October 1942, most of China is living under the shadow of imperial Japan. Following the Fall of British Hong Kong in December 1941, many British service personnel were taken prisoner. The Lisbon Maru, a Japanese merchant ship covertly carrying around 1,800 British POWs in the Far East, is torpedoed by mistake off the coast of China’s Dongji Island by an American submarine, unaware of the lives hidden below deck. Guided by the code of the islanders “those in peril at sea must be saved”, two young fi shermen, brothers Abi (Zhu Yilong) and Adang (Wu Lei), risk everything to hide a British army medic (William Franklyn-Miller) in their village after being spotted drifting in the sea. A brutal manhunt by the Japanese forces to find the missing soldier ensues. As the ship begins to sink, and the truth about the POWs stranded at sea comes to the surface, the villagers set out on a perilous mission to rescue the British soldiers and reclaim their land.
Based on a true story long buried beneath the waves, Dongji Rescue is an epic story of human courage and survival that transcends borders and languages. Rescue at Dongji a film that starts off as a tale of the lives of a few quickly then turns into an all-out epic telling the story of the lives of many. In any storytelling of war, at times harrowing, Co-directed by award-winning filmmaker Guan Hu (Black Dog, The Eight Hundred) and in his feature film directing debut Fei Zhen Xiang, the film doesn’t shy away from the brutality of war and those that endured such hardships and then fought on to repel those that enslaved them.
Inspired by the real-life rescue of British soldiers in 1942, RESCUE AT DONGJI is a rousing, action-packed story of heroism on the high seas. Rescue at Dongji maybe harrowing and poignant but its heartfelt and sincere with a journey that starts in the sea and ends in it. A film that will surprise you, crafted was a sense of scale and grandeur that you don’t see as often as I’d like, this comes highly recommended.
