(China Daily) Over the past five years, producer Li Yu has concentrated on the 36-episode TV series The Blue Sea of Ambition, China's first screen production to feature the life and work of marine rescuers.
The series will air on Shandong Satellite TV and State broadcaster CCTV as well as the streaming site v.qq.com from Thursday, with two episodes shown each night.
A former journalist from CCTV, Li once interviewed many people from the China Rescue and Salvage unit of the Ministry of Transport.
It is the country's only such national force that rescues survivors and salvages wrecks, and she has become a friend of the unit.
A rescuer's work includes recovering the corpses of victims. Besides, the working environment is dangerous most of the times as storms that have sunk ships have yet to calm down when they dive into the waters.
"They (members of the unit) are the people who come close to death but at the same time, they show respect to the departed. Every time they discover a corpse, they softly say: 'We'll take you home.' It's like a ceremony, and they believe the words rest souls," Li says during a telephone interview with China Daily.
She also spoke about their dedication to the job.
"Most of the rescuers are veteran divers or helicopter pilots. They can easily find higher-paid jobs but most continue to do this work," Li says.
But the heroes of China Rescue and Salvage are less known to the public although the unit was founded in 1951.
"Over the past six decades, the unit has rescued 74,547 people, saved 5,028 ships from sinking and salvaged 1,775 wrecked ships. The cargo they have retrieved from the sunken ships over the past five years is worth nearly 30 billion yuan ($4.5 billion)," said Zhu Jialin, chairman of China Communications Press Co Ltd, the series' major financer, during a promotional event in Beijing on Sunday.
"Most inland residents may not even know the existence of such a unit. We hope the TV series will increase people's knowledge."
With a budget of 170 million yuan, the series has more than 400 special-effects scenes, some of which were created by professionals from the United States.
Six veteran scriptwriters, with expertise in different aspects－from characters and suspense to action scenarios－were dispatched by the financers to the unit's bases scattered along China's coastline of 18,000 kilometers.
"When I decided to shoot the TV series, many thought it was an impossible mission. From the directors to the scriptwriters, they all said it was the first time they had heard about the unit. So we sent them to the bases," says Li, who started the project in 2012.
The writers stayed, dined with and interviewed the rescue teams for a couple of months. The script took more than three years of polishing.
Based on a group of Chinese rescuers, the series consists of 17 marine rescue and salvage missions, which are all true stories.
The episodes include rescuing kidnapped Chinese scientists from a group of Somali pirates and rescuing the crew and passengers from a sinking ship in the sea near Shandong province.
Director Chen Jian, known for the hit TV series Drawing Sword (2005), alongside Hong Kong filmmaker Keung Kwokman have directed The Blue Sea of Ambition.
Veteran actors Zhang Guoqiang, Yu Xiaotong as well as actress Yuan Quan respectively play a helicopter pilot, a diver and a psychologist－representing the three major roles in the civil force.
The cast also includes actor Ding Haifeng, from Wolf Warrior 2, and award-winning actor Tang Guoqiang. Most of the actors participated in training sessions on swimming and diving, and lived in the bases for a period of time.
Recalling his time spent with the rescuers, Ding says: "They rescued the struggling and fought against extreme weather. But when they speak about such dangerous moments, they do so in a way that makes it seem so normal. They are worth our respect."
Source: By Xu Fan | China Daily