Operation Hadal debuts on Digital beginning June 16 from Well Go USA Entertainment
Dante Lam’s Operation Hadal marks the final entry in his trilogy of patriotic Chinese military action thrillers dating back to 2016’s Operation Mekong. If you’ve enjoyed the trilogy thusfar, then it pretty much checks all the boxes you’d expect it to, and that depends on how well you’d pair it with Lam’s earlier credits.
The cast is a mix of new and returning faces which include none other than actor Zhang Hanyu, a fixture in the trilogy through different roles. Other standouts include Yosh Yu and Huang Xuan, along with Jiang Luxia, Han Dongjin, and Duan Yihong among others, as well as Bryan Larkin who now retakes the spotlight here as Lam’s villain of choice.
Written by Tan Yuli and Wang Shenbao, the prologue in Operation Hadal sets the stage for a perilous mission later on that also sees characters Han (Yu) and Meng (Huang) forced to confront a past tragedy that ultimately brings the two full circle. The mission in question unfolds as the men and women of the Jiaolong squad are tasked with infiltrating a rogue sub, and when Chinese naval ops discover a deadly plot by Admiral Walter (Larkin) to unleash nuclear disaster in the Asia Pacific, it’s up to Commander and Captain Zhao Qihan (Hanyu), and the servicemen of the Longjing to foil the plot.
Cue big scale action and set pieces to match the ambitions of all things you know and love to couple with the pomp and circumstance of a good ole-fashioned action adventure that brims with nationalistic pride in its messaging. Cinematography also plays a core role in journeying viewers throughout the various spaces and machinations of submarine life, utilizing a savvy oner to do the trick as part of the film’s inaugural exposition, as do an array of VFX shots for the film’s requisite back-and-forth of martime torpedo warfare.
Hand-delivered with a slew of villains enabled by their own sovereignty to empower themselves with nuclear capability to grasp the world in the biggest stranglehold anyone’s ever seen, the biggest reward in Operation Hadal goes to the explosive action which deals in plenty of the red stuff when things get tight, and hot enough that most of our heroes are shaken but not too stirred in the process. Invariably though, Operation Hadal comes with its share of losses, fairly reminding audiences of the consequences of getting attached to certain characters throughout this franchise; One character who’s been with us since 2018’s Operation Red Sea gets a departure with a flashback that’s only as substantial as fans of the actor playing them will remember considering the actor in question has a career that’s been way more deserving, in my view.
It’s not like these films make too much of effort to dive deep into the roles featured in these films though, as the jingoistic framework of this franchise doesn’t really allow much room for depth, even for a deep-sea submarinal action adventure flick. Some fans of Lam’s work might see it as a regression from his earlier work, and you’re welcome to gague those takes however you see fit. There’s also the type of crowd that a film like Operation Hadal is meant for, which might also not be as monolithic but, and again, you be the judge, but character backstories and development are more peripheral and feel paper thin than preferred for what the film aims to deliver.
Feel free to revisit Operation Mekong and 2018’s Operation Red Sea at any time to weigh this trilogy on your own terms. Otherwise, all I can say is that as a paint-by-numbers Chinese military blockbuster with cookie cutter heroes and villains, and elements of dubbing that take further away from any seriousness of the antagonists among our players, Operation Hadal leaves you with plenty of requisite popcorn action and gruesome kills in a save-the-world thriller that, aside from the good guys winning and stoically saluting themselves, doesn’t accomplish much else.
