Film Name: 蛟龙行动 / Operation Leviathan
“Operation Leviathan” is the only film in this year’s Spring Festival to be preemptively screened, but also the bottom of the box office, and now even the discussion can not even find a few ……
In line with the principle of “all the new movies in the schedule”, I took the time to watch this movie, the first feeling is “not wrong”, because it is really not very good, the second feeling is too bad, after all, there is a real hard production, on the quality is far from the worst. The second feeling is that it is too bad, after all, there is a solid production, the quality is far from the worst.
However, when I think of “Operation Leviathan” is the sequel to the previous box office and word-of-mouth success “Operation Red Sea”, I can’t help but feel a sense of resentment rising again: compared to its predecessor, the film’s performance in all aspects of the performance of the almost comprehensive downgrade, the main line of the vague and ambiguous, the group of sketchy and unclear, the text of the scene is counterproductive, and even the most important big scenes and action sequences, the late stage of the problem of imbalance and redundancy also appeared. Even the most important big scenes and action sequences, in the late stage, are also unbalanced and lengthy.
The audience evaluates the movie based on the overall feeling, and with so many missing points, the rest of the good points can’t be salvaged no matter how good they are.
[Friendly reminder: there will be spoilers below].
“Operation Leviathan” doesn’t have a lot of strengths, but there is one thing that I think is very commendable, and that is the almost faith-based respect and obsession with military technology and the spirit of the soldier, which is one of the reasons why Lin Chiu-hsien has been able to make a name for himself in the mainland China market in the past.
The story of the film is set in the near future, there is a certain amount of non-realistic creative space, so the film appears to be a single combat aircraft, loaded with miniature howitzers robot dog and a new nuclear-powered submarine and other seemingly science fiction, but not detached from the reality of the military equipment.
One of the main dishes, naturally, is the nuclear submarine Dragon Whale, which cost a lot of money and effort to make, and which the creators have done a beautiful job of making real life scenery in 1:1 scale.
I really like the long shot with the first view of the crew to send greenery, through his track, the audience was able to see the situation and function of the cabins on the Dragon Whale, and incidentally can also help a number of characters to brush their faces, although a little bit of the meaning of the facilities exhibition, but the hard work of the live action, do not show a little show can not be said ah.
At the same time, the Dragon Whale under the sea in the combat part of the movie is also the most beautiful action scene.
In particular, the sequence in which the revitalized Dragon Whale uses the terrain on the seabed to maneuver around the enemy submarine, takes the initiative to engage in tactical deception, and ultimately defeats the enemy, is really well shot.
Submarine-themed war film was less, the domestic film is not seen, “Operation Leviathan” in the basis of reality on the basis of moderate artistic processing and finally out of the film, which also contains a lot of professional military terminology, can be said to have eaten the first crab.
But the above advantages, but also one of the film’s flaws, precisely because Lin Chiu-hsien and their obsession with military elements to the extent of some superstitious degree, the film’s combat scenes are always slightly distorted, the technical equipment to show off more than the realistic nature of the battle.
The absence of a villain in the movie further amplifies this sense of unreality.
In “Operation Red Sea”, the background of the evacuation, the rescue of the hostages, and the lifting of the threat of chemical and biological weapons is quite solid, but in “Operation Leviathan”, except for the means of “the enemy is going to use nuclear bombs to trigger a natural disaster that will plague the Asia-Pacific region”, the rest of the film is all but silent. It’s not very informative.
Who is the enemy? Probably one of the Western powers. Why is there an extreme mutiny? Because all the bad guys in the same type of movie like to go it alone? …… motives are scribbled, the background is lacking, resulting in the villain is also a simple symbol, there is no evenly matched confrontation, the image of our soldiers is difficult to establish.
Meanwhile, Operation Leviathan’s group portrayal and the corresponding battle scenes are not well distributed.
There are dozens of famous characters in the movie, mainly in the two groups, the Dragon Whale and the Dragon Squad, and despite the creators’ efforts to emphasize their character traits, few of them are actually memorable to the viewers (and it depends on the faces of the actors), such as the feud between Meng Tuan and Han Snapdragon, which is almost useless at the end of the movie.
And from the general perception and viewing experience, the Dragon Whale battle is more suitable for the main climax of the scene, but the film has given more space to the dragon team, the key is the undersea base of the whole of their mutiny scene did not shoot much good, and even the action of the gun on the knife are repeated, and long and tired, it feels very painless.
Even more disastrous are the lyrical and thematic sequences in “Operation Leviathan”, which are not helpful at all.
The most typical is the Dragon Whale ship attacked and stranded, the crew struggled to save themselves when the captain Zhao Qihang suddenly played the harmonica scene, this kind of life and death situation, everyone is anxious, the captain should do his best to direct the work, even if you want to let the people calm down a little bit, should not be used in such a perverse means, so melodramatic completely detached from the reality and logic.
Zhao Qihang is determined to go deep into the dangerous area before chasing the enemy, the pre-war mobilization of the members of the boat is similar to the situation, this time the mobilization should be concise, efficient, morale boosting, and should not be trapped in a sing-song melodrama.
My feeling is that Lin Chiu-hsien, they engage in equipment to shoot the fight scene to play high, suddenly remembered that they have not given the film spirit of possession, so hastily shoot some literary scene on the value of …… Seriously, this piece of the original is not Lin Chiu-hsien’s strengths, it would be better not to shoot, directly according to the original rhythm of the narrative, the effect is rather better.
Similarly, the movie’s treatment of Tong Li’s character, not only has a small role, but also always tries to express her feelings through the call back of the character’s plot in Operation Red Sea.
Operation Red Sea” in Tong Li and Zhang Tiande and other people’s image and drama can be colorful, completely in the film group image shaping in place, details to assist the appropriate conditions such as the result of the water to the drain, ‘Operation Leviathan’ in the only to repeatedly give a few close-ups of Candy and then finally let her sacrifice approach, purely creative laziness and rough consumption of the previous work.
I’m more disappointed than satisfied with the movie, and it’s a shame that the movie is so hardcore.
However, in the past two days, “Operation Leviathan” has seen an uptick in both the box office and the movie theater, which is in line with its level of performance in the Chinese New Year slot, which is a bit of a laughable piece of “good news”, right?
Please specify：Anime Phone Cases » Operation Leviathan 2025 Film Review: It’s a waste of time to make this