The Captain is an interesting film for many reasons, one is it actually happened. Flight 8633 is flying over Tibet at 30,000 feet when the right front cockpit windshield failed and blew out followed by an uncontrolled decompression. Liu Changjian, the Captain, made an emergency descent through a massive thunderstorm to 8,000 ft. The highest mountains in the Qionglai Mountains are 20,510 ft. which is why Liu Changjian and the crew are considered heroes.
The Chinese film meticulously recreated an 1:1 airbus A319 simulator, used the motion platform to simulate the bumpiness and dizziness caused by the plane falling sharply at the height of 9800 meters, and brought in Hollywood team who produced special effects for the series of "Star Wars" and "Captain America" and "Thor 3"
Director Liu Weiqiang said in an exclusive interview that the selection criteria for extras were quite strict. In essence, people with diseases such as hypertension and heart disease were not allowed to participate in the film.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Captain_(2019_film)Needless to say Act 2 in the films center has nail biting, edge of your seat action.
As in all disaster movies Acts 1 and 3 are a little schmaltzy, the characters introduction and the pre-flight checklist seems to take forever. The heroic ending with the grateful passengers isn't too bad, every disaster movie has to have a heroic ending.
The film was made with the cooperation of the Civil Aviation Administration of China with hundreds of professionals from the civil aviation system, there is a not so subtle Chinese patriotic feeling throughout but then the film is a celebration of true heroes so completely understandable, discovering another culture is why I like foreign films.
The DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack is very well done using all the speakers in a Dolby Atmos setup to put you in the center of all the action along with rain, hail and an Airbus A319-100 in the center of your home theater.
