Starring Zhu Yilong (朱一龍), Ni Ni (倪妮) and Leo Wu (吳磊), Dongji Rescue <東極島> achieved impressive box office results with 500k viewers making advance booking, and advance ticket sales hitting RMB30 million. Attracting many audiences to its recent premiere, Best Actor winner Tony Leung Ka-fai (梁家輝) readily admitted he was touched to tears by the film!
Restoring the Historical Event
Dongji Rescue recounts the true story of a group of Zhoushan fishermen who sailed in their sampans to rescue British soldiers on board the sunken Japanese liner Lisbon Maru, bringing to the big screen the powerful testament of wartime humanity. Taking six years of preparatory work and seven whole months of filming, the wartime epic also required the reconstruction of the liner and an entire fishing village, in addition to tackling the challenges of underwater shooting and special effects.
Sharing his thoughts at the premiere event, director Guan Hu hopes the film can shed light on the historical event, while showcasing the Chinese rescuers’ selfless courage. “It is even scarier when the invaders try to manipulate and fabricate history; the film can serve as a cautionary tale,”
Co-director Fei Zhenxiang also expressed how the film is the culmination of the right time, place, and people. From recreating a realistic fishing village to on-location underwater filming, intensive underwater training for the cast to pioneering of “wet shooting” technology, the film was made possible by favourable circumstances coming together, and repeated efforts to push human limits on Dongji Island.
To prepare for their onscreen roles, lead actors Zhu Yilong and Leo Wu arrived on Dongji Island in advance to get themselves tanned and experience life as fishermen. Sparing no effort, they underwent strict physical and underwater diving, while lead actress Ni Ni also appeared throughout sans makeup to realistically portray a fisherwoman, in a departure from her usual polished filmic roles.
HK actor Tony Leung Ka-fai was one of the audiences who were touched to tears by the fishermen’s bravery and humanitarian spirit. “”I may be old, but I’m not someone who cries easily — yet I’ve been in tears all night. Every one of you performed so well. This is the spirit of our valiant nation,”
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