“Sometimes Making Movies Is A Lot About Having Faith” Interview with Dante Lam, Director of THE RESCUE

Dante Lam‘s follow-up to Operation Red Sea, an invigorating, explosive action showcase that rests as the fourth-highest-grossing ever in China, is an equally exhilarating ensemble action film, The Rescue, one of the many cinematic releases that found itself displaced in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Shifting gears from militaristic bullet ballet to crowd-pleasing Coast Guard escapades, The Rescue follows the diverse members of the China Rescue & Salvage, the Chinese Ministry of Transport emergency unit who are tasked with stepping in when a maritime disaster occurs.

As we learn from the blood-pumping, sweat-inducing opening scene set on an oil rig-turned-fiery hellscape, the tight-knit but dedicated team, led by Captain Gao Qing (Eddie Peng), risks life and limb to save those left behind each time all hell breaks loose. Ricocheting between the team’s devoted off-shore efforts and the sentimental domestic lifestyles they endanger to lose with each new outing, Lam‘s latest is a consistently muscle-tensing, skilfully entertaining tentpole that humbly reminds us why movies of this caliber demand to be seen in the biggest cinema you can when possible again.

As part of the film’s theatrical release in America and Australia, I had the chance to talk with Dante Lam about what inspired him to make the film, the joy of choreographing the various disaster set-pieces, and why his fourth collaboration with Eddie Peng is his best one yet.

This interview has been translated and edited for length and clarity.

Alex Lines for Film Inquiry: After the monumental success of Operation Red Sea, how was The Rescue chosen as your follow-up project?

Dante Lam: We actually came across this idea in 2015, but it took a bit of time for me to truly understand this topic and to understand whether I was really ensured we can make such a production. Operation Red Sea actually taught me a lot of lessons and gave me a lot of confidence for me to portray bigger stories like this one, so it’s actually after Red Sea that I feel like okay, maybe we should tackle this idea that has been in my mind for long.

As the first Chinese film to focus in on the China Rescue & Salvage group, what were the most essential qualities of their work that you wanted to highlight in The Rescue?

Dante Lam: One of the biggest highlights would be how we face our fears in our daily lives because as we watched these movies, we see average Joes plucking their courage for such a meaningful act, and even though we might not be the rescuers ourselves, through this movie we can absorb this positive energy and we can face our own difficulties in our own daily lives with energy gained from this movie.

I’m always impressed by the way you stage your action sequences, so I wanted to get into some of The Rescue‘s big action set-pieces; how did you work out the choreography for each of the different disaster scenes? I imagine each one came with their own challenges.

Dante Lam: This is actually a fun part of the creative process to be able to imagine without boundaries. So while we were trying to choreograph these action sequences, we did a lot of research on the actual rescue protocols and also the difficulties that they will face during their rescue missions. And when it comes to the actual production, of course, there’s a lot of struggling and difficulties in trying to pursue this kind of realism with different kinds of departments.

This is your fourth collaboration with Eddie Peng – from your perspective, why do you think you two work so well together?

Dante Lam: Sometimes making movies is a lot about having faith because sometimes we can’t just do everything by ourselves, we need our team. And my team, as well as Eddie, if you can count him part of my team, we like to try a lot of new challenges and to try a lot of first time things that we’ve never done before. And I feel like he has this kind of faith and that’s why we work so well together.

Can you talk about the intense training he and the rest of the actors went through to achieve these intense rescue sequences?

Dante Lam: Our actors in this movie received more intensive and strict training than in any other movies before due to the fact that they have to be in a lot of kind of dangerous conditions. And so we have them trained by professionals so that they can learn not only how to rescue, but also how to protect themselves. Because when they’re in danger, they themselves are the only person who can save their lives. So yes, they did go through this very intensive training and they had to be very focused during the training as well.

Film Inquiry would like to thank Dante Lam for taking the time to talk with us!

The Rescue is available to watch in select US and Australian theatres, information to where to buy tickets can be found here: https://cmc-pictures.com/the-rescue/