The Rescue review – turbulent Chinese air-rescue adventure

Despite some dazzling, nail-biting chopper stunts, there’s an excess of pointless rushing around in this hymn to China’s emergency servicesThis goofy event movie is vying for the attentions of the Chinese lunar new year audience: a frenetic, exhausting mix of soap and spectacle.

It’s overseen by Dante Lam, a sometime cult director confirming the transition into commercial respectability he made with the state-sanctioned seat-filler Operation Red Sea (2018).

The pitch was presumably Top Gun with air-rescue workers.Heroic winchman Gao (Eddie Peng) is introduced swinging through a collapsing oil rig and winds up in fraught navigation of a stricken ship.

Yet, once back on dry land, Lam proves just as preoccupied with Gao’s curly-haired moppet Congcong (Zhang Jingyi) and his progress through toilet training.

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