Jin Ji Jiu Yuan
2020 / 139m - China
Action
2.5*/5.0*
The Rescue poster

Watches

February 16, 2021

2.5*/5.0*

A mediocre disaster flick by Dante Lam. The kind that makes you question the quality of his older work. Is it that Lam is getting a bit too old to make dashing blockbusters? Or is it the move to China that's getting in his way? Or maybe it was never Lam in the first place, but the well-oiled machine that used to be Hong Kong cinema. I can't say for certain, but the fact is that Lam has made much better films than what he delivers here.

The Rescue serves four major rescue operations, with a bunch of crappy melodrama in between. The operations are unrelated to each other, so there's really not much of a build-up, except that each one is more dangerous (and claims more victims) than the next. Still, it's almost like watching a 4-part mini-series with a bit of unnecessary drama to glue everything together.

Eddie Peng is decent and Zhilei Xin is a good find, the rest of the cast is not up to par. The overreliance on CG is distracting, the quality of the visuals not what you'd expect from a major blockbuster, resulting in rescue operations that are so obviously green screen that they come off way less spectacular than they should've been. It's loud and flashy enough to be mildly entertaining, but that doesn't save it from being one of Lam's worst films to date.