Thai Cave Rescue

I watched this and Thirteen Lives one after the other. They are same and yet different. Thirteen Lives' POV is outside. They follow more the rescuers mainly the scuba divers. It's more cinematic, clean but chaotic, sensational, and technical. Thai Cave Rescue's POV is private. They follow the kids, the coach, the families, the government more thus it feels raw, rough, murky, and emotional. Also one is a 2 hr other 6 hr, so fast paced vs a slow burn. Both are good either way.

They both delivered the story well, it's just a matter of perspective. I will not comment on which is more authentic as these are dramatizations. There will always be some embellishments unlike straight documentaries. If you're mainly curious on how the rescue went on then Thirteen Lives is more than enough.

But for me I prefer to see the backgrounds. For me it adds to the emotions, the humanity, not just for the entertainment factor in order to watch a marvel of a story. I appreciate watching what was the day to day activities of those who lived through the horror before they actually went through it. I also like giving focus on what the families were feeling. Like the episode that focused on Saman Kunan was a wonderful yet somber salute to him.

One other thing I prefer Thai Cave Rescue did over Thirteen Lives was the overall feel. Thirteen Lives as I mentioned was cinematic, it was better acted, you can see everything and have good different angles of clean view thus it gives a good watch but in Thai Cave Rescue it was gray and murky underwater while the outside is drenched in rain like 90% of the time. I could actually feel the heaviness and gravity of it so to me that felt more real even when paired with not so great acting.

This was a good alternate telling of this story compared with 13 lives. My recommendation is that you try to watch this in Thai, with the subtitles of your choice. In my experience, the English overdubs were very sub-par, and almost made me stop watching. The series isn't so dialogue heavy that reading the subtitles will be a major distraction from your ability to process it. Having done some caving in Thailand, and having lived in Asia for many monsoons, I have been reminded of the power of nature, and the consequences of bad decisions in the face of mother nature. Glad that this real-life drama had a happy ending. Kudos to all the people involved in the rescue.

I watched all these Netflix episodes to see what 13 Lives must have missed given it's much shorter running time. In the end I concluded - nothing really.

I felt 13 Lives got to the heart of the drama and its twists and turns very well. It built a better connection with the cave divers and their difficulties and dilemmas. It also showed how difficult technically the revue was. Whilst this version gives a lot more of the background to the boys themselves and their families I don't think it added to the enjoyment of watching what is a fascinating story. My advice is don't bother with these 6 episodes just watch 13 Lives.

THINGS I LIKED: I've now seen all 4 of the film versions of this story because I wanted to evaluate and compare them for my movie review channel on YouTube. I thought I'd be bored watching this because I had already seen the other movies. I was completely wrong! This series shared much more information that the other films didn't. It introduces you to more people who had a huge impact on the success of the rescue, as well as shows you all of the other methods that were tried and failed, making you understand how crucial it was that the final attempt worked.

Even though I already knew the story and what was going to happen, I got teary-eyed quite a few times.

We get to learn a lot more about the boys, their families, and what they were experiencing.

We understand better why the coach knew how to meditate and why he felt inspired to teach the boys how to do it in order to remain calm and use less oxygen in the cave.

We see relationships being built by everyone involved in the story and the sacrifices that were made in the community.

We feel the complex emotions of the parents and the legal permissions that were requested of them.

We get to travel to Thailand and experience its beautiful country and people. I was touched by their humble homes and big hearts.

It's important for American audiences to see that not all heroes were from the USA.

THINGS I DIDN'T LIKE: If you don't want to invest 6 hours of your life in watching this story, I highly recommend you watch the Ron Howard movie 13 Lives. It offers a condensed telling in the style of big Hollywood blockbusters.

Not all of the acting is perfect but it sure was heartfelt.

The English dubbing is pretty bad.

If you watch English captions AND listen to the dubbing, you'll be frustrated by how different the translations are.

TIPS FOR PARENTS: People are in perilous situations.

Some kids show disrespect.

Spoiler: someone dies.

Talk of drowning and death.

Lazy employees are illustrated.

THEMES: Hope Family Unity Hard work Thinking outside the box The value of human life Mother Nature Heroism Miracles The power of medicine.

The acting by the boys and the mothers are excellent. Some of the dialogue is hard to digest and might have come from startrek the worse epespodes of ultruism.

It's a shame Elon Musk didn't make his cameo.

It is interesting to see the egos of the senior politicians worrying about how they might look before making decisions to rescue The videographyis excellent and the scenes done in low light is well acted as well as well recorded.

Do Not watch dubbed into English. It's so so bad

Really the dubbed English is criminal Switch the subtitles on

Enjoy listening to Thai people and seeing the surroundings of a beautiful country that I would love to visit one day and reading the translation.