The sinking of the Lisbon Maru, an extraordinary second world war story in which 384 British PoWs were saved from a bombed Japanese cargo liner by Chinese fishers, has recently been excavated in an exhaustive, emotional documentary. In Dongji Rescue, co-directed by Zhenxiang Fei and Guan Hu, this staggering tale gets a blockbuster makeover that involves Imax cameras and an $80m budget. The film opens with the stunning vista of the eponymous island, then under Japanese control. The seeds of discontent are there, as the local Chinese population are forbidden from fishing. Still, they endure the occupation with grim acceptance.
Standing apart from the pack are a pair of brothers, Abi (Zhu Yilong) and Adang (Wu Lei), orphans said to descend from pirates. Their physical prowess acquires a near superhuman dimension as they are shot scaling mountainous terrain and navigating treacherous waters with dazzling speed and dexterity. When Adang comes upon a British PoW adrift at sea, his discovery and sheltering of the unfortunate man triggers an escalation of violence from the Japanese, which ultimately leads to the famed rescue mission.
However, for a film that retells a stunning feat of humanity and compassion, Dongji Rescue feels oddly individualist. Zhu Yilong is charismatic as a reluctant saviour with an awakened conscience, yet the narrative insistence on a heroic figure dampens the collective potency of the actual historical event. The gory depiction of Japanese atrocities also pushes the story towards simplistic spectacle. Still, the technical finesse on display during the final section, where we see the fearless fishers coming to the aid of the PoWs, is stunning to behold. It’s a shame that such virtuosity is not reflected in the script, leaving this something of an unmoored epic in the sea of state-sponsored films released to commemorate the 80th anniversary of China’s war of resistance.
