OPERATION RED SEA

OPERATION RED SEA is an action movie from China about seven Chinese Navy commandoes leading a mission to rescue Chinese hostages in an East African country besieged by Muslim terrorists. OPERATION RED SEA is entertaining, with some moral elements about saving people from terrorists, but it’s overblown and has lots of gratuitous extreme violence and a humanist worldview promoting the imperialist militarism of China’s communist tyrants.

The movie opens with the seven Navy commandoes saving a Chinese cargo ship from pirates off the East African coast of Somalia. After the mission, the ship’s captain gets a call to send the commandoes to a fictional African country besieged by rebel Muslim terrorists. The terrorists have taken some Chinese citizens hostage, and government officials there have agreed to work with the Chinese soldiers.

Meanwhile, a French Chinese journalist and her assistant are tracking down an arms dealer trying to sell some uranium yellow cake to the terrorists. She gets involved in the rescue operation and convinces the commandoes to help her.

After rescuing some Chinese hostages in the city, the commandoes have to defeat 150 terrorists in a remote village where the terrorists are holding a Chinese embassy official and other hostages.

OPERATION RED SEA is sometimes confusing. It also gets off to a slow start because it’s hard to tell the Navy commandoes apart at first. Once the action moves to rescuing the Chinese hostages, however, the movie picks up and the filmmakers take more time to delineate their characters. That said, the movie could still be trimmed by about 20 minutes. The battle scenes go on too long and become exhausting and overblown.

OPERATION RED SEA has some moral elements about saving people from terrorists. However, the movie’s humanist worldview totally ignores the religious motivation of radical Muslim terrorists. Laughably, the terrorists in the movie say nothing about Allah and just talk about wanting “a better life.” Also, the commandoes talk about conquering their fear in a superficial humanist way. In addition, the movie’s ending tacks on a silly epilogue promoting the imperialistic militarism of China’s communist despots, which includes their illegal efforts to take over international waters and threaten sovereign countries like Taiwan and Japan.

OPERATION RED SEA also has lots of extreme violence that’s excessive. The camera lingers on gruesome images of graphic bloody violence, including arms and legs shot off, bodies torn apart, fingers shot to pieces, and blood spraying. All the money spent on this bloody mayhem adds nothing to the story.