Operation Red Sea

**Operation Red Sea** (Original title: *Hong hai xing dong*) is a 2018 film starring Yi Zhang, Johnny Huang, Hai-Qing, Jiang Du, Hanyu Zhang and Henry Prince Mak, directed by Dante Lam, written by Zhuzhu Chen, Ji Feng and Eric Lin and produced by Candy Leung.

The film was a financial success as it generated a profit of $149 million.

## Plot

While on duty and touring through the waters of the Red Sea, the Chinese Navy patrol fleet receives a distress call that Somalian pirates are boarding a cargo ship called the Guangdong and endangering Chinese passengers and seamen on board. They immediately deploy the 8-person Jiaolong Assault Team as their forward unit to try to slow the progress of the pirates until the heavily armed naval vessels can arrive on the scene. Using the assistance of a forward helicopter and a sniper dispatched as part of the assault team, they make significant progress to neutralize the situation while awaiting the main Chinese fleet on duty in the Red Sea. During the operations, their primary sniper receives a crippling spinal injury from gunfire and must be replaced. The assault team is praised for their success once the main fleet arrives.

Later, when the civil war situation in the nation of Yewaire on the Arabian Peninsula becomes unstable, orders are given to evacuate local Chinese personnel and workers from the country. Given the unrest and threats from rebels and local terrorist groups, the Jiaolong Assault team is assigned the task of evacuating the Chinese citizens to safety aboard the main Chinese naval vessels in temporary harbor in the area. Meanwhile, a French-Chinese journalist working in the area receives news that the local terrorist organization, Zaka, are prepared to impede local cooperation with the Chinese by all available military and terrorist means available. The Jiaolong squad manages to save the Chinese civilians caught in the warzone and the PAP gendarmerie forces guarding the ambassador just in a nick of time while also saving an Arabic man forced to participate as a car bomber.

The terrorists are also uncovered to have plans to weaponize yellowcake materials into a dirty bomb. The eight-person forward assault team is given very poor support by the local government which is in turmoil. They must also relocate the Yewaire civilians working there to a safe deployment area 75 miles away using only a jeep convoy for transportation.

The convoy is ambushed by terrorists, and takes significant losses from a trained sniper and mortar attacks. All the civilians and local government troops are killed, except the journalist. Zaka uses a kidnapped Chinese citizen as a bargaining chip so that the Chinese navy will release the Yewairian President, and beheads another hostage as an example. Jiaolong and the journalist track down the hostage (first priority of the mission) to a terrorist stronghold with 150 militants, the local leader Sayyid, and armed with mechanized artillery and tanks. The assault team moves in with a risky plan involving covertly swapping the Chinese hostage and the journalist. The enemy sniper from earlier reappears; the replacement Jiaolong sniper and his spotter are able to take him out. The operation eventually succeeds in evacuating all the hostages, but two Jiaolong members are killed in action and another two are heavily injured.

The four remaining members later wingsuit into the yellowcake exchange site between the terrorists and the rebel group. Zaka backstabs the rebels, and in the chaos the Chinese operatives manage to corner the terrorist leader, who commits suicide. Jiaolong retrieves the dirty bomb recipe and captures the cargo plane carrying the yellowcake. Back on board the Chinese fleet, the fallen soldiers are honored for their courage under fire. Before the end credits, 5 Chinese naval vessels intercept 3 US Navy ships warning them they have entered Chinese waters and must leave immediately.