Avalancha, desastre en la montaña

Pan Deng Zhe or The Climbers is a Chinese action-adventure movie inspired by historic events. The movie explores how a group of Chinese mountaineers attempts to ascend Mount Everest from the perilous north side. The film exposes the intense relationships between the mountaineers and the challenges related to the expedition.

The movie has been shot on location in the Tibet Autonomous Region. The settings are therefore quite authentic and the landscapes are absolutely breathtaking. Lead actor Wu Jing conducted a cold tolerance training before the shooting and his dedication shows off in a convincing performance. The intense scenes on the mountain have been filmed with great care in form of emotional acting skills and impressive special effects.

The movie also has a few downsides. The numerous highly emotional relationships between the members of the expedition feel somewhat exaggerated and only distract from the already fascinating main plot and the stunning mountaineering scenes. As many other Chinese productions, this film has also an extremely strong patriotic side as it's constantly claimed that Mount Everest is a Chinese mountain that must be climed by Chinese mountaineers which has to be proven and shown to the entire world.

If you are willing to ignore the overtly emotional side stories and the strong propaganda, you will discover a good mountaineering film that should please fans of movies such as Vertical Limit. The settings and special effects alone are worth watching this movie as its high budget shows off quite impressively. To leave an even better mark, this movie should have had less dramatic side stories, less propaganda and more skilled actresses and actors.

Not a bad movie. Not great either. As a climber myself I took into consideration that in those days the gear was nowhere near as advanced and strong as the gear these days. Though on a couple of thigs I was laughing as the way the gear failure was portrayed was laughable. A good excuse for a bit of Kung Fu type gymnastics and action to be thrown in. The acting was wooden and we didn't really care about any particular character because they all blended into a mess of "Try your best to keep up". I think I fell asleep for 20 minutes but didn't miss anything when I rewound it. I give it a 5 because the action scenes were well done (though unbelievable). If it was a Hollywood film I'd give it 3 or 4.

I don't know where the low ratings come from. This movie had excitement,tension, action,romance,great cinematography and was well edited. If you enjoy movies like Vertical Limit and Everest then you will love this. I had to write this review because I did not see how the rating was so low and it should be seen.

The biggest discomfort of the film is the split of emotions, the paleness of the narrative, the frivolous emotions, and the strong sense of disappointment after the high expectations are lost. Not good enough. For a film of such a size and level as "Climber", it means "bad" by itself.

After repeated reflection, the board should play on the play itself. From theme selection to character design to plot structure, and even logic, there are many problems.

"Climber" is undoubtedly the main theme, what to promote, what to sing, has already been set, and there is no need to create a team to work out.

Two abrupt loves further blur the theme. The seemingly rich emotional expression did not separate the primary and secondary, so that the motivation of the protagonist in the film has been swinging between national honor, adventure enthusiasm and love.

The most terrible thing is that the climax of the movie actually put the emotional outlet above "love". The final radio wave confession of Wu Jing and Zhang Ziyi completely diluted the sublimation of the summit. The grand propositions that had been accumulated before and after suddenly became a wood without roots In the end, one can only accumulate in the audience's heart, which is difficult to release.

I'm fine with the propaganda, it's blatant enough to ward off those who can't stand it.

However, the film still disappoints me. The romance is just too out of place during the whole story, and it weakens the courage and nationalistic pride that the film intended to convey. I felt thoroughly embarrassed during what was supposed to be the climax of the film. The characters are depicted badly, the music is tiring, and the plot is very predictable, but that's commonplace for most films I've seen of the same genre. Due to these, I found it hard to empathise with any of the characters. However, the performance of the actors is nice, the stirring of emotions is forced yet moving, so the film is somewhat enjoyable.