The summer 2018 rescue of a youth soccer team and their coach from a flooded cave system in Thailand remains one of the most inspiring stories of recent years. Amid intense interest and scrutiny, an international team devised a plan to anesthetize the children and get them out of the flooded caves before the monsoon rains intensified. It is a tense story and with an outcome that is not only optimistic but also truly surprising. No wonder it's lent itself to repeated retelling, including last year's documentary "The Cave" and this year's quietly released Ron Howard drama "Thirteen Lives," starring Viggo Mortensen and Colin Farrell as heroic cave divers. British.
Netflix's new scripted limited series "Thai Cave Rescue" focuses instead on the local response and the children at the center of the drama. Created by Michael Russell Gunn and Dana Ledoux Miller of “Designated Survivor,” and shot in the actual cave system that trapped the 12-member Wild Boars team and their trainer, the Thai-language series has a serious gravitas of purpose and hits easily. legible hard emotional hits. However, he sometimes goes overboard in arguing that this incident was tense, scary, and disturbing, turning a story that lends itself too easily to drama into tense melodrama.
Stars: Thaneth Warakulnukroh, Papangkorn Lerkchaleampote, Pratya Patong
Gunn and Miller are at their best as they go over the nuts and bolts of how such a rescue could happen, and how the children survived their weeks without contact with the outside world. Coach Ek (Papangkorn Lerkchaleampote), the young leader of his squad, emerges as a low-key hero, encouraging the team to meditate to stay calm and reduce their oxygen intake; the boys, in optimism and fear, share a pleasant chemistry.
The show is less stable when it comes to conjuring up the social dynamics around the dig. A revealing scene comes early on, when a scientist tells his assistant, who predicts heavy rains that should be reported to the public, “You're an intern. I'm the senior meteorologist. Who do you think knows better? Out of the cave, program writing tends to have this kind of heavy thud; neither line of dialogue really sings, because each one is used to remind us in very direct terms who is who or to achieve some kind of vague elevation.
"Whatever you believe," one character urges the grieving and stressed parents of the wild boars, "believe these children." It's an exhortation that feels, like many of the cloying music tracks, a bit manipulative. And it's also inaccurate, given how much the audience believes in them: in the most interesting part of the show, we're seeing their incredible story unfold. “Thai Cave Rescue” indeed represents a remarkable saga, but it is strongest when it lets the children and their journey speak for themselves.
“Thai Cave Rescue” premieres Thursday, September 22 on Netflix.
Watch Thai Cave Rescue 2022 Tv Show Trailer
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