Dongji Rescue
东极岛
China, 2025, colour, 2.35:1, 133 mins.
Directors: Guan Hu 管虎, Fei Zhenxiang 费振翔.
Rating: 8/10.
Despite a filmy approach to the facts, this re-telling of a now-forgotten WW2 tale of simple heroism is emotionally and visually compelling.
STORY
Zhoushan archipelago, Zhejiang province, East China, autumn 1942. (On 27 Sep the Japanese transport ship Lisbon Maru, with 1,816 British POWs aboard, had left hong Kong for Japan. On 1 Oct, off the coast of East China, it had been torpedoed by a US submarine, USS Grouper, and slowly started to sink, two nautical miles southwest of Dongji island. A tight community of 263 people in 58 families, the island had a long history of fishing. However, when the Japanese arrived three years earlier, they had locked up all the boats, forbidden any fishing, and stationed a handful of soldiers in a lookout tower to maintain order.) Two brothers, Bi (Zhu Yilong) and the younger Dang (Wu Lei) – who live outside the community and are called “pirates” by the locals – see the Lisbon Maru attacked while in their boat offshore. Both are excellent underwater swimmers. The impulsive Dang rescues a young male westerner who was blown off the ship by the torpedo explosion; but the less idealistic, more pragmatic Bi puts him back in the water for the time being, not wanting to get so easily involved. After temporarily tying up Dang, Bi quietly brings the foreigner ashore to their hut; but the young man, who identifies himself as Thomas Newman (William Franklyn-Miller), only speaks English and Cantonese, which Bi can’t understand. The Englishman tries to tell him that the ship is sinking and many men have to be rescued. Bi just wants to leave the island to go to Shanghai with his lover, Hua (Ni Ni), the adopted daughter of island patriarch Wu Wanshou (Ni Dahong), head of the ancient Wu family. Bi tells her he’s accumulated enough to keep Wu Wanshou in comfort in his old age, so she can leave him behind. Dang persuades primary school teacher Chen Zhusheng (Chen Minghao), a cowardly alcoholic who hates the Japanese but skipped the army draft, to come and translate what the Englishman is saying. Fifteen Hours to the Sinking of the Lisbon Maru. Chen Zhusheng’s English turns out to be very limited but he realises Thomas Newman is from the Allies and worth helping. Bi manages to find out that the Japanese will be coming to the island to search for the missing POW, and goes to the village – where he’s not welcomed by the locals – to warn Wu Wanshou. Under orders from senior villager Kui (Wang Yiquan), the villagers string up Bi and then search the island for the Englishman – whom Bi, with reluctance, earlier allowed Dang to hide. Eventually some Japanese troops land in the village but their ruthless young second lieutenant, Wada Hideo (Nakaizumi Hideo), is not convinced when he’s told there’s no westerner on the island. Meanwhile, Hua tells Bi that she can’t leave her father to go with him to Shanghai; she reminds him that it was her father who allowed him and Dang to stay on the island when everyone else was against the idea. In the main square the Japanese start bayonetting locals, including a child and Wu Wanshou, to get them to talk. To stop the killing, Thomas Newman suddenly appears and gives himself up, saying the villagers are blameless. When Wu Wanshou finally dies from his wounds, Dang also gives himself up. Wada Hideo takes them and some further Chinese hostages to the sinking transport ship, leaving a couple more soldiers behind. On the Lisbon Maru, Dang and the Chinese hostages are all put in No. 3 hold along with hundreds of British POWs; Thomas Newman is beheaded on deck. Yano Yoshitoshi (Arai Soji), commander of the warship that has arrived on the scene, orders the holds containing the POWs to sealed. He also instructs Wada Hideo to stay on the ship with a small force until it sinks and then to kill everyone on Dongji island to prevent any news getting out. Ten Hours to the Sinking of the Lisbon Maru. On Dongji island the two new Japanese soldiers start firing from their lookout tower on a funeral procession by the villagers, provoking a violent response by Chen Zhusheng for which he pays with his life. Meanwhile, Bi swims out to the ship to try to rescue his brother as water starts pouring into No. 3 hold. Fighting breaks out as Dang, against Bi’s wishes, insists on unsealing the holds to let some POWs free. Much slaughter ensues. Ninety Minutes to the Sinking of the Lisbon Maru. After telling the villagers they’re all doomed to die, Bi sails back to the ship to rescue more POWs. More slaughter ensues. But then there arrives a large flotilla of fishing boats led by the angry and determined Hua, who’s finally broken the island’s tradition that women must not put out to sea.
REVIEW
The 1942 sinking of a Japanese transport ship off the coast of China, and the rescue by local fishermen of several hundred of the British POWs on board, makes for some inspiring viewing in Dongji Rescue 东极岛, a lightly fictional telling of the event that has its heart in the right place. One of several Mainland productions – including the excellent Nanjing Massacre drama Dead to Rights 南京照相馆 (2025) – made to mark the 80th anniverary of the end of WW2, this one finds noted director Guan Hu 管虎, 57, back in big-budget war mode (The Eight Hundred 八佰, 2020; The Sacrifice 金刚川, 2020) after a couple of more intimate movies (Black Dog 狗阵, 2024; A Man and a Woman 一个男人和一个女人, 2024, yet to be generally released), and with his gift for maintaining character amid spectacle on full display. A tad long at over two hours, and with a slightly unbalanced script, it still delivers emotionally in its rousing finale, with watery VFX that raise the bar in Mainland film-making. However, at only a very solid RMB390 million or so, box office has been relatively modest compared with that of The Eight Hundred (RMB3.11 billion) or even The Sacrifice (RMB1.12 billion).
A moving, well-researched documentary on the subject was released in autumn 2024 – The Sinking of the Lisbon Maru 里斯本丸沉没, co-directed by well-known film-maker Fang Li 方励 along with Fan Ming 范铭 and Gong Li 龚莉, with photography by noted German d.p. Florian Zinke 陆一帆 (see poster, left). That film was an eight-year journey for Fang; Dongji Rescue has been a six-year journey for its makers, starting with pre-production in 2019 and finally shooting for 200 days, from Jun 2024 to early Jan 2025. The action is such an important part of the film’s make-up that Guan has given its director, Fei Zhenxiang 费振翔, a co-credit. Initially a Peking Opera performer, Beijing-born Fei, 46, has worked alongside Guan for over a decade, as well as having a sizeable career as an actor, assistant director, and director of several TV and online movies.
Though the film starts in documentary fashion, with graphics and an off-screen commentary setting the scene prior to the Lisbon Maru being mistakenly attacked by a US submarine, it soon defaults into movie mode, with a plotline that’s more “based on” the real events than slavishly factual. Among the main characters are two brothers who are outsiders to the island’s tightly-knit fishing community – and dubbed “pirates” by it – and there’s no mention near the end of how the Japanese navy actually rescued many of the POWs after the Lisbon Maru finally sank. (Throughout, the Japanese are portrayed as unequivocally heartless.) The screenplay by five people – including the notable Chen Shu 陈舒 (Brotherhood of Blades 绣春刀, 2014), Dong Runnian 董润年 (Gone with the Light 被光抓走的人, 2019; Johnny Keep Walking! 年会不能停！, 2023), Zhang Ji 张冀 (a regular with director Chen Kexin 陈可辛 [Peter Chan]) and Fei himself – also invents a feisty, cross-tracks girlfriend for the elder brother, an eccentric, cowardly schoolteacher who finally achieves a kind of heroism, and a young British POW who is the first to be found and tries to alert the islanders to what is happening.
These inventions and changes are all acceptable – given the film is a movie, not a documentary – and most are in the spirit of events and helpful in building a dramatic narrative that will go the two-hour-plus distance. The screenplay is, however, somewhat unbalanced: the outsider brothers are given too much screentime at the beginning, at the expense of the villagers, few of whom register as characters; the elder brother’s feisty lover, despite giving Mainland actress Ni Ni 倪妮 one of her least decorative and most physically intense roles, has only a token place in the drama until being suddenly transformed into a vengeful action heroine in the final half-hour; and the girl’s adopted father and village patriarch (understatedly played by veteran Ni Dahong 倪大红) is underwritten, given his importance in the drama.
Despite these weaknesses, the film achieves some genuinely powerful moments, such as the sight of hundreds of British POWs stuffed in one of the ship’s holds, like a vision of hell; the elder brother, crazed and blood-streaked, slaughtering the Japanese soldiers in a lookout tower; a local’s immolation at sunset; and the younger brother killing an especially psycho Japanese officer. Occasional chapter headings are meant to stoke tension as the Lisbon Maru gradually sinks, but they seem out of kilter with the editing, which often shuffles scenes out of chronological order. Much more effective in creating tension are the VFX, especially in the big rescue finale, which creates water effects never attempted before in Mainland cinema, as well as making good use of a full-scale replica of the Lisbon Maru built in a studio. The music in the action-filled finale, by Iceland-born, US-based composer Atli Örvarsson, is just wallpaper noise; elsewhere it’s more subtle and atmospheric.
As the more dominant elder brother, Zhu Yilong 朱一龙 plays down his good looks to create one of his more colourful characters, torn between saving the POWs and looking out for himself. He has good sexual chemistry with Ni, who is undeniably impressive once her character is given a chance by the script. (She had previously had a leading role in Guan’s A Man and a Woman, alongside actor Huang Bo 黄渤.) As the more milquetoast younger brother, Wu Lei 吴磊 is okay, as are the rest of the cast, including UK-born William Franklyn-Miller, in his first major big-screen role, as the simpatico POW. Widescreen photography, led by d.p. Gao Weizhe 高伟喆 (Black Dog), is consistently striking, especially in the vistas around the Zhoushan archipelago.
The film’s Chinese title simply means “Dongji Island”. Material during the end titles reveals some of the real people who inspired the fictional ones, as well as testimonies by relatives of survivors (now all dead).
CREDITS
Presented by The Seventh Art Pictures (Beijing) (CN), Shanghai Taopiaopiao Movie & TV Culture (CN), Pearl River Film Group (CN), Beijing Enlight Pictures (CN), China Film Group (CN), The Seventh Art Pictures (Zhoushan) (CN), Jiangxi Film Group (CN), The Seventh Art Pictures (Wuxi) (CN), Shaanxi Culture Industry Movie Investment (CN), Beijing Jingxi Culture & Tourism (CN). Produced by The Seventh Art Pictures (Beijing) (CN).
Script: Chen Shu, Dong Runnian, Zhang Ji, Fei Zhenxiang, Zhou Chen. Photography: Gao Weizhe. Editing: Li Weiwen. Editing advice: Yang Hongyu. Music: Atli Örvarsson. Music supervision: Yu Fei. Art direction: Ma Yun, Zhao Ziran. Styling: Yang Dan. Sound: Fu Kang. Action: Fei Zhenxiang. Visual effects: Tim Crosbie, Chen Suihua, Liu Yujia. Second-unit direction: Zhang Shiyuan [Richard Zhang].
Cast: Zhu Yilong (Bi), Wu Lei (Dang, Bi’s younger brother), Ni Ni (Hua, Bi’s lover), Yang Haoyu (Li Yuanxing, village head and Japanese translator), Chen Minghao (Chen Zhusheng, teacher), William Franklyn-Miller (Thomas Newman, British POW), Ni Dahong (Wu Wanshou), Li Jiuxiao (Qianjin), Wang Yiquan (Kui), Li Zhuozhao (Wanliang), Liu Lu (Mrs. Bian), Zhang Chen (Lu), Nakaizumi Hideo (Wada Hideo, Japanese second lieutenant), Shinohara Atsushi (Watari Hisao, tubby Japanese soldier on island), Kotani Shunsuke (Fukuda Hideo, Japanese soldier), Arai Soji (Yano Yoshitoshi, Japanese colonel, warship commander), Kaku Tomohiro (Shinmori Genichiro, interpreter), Sawada Fuyuki (Kawamura Yurito, naval lieutenant commander), Nakamura Kazuto (Shime Yoshitomo, naval lieutenant), Hasebe Hiroyuki (Kobashi Tsuruo, naval lieutenant), Kevin Lee (Stewart, British lieutenant), Liu Yunhong (Bian Dingxing), Ren Youxuan (Qiao), Ge Yixuan (Zhen), Xu Yi (Xingying), Xiao Jie (Xiaoyun), Yue Hao (Lin Agen), Chen Yiliang (Bian Dingwang), Bei Yile (Xiaobei), Zhang He (Mr. Bian).
Release: China, 8 Aug 2025.