The Captain

In May 2018, a Chinese airliner was put in peril after the cockpit windshield smashed, depressurising the cabin over the mountainous Tibetan plateau. The headline-grabbing event was put into speedy turnaround, emerging just over a year later as this glossy film from Andrew Lau (the Infernal Affairs trilogy). Much like any real-life flight, it all takes unnecessarily long to get going, with the viewer subjected to an extraneous series of safety checks and procedures, there to absolve our plucky crew of the freak events that follow. When the emergency occurs, the film becomes as much a celebration of collective Chinese efficiency as individual heroism: ground crews are galvanised, the military is put on standby and air-traffic control takes charge, as Captain Liu Changjian (Zhang Hanyu, stoic to the point of robotic) wrestles with the stricken jet. But as one hysterical passenger screams "We're doomed!", the last vestiges of credibility give way to Airplane-mocking cliché. At this point, it's best to simply relax and enjoy the increasingly daft ride.