Thirteen Lives (Thai boys cave rescue)

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Tried this on Amazon but it's all in Thai with subtitles!

Watching it now with dh and dd.
I remember watching it live at the time. The whole rescue was extraordinary. The divers were amazing and must have been so exhausted throughout.

It’s def worth a watch. And overwhelmingly in English not in Thai .
some parts were quite difficult to watch though.

wish there was more of a focus on the weighing up of the different options to get them out though. As it was clearly a fairly far fetched plan (that worked) but I know other options were considered. Guess that would have made it even longer though.

Agree with this there was literally no narrative at all about why they were so far in and how they physically got stuck

I remember someone saying on here years ago that walking in the caves was something that the team coach could take the boys out to do as a free activity. bearing in mind they are from an extremely impoverished area, so not able to afford to go bowling or to the arcades etc as their team activity. They would have retreated further into the caves as the water rose of course.

It's covered much more in the documentary on Disney+ 'The Rescue'

Top film! Mix of languages, lots of English

Great film. As was the documentary The Rescue. Bravest of the lot was the anaesthetist, Dr Harris. He must have known damn well he could be killing those kids, but that it was their only chance at life, and potentially a kinder death.

Was also really emotional at the end. All three of us - me, dh and 20y dd - felt somewhat emotional and chocked up, despite knowing the outcome.

The film did mention the timings - it was in the writing underneath how long each stage took to get through and how long to get back, and I'm sure one of the divers talked about in in the film too, when discussing how to get the bits out. They weren't convinced they could get them out alive due to the length of the dive and it's difficulties.

If I remember rightly they ended up so far in due to the rising waters. They were trapped from being able to get out quite quickly, so had to go further in where they thought they could find higher ground to be out of the water.

I found it really heartening that the families didn't blame the coach. In our, and many other countries, he'd have been the scapegoat. There he was held up to be heroic for helping and supporting the boys throughout the ordeal, teaching them to meditate to stay calm, etc. Instead of blaming him, they supported him. It was heartwarming to see/read.

I found it claustrophobic (natch) and gripping.

I did find it rather over-focused on our gruff pragmatic English-speaking heroes though. I would have liked at least some exploration of what it was like for the boys psychologically to live through those 9-10 days of being trapped with potentially no prospect of rescue, and of how the coach led the boys, comforted them and kept them calm - a really remarkable feat. As it was the whole thing was focused on the emotional impact on the rescuers and not on the boys. How did they feel about being doped, when they came to?

That said, I'm glad they didn't try to do some corny implication that Jon's ex-wife saw him in a whole new light after this rescue, which a lot of American films would have tried to shoehorn in somehow.

Thanks for the recommendations I followed up with the Disney plus documentary which I found better, and more moving.
particulalry striking (and ignored in the film) was the Aussie doctor’s deep reservations and sense of responsibility. He had to persuade the Thais that the plan might work with no real way of knowing that it would and he was warned he faced possible criminal proceedings if it all went wrong. He was extremely reticent, with good reason, but eventually decided that a small chance was better than no chance, even if it killed his career.