Dante Lam
Award-Winning Filmmaker
Best Director
Director, Operation Red Sea
Jury Citation
The jury found that director Dante Lam, in Operation Red Sea, brings the aesthetics of genre film into the narrative of a mainstream military film. With rich audiovisual elements, camera work that pushes the limits, tense plot development and realistic, brutal battle scenes, it recreates the Yemen evacuation of Chinese nationals in artistic form and explores new ground in the artistic expression of mainstream military films.
Operation Red Sea: Synopsis
A coup breaks out in Ewiya, a country in the Middle East, and armed conflict escalates. The naval frigate Linyi, having just completed a hostage rescue mission in Somalia, is ordered to Ewiya to evacuate Chinese nationals. Captain Gao Yun (Zhang Hanyu) sends the Jiaolong commando unit led by Yang Rui (Zhang Yi) ashore to escort overseas Chinese to safety. But the terrorist group Zaka drives the evacuation force into a combat zone, and a fierce battle becomes inevitable. Meanwhile, French-Chinese journalist Xia Nan (Hai Qing) is in Ewiya investigating Dr. William Parsons's trafficking of nuclear materials, while Zaka raids Dr. Parsons's company to seize them. In the chaos, a Chinese employee of the company is taken hostage. To rescue the hostage, eight Jiaolong commandos must infiltrate a stronghold of 150 terrorists, and with their conviction and their blood they raise an unyielding monument to Chinese soldiers. The film is adapted from the evacuation of Chinese nationals from Yemen.