American special forces movies, but adds the Asian action that John Woo is famous for.  And where an American SEAL movie might have two missions, this movie has four.  More is better, right.  There are two ambushes.  There are two sniper duels.  The violence is graphic and unrelenting.  So unrelenting that no one has time to reload.  Which is good, because they don’t seem to carry any extra ammo.  As is required in movies like this, each action scene has to top the last.  Before the audience can limp out of the theater, they got a tank chase/duel!  They also got to marvel at the technology the Chinese military has for battling terrorism.  For instance, they have a mini-drone that can be maneuvered over bad guys to explode onto them.  Twice.

                You won’t get much character development, but at least the names of the commandoes is flashed on the screen when they first appear.  (Nice touch for those of us who had a hard time telling them apart.)  The movie does have two strong female characters.  Xia is the feisty investigative reporter (outside China, of course) and she is capable of morphing into an action hero.  Tong Li is the female operative and she holds her own with the guys.  She’s the Vasquez (“Aliens”) of the group.  The acting is good and they are not forced to say mindless snark.  The movie may be over the top, but it is not silly.  It clearly is meant to laud the Chinese navy, but it is not overly propagandistic.

                I don’t know whether to compliment the Chinese for copying American movies.  Why should our plots be off limits when everything else isn’t?  You will recognize cribbing from “Black Hawk Down”,  “Act of Valor”, “Lone Survivor”, and “American Sniper”.  This movie might not be in a league with those movies, but it puts China in the game.  I still prefer South Korean war movies, but the Chinese have some potential.  And if their special forces are like the movie depicts, we don’t want to fight them.  By the way, the last scene has a Chinese fleet warning American ship to stay out of Chinese waters.

                “Operation Red Sea” is an entertaining action extravaganza for guys.  Even with the two female characters, it is as far from a chick-flick as you can get.  If you are not a big fan of reality and prefer ammo-expenditure, explosions, slaughter of terrorists, and tanks dueling in a sand storm, it is a movie for you.  Just don’t watch it as a documentary of how the Chinese military evacuated civilians from Yemen in 2015.

GRADE  =  B    

CHINESE WAR PIC: Air Strike (2018)

                I saw a trailer (see below) for this movie a while back and have to admit, as much as I look forward to any war movie, I was very skeptical about this one.  When a trailer makes the movie bad…  (Speaking of trailers, the DVD begins with trailers for FOUR Bruce Willis straight to DVD movies.)  Here are the Rotten Tomato ratings on them – 0/6/13/0)  Let’s find out if my skepticism was justified.

                “Air Strike” (the Chinese title actually translates as “Big Bombing”) is also known as “The Bombing” or “Unbreakable Spirit”.  It was directed by Ziao Feng, but more importantly, art directed by Mel Gibson.  It was filmed in Shanghai for $65 million dollars, most of which must have gone to Bruce Willis’ salary.  A little coinage was thrown Adrien Brody’s way. I’m guessing he was paid a handsome hourly rate for his one minute of air time.

       The movie begins in 1937 with China getting its ass kicked by Japanese invaders.  The Chinese retreated to the provisional capital of Chongqing which the Japanese were determined to bomb the hell out of.  We know this because one minute into the movie, there is a CGI-enhanced bombing of the city.  This will not be the last time bombs fall in this movie.  Col. Jack Johnson (Willis) plays a military adviser training a Chinese fighter squadron.  He must be extremely good because his charges, flying Soviet Polikarpov I-15s (think Brewster Buffaloes), are able to duel with Japanese Zeros.  One of the pilots loses his brother, so we have the requisite vengeance-fueled character.  The Japanese know he is the one who dropped leaflets over Nagasaki and they are out to get him.  For this purpose, an evil Japanese ace is thrown in to hiss at.  Stay with me here.  Another subplot has another pilot, turned secret agent, trying to get a truck carrying a secret decoder to headquarters.  The Japanese air force is also out to get him.  You can expect some strafing to go along with all the bombing.  The truck agent picks up a woman and four kids and a shady Chinaman.  Another female character is a feisty female photojournalist who hooks up with the avenging aviator.  The cursory exposition takes place between bombings, dogfights, and truck-trek obstacles.

       At this point, you are probably wondering if my review is going to praise the gonzo nature of the film and recommend it as a guilty pleasure or condemn it as a piece of crap.  If you predicted choice B, you would be correct.  The plot, such as it is, is merely an excuse to chronicle a series of terror bombings.  The subplots are silly and include a mahjong tournament!  Realism does not apply.  Unintentional laughs abound.  When the truck’s road is blocked by an unexploded bomb, they get past it by driving on two wheels.  At one point, Jackson plots strategy in front of a table-top map with model airplanes on it.  This crapfest builds to a crescendo of nonsense with the crash-landing of a P-40 using a truck for landing gear, with Jackson cheering them on.  Spoiler alert: there is also a cliff involved.  To top that, the movie concludes with a slapstick routine involving another UXB.  You’ll finish the movie shaking your head about what you watched and about Bruce Willis’ career.

                The discouraging thing about the movie is the Chinese are capable of better (see “Operation Red Sea”), but this movie is made by slackers.  The CGI is bad.  If you take a drink every time a plane loses a wing, you will be drunk before Bruce Willis takes off with a cigar in his mouth.  Which reminds me to mention that Jackson is a besmirching of Claire Chennault.  Willis gives a half-ass rendering of whoever he is channeling.  He obviously was in it for the pay check.  The rest of the cast is mediocre.  They are basically there to be bombed, strafed, or shot down.

                In its defense, it does not claim to be based on a true story, but it is still sloppy history.  The biggest boner is having the Chinese fighters competing with Zeros (which were not in service at the time of the film, by the way) and having any chance whatsoever.  The CGI has fighters doing acrobatics that even the Zero could not pull off.  Surprisingly, the numerous bombings are fairly accurate because Chongqing was continually bombed from February, 1938 to August, 1943.  Most of the bombs were incendiaries, whereas the movie features high explosives, of course.  In the first two days of the terror bombing campaign, five thousand civilians were killed.  There were a total of 268 raids and it seems like the movie shows all of them.

                In conclusion, I mentioned drinking during the movie and that is the only way I can recommend it.  Watch “Operation Red Sea” instead.  Or any South Korean war movie.

GRADE  =  D