Last Breath

"Last Breath" is a film based on a real submarine disaster in the North Sea of Scotland in 2012. When experienced deep-sea diver Chris was on a mission in the North Sea, a huge storm caused the ship to drift, and his oxygen tube was cut off, trapping him on the seabed, with only 10 minutes of backup oxygen! In the dark sea storm, the captain, technicians, and the leaders of the diving team Ducan (Woody Harrelson) and Dave (Liu Simu) worked together to launch a thrilling rescue operation.

Before watching the movie, S asked me, if the backup oxygen only lasts 10 minutes, why can the movie be shot for 90 minutes? Shouldn't it be finished in 10 minutes? I said, maybe there is a synopsis of the previous story, reminiscing about life, or it is like "24 Hours", shot from one person's perspective. After watching it, I found that these are not all correct. The main reason is that after the oxygen was exhausted in ten minutes, the protagonist still lasted for 30 minutes! I won't spoil the result, you can go and see it for yourself.

Although the film is only 90 minutes long, I appreciate the compact rhythm of this purely commercial film. The story is told neatly, without dragging or over-exaggeration, which is enough. The theater also maximized this effect. As soon as the lights were turned off, the music, pictures and photography came out, which immediately made me understand the difference between a movie that can be released in theaters - even a small commercial film - and a streaming network movie like "The Canyons".

First of all, the authenticity of the details. Compared with "The Last Breath", "The Canyon" looks like an AI cutout. Although a beautiful interior scene was built, the rest is all cutout CG, which is completely unreliable. It feels like the male and female protagonists are playing the Sims. Such an old tower, but the interior is brand new. There was a blizzard outside, and the heroine came out in shorts, as if there was no use for the blanket on her body that might fall off at any time. Look at the rust, iron cages, and mechanical air pipes in "The Last Breath", and the difference is obvious.

The second is the problem of logic. The setting of "The Canyon" is pleasant, especially the uninhabited forest tower in the subarctic zone of the northern hemisphere, which is simply a paradise for I people, but the various story logic loopholes are like a sieve. In contrast, "The Last Breath" is adapted from a true story, and the whole story is very solid. The director also made a documentary for this movie. Chris lasted 30 minutes without oxygen, which is a miracle in itself, but what is more miraculous is that the team did not give up on him. From the captain, the first mate to the technicians, as well as the leader of the diving team Ducan and the silently dedicated Dave, the cooperation, courage and human brilliance of the entire team who never abandon or give up, regardless of the final result, is the biggest miracle.

Finally, I would like to use a paragraph to praise Simu Liu. In mainstream North American movies, Simu Liu is almost the only East Asian face who can play the leading role - I am not talking about TV series and movies with Chinese as the main characters. Do you know how difficult this is? Compared with Chen Sicheng's boastful "🍬探1900" which illogically incites national sentiment, seeing more and more Chinese appear in European and American film and television circles is to do things step by step in a down-to-earth manner. To give an inappropriate analogy, if you support not overfishing, then there is no need to yell at your parents at home not to eat fish. Going to the school community to call on everyone not to eat fish is doing things. Simu Liu's emotional acting is actually not very good, but once the action is added, it is very qualified, and he plays the image of a taciturn but brave and kind comrade-in-arms. Simu Liu is really the pride of the Chinese!

As mentioned at the beginning of the film, deep-sea operations have always been extremely dangerous jobs. Even with the most advanced equipment and the most scientific operating procedures, it is still difficult to avoid certain unexpected emergencies. In the deep-sea environment, even the slightest accident may cause the operator to fall into a fatal crisis.

Although these operators have undergone a lot of rigorous training and simulated drills for various emergencies before taking up their posts, when they are actually in a deep environment hundreds of feet below the sea surface with almost no natural light, the fear of the unknown is inevitable. It is difficult to concentrate all your attention when operating on the seabed like on land. When encountering emergencies, your breathing becomes rapid and your heartbeat speeds up, making it difficult for you to make the most correct response in time.

The three-person team composed of Duncan, Chris, and Dave in the film really had bad luck. They were diving in windy and rough weather. The automatic positioning system that was originally used to anchor the hull had not broken down early or late, but it suddenly broke down when Chris and Dave were working on the seabed, causing the mother ship to be pushed from its original position by huge waves. Chris's reaction was a little slow, and the "umbilical cord" that ensured his life was severed. He fell into the pitch-dark seabed and lost contact with the mother ship, and the backup oxygen could only last for ten minutes.

But Chris was also lucky. After getting up, he was able to find the equipment rack with the help of a small underwater flame signal stick even though he couldn't identify the direction at all. He climbed to the top and fixed himself there to wait for rescue. When the mother ship returned to its original position and restarted the automatic positioning system, Dave dived again to find Chris and brought him back to the submersible. Thirty minutes had passed since his oxygen ran out, but to everyone's surprise, Chris gradually regained consciousness and finally returned to land safely with the team members.

It is a biological miracle that Chris can regain consciousness after 30 minutes of hypoxia. The film is said to be adapted from real events, so it should not be a false report. The only reasonable speculation is that on the one hand, Chris had undergone a lot of rigorous training before, which kept his physical fitness beyond ordinary people, and on the other hand, the low temperature and high pressure environment of the deep sea may allow life to be maintained longer. So Chris not only survived, but also did not suffer any major injuries, which is simply a miracle.

But Chris's miracle is hard to replicate. After returning this time, the company responsible for deep-sea operations will have to re-check the stability of the ship's positioning system and optimize the process to avoid deep-sea operations in bad weather. What makes the operators trained by these companies at great expense feel at ease is more reliable equipment and more reasonable operating procedures, rather than relying on the next "miracle".

I once worked for a world-class oil company. Although I spent most of my time in an office building, I was lucky enough to go to a drilling platform. I was very excited before I went there, but after getting off the helicopter, even in the bright daytime, I was filled with fear when I saw the endless deep blue sea around the platform. The operators on the platform had to work on the platform for 28 consecutive days before returning to land, so their salary was several times higher than that of the land workers. I didn't feel envious at all. I felt this way on the drilling platform, not to mention on the seabed where there was no light at all.

Before boarding the platform, we had to go through strict safety training. What impressed me most was that an old white engineer who gave us safety training at the time said that we should not underestimate any safety operation process. Some safety operation procedures may seem a bit redundant and cumbersome, but the establishment and improvement of almost every link in them were formulated at the cost of blood and even life.

The plot of the film is relatively simple with few ups and downs. Compared with another film "Deepwater 40" a few years ago, there is still some gap. Deepwater 40 scored 7 points, so 6 points for this film is also relatively reasonable.

The film is called "The Last Breath". In fact, when the person was found, it had been 29 minutes since the protagonist Chris exhaled his last breath. The miraculous thing is that this guy who was judged to be brain dead when he returned to the diving bell actually regained consciousness in the end, which is inexplicable to science. According to medical common sense, brain damage occurs after 5 minutes of lack of oxygen. Once the human body enters brain death, even if the heartbeat is restored, consciousness cannot return to the brain.

Let's turn the clock back to September 18, 2012, when two saturation divers, Chris and Dave, dived into the North Sea 100 meters deep to repair an oil field pipeline. The mother ship deviated from its original position due to a malfunction of its dynamic positioning system, dragging the two divers' umbilical cables hard. After an emergency self-rescue, Dave followed the umbilical cable back to the diving bell, while Chris's umbilical cable was stuck in the oil pipeline and broke due to excessive tension, causing Chris to lose communication with the diving bell and the mother ship, and the supply of heat and oxygen was also cut off. The temporary oxygen supply that came with the diving suit could only support 6-7 minutes.

Chris was alone in the 100-meter deep sea, with no light around him and the sea water temperature only 3°C. His body was quickly frozen to numbness and he gradually lost consciousness. Interestingly, a drop in body temperature can also slow down metabolism. Studies have shown that for every 10°C drop in brain temperature, the hypoxia tolerance time can be extended by 10-20 minutes.

But Chris was deprived of oxygen for as long as 29 minutes, so when the ship restarted the positioning system and Dave returned to the seabed and dragged Chris back to the diving bell, Chris was no longer breathing and his face was ashen. Another colleague, Duncan, gave him two artificial respirations, and Chris's heartbeat recovered, but his eyes were empty and he was still in a vegetative state.

However, just as Duncan, Dave and the people on the mother ship were in grief, Chris suddenly spoke. He called out the name of his colleague who returned to the cold and dark seabed to save him - Dave. Everyone cheered, hugged each other, and celebrated with tears.

Chris took a week off, and then he was fully recovered physically and mentally, and returned to work. After studying him, scientists could only draw two conclusions: first, the cold water in the deep North Sea inhibited the death of Chris' brain cells, and second, the long-term high-pressure training environment made his blood oxygen content far higher than that of ordinary people. The high pressure here does not refer to work pressure, but to simulate the deep-sea working environment, saturation divers must train in an environment with enhanced air pressure. For example, at a depth of 100 meters in the North Sea in this film, the water pressure is as high as 10 atmospheres, which is enough to crush a person in an instant. In order to combat this pressure, divers need to pressurize the hyperbaric chamber in advance before entering the deep sea, which requires the human body to have a rapid adaptation process. Correspondingly, when leaving the chamber, they have to experience decompression for up to three days. If the chamber is opened rashly in advance, blood vessels and organs will explode instantly.

This film basically restores the true course of events, including the names of people, which are consistent with reality. The director Alex Parkinson directed a documentary of the same name in 2019. This time, he only added dramatic elements to the battle between the mother ship and the storm, that is, the reactions of the people on the ship are dramatic effects. No wonder I felt that it was heavily acted when I watched it.

This incident had a significant impact on the industry, and diving equipment has undergone a series of upgrades, such as extending emergency oxygen to 40 minutes and adding lighting to cables.

1. Definition, characteristics and income of saturation divers

Saturation divers have technical difficulties and working environments far beyond those of ordinary divers, and are called "astronauts in the deep sea."

1. Definition and characteristics

o Working principle: Pre-pressurize the pressure chamber to make the inert gas (such as helium) in the body reach saturation, and then transfer it to the target depth through the diving bell for operation. Since the gas in the body is saturated, the diver can stay in the high-pressure environment for a long time (several days to several weeks), and only one decompression is required after the operation is completed.

o Operation depth: Usually used for deep-sea operations within 120 meters. Currently, only nine countries in the world can achieve 400-meter saturation diving.

oApplication areas: deep sea rescue, submarine engineering (such as oil pipeline maintenance), shipwreck salvage, etc.

2. The core difference from ordinary divers

3. Special Challenges

oPhysical stress: joint pain, loss of taste (rice sticks to teeth), voice distortion (helium causes "duck voice").

oPsychological pressure: Being in a closed environment for a long time can easily cause anxiety and requires extremely strong psychological qualities.

oTechnical requirements: Must be able to operate complex equipment (such as diving bells, pressurized chambers) and handle emergencies.

4. Industry status and treatment

o Scarcity: There are only a few hundred saturation divers in the world.

o High salary: Monthly salary can reach RMB 200,000-300,000.

2. Working relationship between mother ship, diving bell and divers

1. Mother Ship

The deck is equipped with a living cabin (pressurized living), a transition cabin (entry and exit passage), and a central control room (monitoring environmental parameters).

Equipped with a heavy-duty crane for raising and lowering the diving bell.

2. Diving Bell

Shape: Oval, about 2.5 meters high, weighs 13 tons, can accommodate 3 people

Function:

oConnected to the mother ship through an umbilical cable to provide oxygen, electricity, hot water circulation and communications.

The pressure inside the bell is consistent with the operating depth, and divers enter and exit through the manhole at the bottom.

3. Workflow

oDivers are pressurized in the living chamber to the target pressure.

oEnter the diving bell through the transition chamber and lower it to the seabed.

o Divers work out of the bell, and the umbilical cable ensures life support.

oAfter the mission is completed, return to the diving bell and recover the entire unit to the mother ship for decompression (which takes several days).

The 2025 American drama film "While We Live", also known as "Last Breath", is based on a true story. It has a Douban score of 6.4 and an IMDb score of 6.7.

Since I had watched the documentary "The Last Breath" before, I already knew the story, so there was no surprise after watching the movie. If you haven't watched the documentary beforehand, you might get some feeling. It's just like not reading spoilers online before watching a movie. The documentary is equivalent to spoilers for the movie.

As a movie adapted from a true story, the ending of the film will inevitably explain the subsequent fate and real images of the prototype characters. Since I have seen the documentary, I don't feel much about the real images at the end of the film.

The rescued man was deprived of oxygen for half an hour but he was still unharmed, which is a miracle. The documentary did not give the answer, and this film did not give the answer either, but only made a guess. The reason why he survived remains a mystery. This person who survived a great disaster must have good fortune in the future.

The documentary failed to capture the heroic spirit of the rescue operation. As a feature film, it must have focused on character creation and added dramatic color. However, since the prototype of the story did not have much heroic spirit, the film is relatively bland and there is not much emotional surge after watching it.

This film reminded me of the documentary "Thailand Cave Rescue" and the movie "13 Lives", both of which were based on real rescue events.

Story summary:

IMDB scored 6.6/10. The film is adapted from a real deep-sea rescue incident in 2012. It tells the story of a novice diver, Chris Lemons, who was carrying out a deep-sea mission with his team when his cable accidentally got entangled and his life was in danger. With oxygen gradually running out and little hope of survival, Chris and his teammates Duncan and Dave and others relied on their tenacious will to fight a life-and-death battle against time.

Viewers are complaining:

The film focuses on deep-sea rescue, taking the survival dilemma as the entry point, and deeply explores the fragility and tenacity of human beings in extreme environments. In terms of narrative style, the main creative team adopted a countdown narrative technique, which greatly enhanced the tension and suspense of the film. From the moment the diving mission went wrong, the countdown on the screen was like a sword hanging high, constantly reminding the audience of the urgent crisis faced by the protagonists. As time passed, the oxygen gradually decreased, the danger approached step by step, and the audience's heartbeat accelerated, as if they were also in the deep sea, feeling the pressure of survival with the protagonists. The film cleverly used the interweaving of reality and memory to enrich the layers of the story.

Big star Woody Harrelson plays Duncan, with his calm temperament and delicate performance, and through some subtle movements and expressions, such as Duncan's calm command in the face of danger, and his care and encouragement for his young teammates, all show the character's profound life experience and kind heart. Liu Simu plays Dave: pragmatic, calm, but fragile and helpless in times of crisis. When communicating with his teammates about the rescue plan, his firm eyes and concise words reflect his professionalism; and when the rescue is in trouble, his slightly trembling hands reveal his inner anxiety.

What is even more amazing about the film is the underwater audio-visual world: underwater photography captures the wonderful refraction of light in the sea water. The weak light struggles in the darkness, creating a mysterious atmosphere and highlighting the danger and unknown of the underwater environment. For example, when shooting the scene of divers in the deep sea, you can see the deep blue sea water around you through the lens, and the light shines through the water surface to form a series of light beams. The divers shuttle through the light beams, as if they are in a mysterious space isolated from the world. The editing rhythm is tight, which complements the tense atmosphere of the film. The underwater environmental sound effects, such as the sound of water flow and the sound of machine operation, realistically create a real atmosphere of the seabed, making the viewer feel as if they are there.

In short, for viewers who like disaster and adventure films, the film's thrilling deep-sea rescue plot, realistic special effects, and exciting action scenes can satisfy their pursuit of thrills. Viewers who are interested in themes of human nature and survival can also gain thoughts and inspiration from the struggles and persistence of the protagonists in desperate situations. Viewers who like to explore the relationship between man and nature will also gain something from the film's in-depth exploration of this theme. Although the film has some shortcomings, its highlights in terms of theme, narrative, performance, and audio-visual are still worthy of recognition, and it is a film worth watching.