Hi I’m The Arty Dans and welcome to this video.
In this video I am taking a look at the 2019 Chinese true story disaster film: The Captain.
We all love a good disaster movie, it makes for great and exciting cinema.
And when a disaster movie is based on a true story, you know it makes it even better.
Yes, there will always be the dramatizations and embellishments,
and this movie is no different, but that’s what make disaster movies even better.
Chinese cinema has been a roll the last few years,
with more hits than misses.
Does The Captain continue that tradition?
Watch on to find out.
Sichuan Airlines flight 3U8633 is bound for Lhasa Tibet from its home city of Chongqing,
famous for it’s spicy hot pots.
Captain Liu Changjian is a seasoned professional,
having starting his flying career in the Chinese military before moving to commercial airlines.
It’s the day of his daughter’s birthday,
and he has promised her he will be home in time for her birthday party.
The day starts out like any other for the crew.
They’re given their briefing, they check the plane, board the passengers and off they go.
Only this time disaster strikes, and one of the windshields in the cockpit shatters, depressurising the aircraft.
The First Officer gets sucked half way out of the windshield
while our brave captain fights to take control of the craft,
navigating it through the Tibetan Plateau to land safely in the Sichuan province of Chongzhou,
an area near Chengdu, famous for their Pandas.
As far as disaster movies go, this one has it all.
It’s got an exciting story based on true events,
a good looking cast including a dead ringer for Fan Bingbing,
great special effects, great soundtrack,
and is well acted, directed and edited.
In fact, the only things you’re likely to find fault with the movie is how it makes you
feel proud of the captain and crew for landing the plane without any loss of life,
and the usual tropes associated with these types of films.
And if you’re calling them faults, then this movie is doing quite a few things right.
Amazingly, the story told in the movie actually reflects the incident that occurred in real life.
The issues with the flight began 40 minutes after take-off.
The windshield dislodged from the body of the plane, causing an uncontrolled depressurising.
The noise of the wind blowing into the cockpit made communications impossible,
and due to flying over mountains they were unable to descend to a safe distance.
The first officer was also partially blown out of the craft and one of the air hosts was also injured.
The plane was also overweight when it landed, causing damage to the plane tyres.
The only difference seems to be in real life the plane landed at 7:42,
77 minutes after take-off where as the movie lists the landing time as 7:56.
Not a big deal, but an odd thing to get wrong
considering the screenwriters got everything else right.
And yes, the movie is full of clichés.
It would be a disaster movie, or a Chinese movie, without them.
First is the usual array of stereotypes as passengers
the rude business class patron, the couple afraid of flying,
the screaming child, the clueless foreigner, the angry but scared man.
They’re all here and they add to the charm of the film in small doses.
We’re also treated to an extremely patriot song at end of the film,
as well as a weird scene of the captain asking whom in the crew in a member of Communist Party
so there’s no secret here that this movie wants to ram home some sense of Chinese patriotism.
And that’s fine, the Americans have been doing it for decades.
There’s also the all the control tower scenes that seem to be there for the inevitable
“Yes they made it! They’re safe, we did it”
scenes at the end of the movie.
Again, something that doesn’t really add much to the film and quite frankly I lost count
of how many control towers seemed to be following the plight of this craft!
There are also the scenes of the flight enthusiasts that’s never really explained
they’re just there, they cheer at the end, but they add nothing to film either,
and we could have saved 10 minutes off the running time without them, not that this movie is long.
But in the end, this movie will be remembered for its faithful,
if action packed and dramatized, re-telling of the disaster of flight 3U8633.
And I am fine with that,
because it was a movie that had me on the edge of my couch, actually cheering the crew along.