If you are a fan of this type of movie(s),you are in for a treat. And this looks as good and awesome as anything Hollywood can put out these days. The personal stories are kept to a minimum (thankfully),but you get to see certain cliches between all the action (the thing you are most likely to be here for).

And when the stunts begin ... well not sure where you are going to watch this or have watched it the first time, but the bigger the screen and the better the surround system, the greater the experience will be. Don't get it twisted: no one wishes people to have to go through the things they are going through ... but it is a movie and we have something and someone to root for ... even if it doesn't always turn out to end well ... just like in life. Of course this is overdramatized so comparisons to real life might be a bit too much ... still more than well done.

Another Dante Lam movie, acceptable enough but a far cry from the true excellence of his previous work, OPERATION RED SEA. This one's an overlong disaster movie in which an air sea rescue team have to attend a number of accidents and catastrophes and try to rescue those involved: there are crashed trucks, burning oil rigs, exploding ships, even a downed airliner at one point. Lam's go-to guy Eddie Peng is the square-jawed hero (although he looks oddly like a Lego man here) while the supporting cast is as cliched as they come. And that's what lets this film down: the relationship and humour is forced and melodramatic, leaving only the visual spectacle to impress. At a budget of $90 million they spent loads on the set-pieces, mixing real-life vehicles with decent CGI, and they do look fantastic. The whole film is bright and colourful which I really appreciated. But when you don't care about the characters involved, you can only enjoy a film like this to a certain degree.

Having thoroughly enjoyed Dante Lam's films 'Operation Mekong' and 'Operation Red Sea', 'The Rescue' was highly anticipated. Sadly, it wasn't as satisfying as the previous films (yet by no means bad either!).

Fair enough, this is a well made film with lots of action and nail-biting, thrilling moments. Unfortunately the director relied too much on CGI for this film, where he used a lot of practical effects for his previous films. The visual effects are not bad, but certainly not the greatest. The visual effects in the 2019 Chinese film 'The Bravest' - also dealing with fire - were far better.

The character that most appealed to me was Gao Qian (Eddie Peng). They told us everything about him - from his back story to his ambitions and outlook on life, to his current dilemma and trauma, and regret. I really cared about this character and rooted for him every step of the way. I also cared about his son, Cong Cong. Why they always insist on adding a love interest is beyond me, and quite honestly sometimes gets in the way of the action. The love interest in 'The Rescue' is cliched and too predictable - in typical Hollywood style...

The film gives us a great insight into the dangerous operations of rescue personnel, and the grueling preparations and exercise they go through to save lives. I enjoyed that aspect of the film. 'The Rescue' can be divided into chapters. Chapter One is the oil rig rescue operation, Chapter Two is the truck rescue operation, Chapter Three is the plane rescue operation (this scene by the way was incredibly well done!),and Chapter Four was the oil vessel rescue operation. The rig and the oil vessel scenes were very similar, though, and gave me a sense of deja vu. Crammed into all of this is our hero's son developing a cancerous brain tumor, and then there's still room for the love story. As a result the film feels too long, with the viewer (or me at least) almost losing interest during the finale, which was too similar to the opening scene, and - honestly - the rig scene was more impressive.

I love Asian disaster movies and even though 'The Rescue' wasn't as good as many of the other offerings as of late, it was still enjoyable.