China's hand in Midway success

The nation sheltered US Navy pilots during the Pacific campaign, and now a Chinese studio is backing Roland Emmerich's war epic to reach the silver screen, Xu Fan reports.

Roland Emmerich and his thrilling box-office hits over the years - from Independence Day to Godzilla and The Day after Tomorrow - have been etched into the minds of Chinese film fans as Hollywood blockbusters.

The director's excellence in shooting special effects has won him a reputation among his Chinese fan base as, jokingly, "the man who is best at destroying Earth" in Hollywood.

Recently, Emmerich returned to Chinese theaters with his war epic Midway, which revisits one of the most pivotal battles in the US Navy's history.

As of Wednesday, the film that debuted in Chinese mainland theaters on Friday had grossed 142 million yuan ($20.2 million).

Recently knocking local hit Better Days off the top spot, Midway has occupied the top place in the box-office charts and obtained a score of 7.6 points out of 10 on Chinese review website Douban.

The idea for the film spawned from a documentary that Emmerich watched around 20 years ago, said the 64-year-old German director following a preview screening at a downtown Beijing cinema on Nov 3.

"I immediately realized it (the Battle of Midway) is one of the biggest comeback stories in World War II. It was interesting to find that the Americans were the underdog and the Japanese naval forces were much more well trained and stronger," says the director.

An epic conflict between the United States and Japan that played out six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, the Battle of Midway - lasting from June 3 to June 6 in 1942 - saw US forces crush Japan's naval strength, forcing the turning point in the Pacific theater where the war swung in favor of the Allies.

Although Emmerich formed an idea for the film as early as the 1990s, he failed to get a green light from Columbia Pictures, which was purchased by Sony with backing from Japanese banks.

However, in 2017, the stalled project reached its own turning point: Chinese studio, Bona Film Group, staked around $80 million to lead the investment on Midway, which became the biggest deal made during that year's Cannes Film Festival.

Yu Dong, founder and president of Bona, who also attended the Beijing premiere, recalls that Emmerich talked for two hours to elaborate upon his idea and express his passion for Midway in the French seaside city two years ago.

"I was completely convinced and decided to get on board immediately," says Yu.

This also brought China a bigger presence in Midway, which has some scenes featuring the surviving American pilot, Jimmy Doolittle, protected by locals during Japanese searches and bombing raids in southeastern China after the Tokyo Raid is carried out.

Also known as the Doolittle Raid, the aerial bombardment was an American revenge for the Pearl Harbor attack, and took place on April 18, 1942. However, the raid over the Japanese capital and other places on Honshu forced most of the crew to land in China due to a lack of fuel to return to their aircraft carriers.

For Yu, the new film can also be viewed as a sort of follow-up to Michael Bay's 2001 film Pearl Harbor. Yu says improvement of cinematic technology over the past two decades means that Midway delivers more convulsive visual effects.

As the Battle of Midway was fought mainly with aircraft, dive bombing - a flying technique that requires a pilot to steer an aircraft directly at its target for accuracy - features heavily in the film, vividly re-creating the American pilots' bravery as well as the fierceness of war.

"I was mainly interested in showing the world how wild and dangerous dive bombing could be. These pilots were pretty much like human rockets, trying to deploy bombs as low as possible at a constantly moving target," explains Emmerich.

The director's enthusiasm for such scenes explains why the movie sets a lesser-known bomber pilot as one of its leading characters.

The pilot, Richard Halsey Best, is played by English actor Ed Skrein, perhaps best known for his role as Wade Wilson's dastardly foe, Francis, in the box-office hit Deadpool. The movie re-creates Best's two strikes against the Japanese navy, sinking two of its most powerful aircraft carriers.

With an ensemble cast, the film also has a number of actors starring as real-life war heroes, including Welsh star Luke Evans as Lieutenant Commander Wade McClusky, Patrick Wilson as US Navy rear admiral Edwin Layton, Dennis Quaid as vice-admiral William "Bull" Halsey, and Woody Harrelson as Chester Nimitz, commander in chief of the US Pacific Fleet.

Now, seeing his decades-old dream fulfilled, the film's director reveals he has already started to talk to people and make plans for his next project.

"I'll be back," says Emmerich.

Contact the writer at xufan@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily Global 11/14/2019 page15)