Why ‘Operation Red Sea’ Isn’t Like Other Chinese War Movies
Last month, movie tickets sales in mainland China hit 10.1 billion yuan ($1.6 billion), a box office world record for monthly sales in a single market. And as Chinese consumers went movie mad, no film stood out more than “Operation Red Sea.” Directed by Dante Lam and starring Zhang Yi, “Operation Red Sea” is loosely based on the Chinese navy’s March 2015 evacuation of Yemen. Set amid militant unrest in a fictional Middle Eastern country, it tells the stories of a ship’s crew and an assault team as they rescue Chinese citizens and foreign refugees, resolving a potential nuclear crisis along the way. By the end of February, the film had grossed almost 2.5 billion yuan in just 13 days. Unlike last summer’s blockbuster “Wolf Warrior 2,” a bombastic tale of a loose-cannon Chinese soldier in an unnamed African country, “Operation Red Sea” is a dyed-in-the-wool war movie. The former has more in common with action movies such as the “Die Hard” franchise, while the content,...