More than a simple updating of US hit Airport, this big-budget movie was proudly launched by Shanghai Film Studio as a clou of its latest Shanghai International Film Festival. The plot, based on a recent real-life event, seems predictable - a wide cross-section of travellers and crew on a jet which cannot lower its undercarriage - but the filmmakers cleverly move away from most of the usual disaster-movie clichés. A double triumph of technical wizardry - before and behind the camera - to save the plane as well as to save the endangered local film industry. Our brilliant heroes, in the air, on the ground and (above all) inside the studio, show us both the crash and its overcoming. This spectacular tour de force of F/X, production design and sound effects, has a self-reassuring, even relaxing, impact.
Lorenzo Codelli