Peep the gallery above as new key art was unveiled this week as an official announcement for Dante Lam’s long-awaited action thriller, The Rescue, now stakes a pre-Christmas December 18 day-and-date release from CMC Pictures in China, North America, the U.K., Australia and New Zealand.
The move comes after an extenuating delay for the film among other titles due to the ongoing pandemic. Early screenings gave the film rousing reviews prior to its previous Chinese Lunar New Year release for January at the time, then pushed to December and ultimately delayed again.
The film marks a fourth reunion for director Dante Lam and actor Eddie Peng following 2013 MMA drama, Unbeatable, and patriotic action thrillers Operation Mekong and Operation Red Sea. Also starring are Jules Hartley, Will Tomi, Aldo Quintero Torres, Zhilei Xin and Lyric Lan.
Billed as one of the most expensive Chinese films ever made, costing $100 million dollars to produce, The Rescue marks the first cinematic venture to showcase the China Rescue & Salvage (CRS), a lesser-known division of the Chinese Coast Guard. Founded in 1951, the unit is charged with responding to all maritime emergencies on Chinese waters, which range from shipwreck salvage missions to marine firefighting.
A serious accident occurred on an offshore drilling platform, which may sink at any time. All members of the Transportation Emergency Response Team heads to location the moment they hear the alarm. With the time counting down, captain Gao Qian leads the helicopters fly into the explosion and fiercely burning fire, targeting at the platform. Together with his team member and comrade, Zhao Cheng, Gao Qian gets into the platform in the most dangerous way with only one goal – to save the survivors…
Lam reportedly became determined to translate the stories of these unsung heroes for moviegoing audiences after learning about the CRS six years ago. Production locations included China, as well ad additional filming at Mexico’s Baja Studios, utilizing the same facilities as James Cameron’s milestone romantic epic, Titanic.
Production boasts an A-list Hollywood crew including the likes of Academy Award-winning cinematographer Peter Pau (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Forbidden Kingdom), production designer Martin Laing (Titanic, Clash of the Titans), special effects supervisor John Frazier (Spider-Man, Transformers), and leading digital effects companies like Scanline VFX (Avengers, Godzilla), Digital Domain (Avengers: Endgame, Ready Player One) and Macrograph VFX (The Wandering Earth, Operation Red Sea).
More at Variety.
