Thirteen Lives (2022)
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A gripping dramatization of the true story of the Tham Luang cave rescue.
The story
On June 23, 2018, twelve boys of the junior football team "Wild Boars" and their assistant coach Ekkaphon Chanthawong leave practice to explore the Tham Luang cave. When the team fails to arrive at a birthday party organized by their parents, their families head to the caves, only to find them flooded and the boys missing, their bikes left at the entrance. The parents immediately alert emergency services. Royal Thai Navy SEALs, led by Captain Arnont, arrive to search for the missing boys, but find the dive too difficult to locate the team.
Full plot (contains spoilers)
On June 23, 2018, twelve boys of the junior football team "Wild Boars" and their assistant coach Ekkaphon Chanthawong go missing in the flooded Tham Luang cave. While local authorities and Navy SEALs struggle with the difficult conditions, British cavers Rick Stanton and John Volanthen join the effort, eventually locating the boys and coach four kilometers from the entrance. During the rescue, Thai Navy SEAL Saman Kunan tragically drowns. Amidst the operation, a water technician works to divert water from the mountain. Ultimately, the boys and coach are sedated and transported out of the cave through a grueling six-hour dive. The film concludes with the boys celebrating the birthday party they missed, and the credits reveal that the coach and three stateless boys were granted Thai citizenship.
- First release year
- 2022
- Runtime (minutes)
- 147
- Production countries
- United States; United Kingdom
- Original languages
- Thai; Northern Thai
- Directors
- Ron Howard
- Writers
- William Nicholson · screenplay; Don Macpherson · story; William Nicholson · story
- Cast and characters
- Viggo Mortensen; Colin Farrell; Joel Edgerton; Tom Bateman
- Genres
- biographical; survival
- Themes
- survival; heroism
- Tone and mood
- gripping
- Premise and plot tags
- based on true events; rescue operation
- Source material / true-story basis
- Tham Luang cave rescue
- Reception
- The film received generally positive reviews from critics.
- Reported review scores
- Rotten Tomatoes · score: 85% · scale: percentage · review count: 182; Rotten Tomatoes · score: 7.3 · scale: /10; Metacritic · score: 66 · scale: out of 100 · review count: 40
- Production trivia
- The original score was composed by Benjamin Wallfisch.; The film was originally scheduled for a fully theatrical release on April 15, 2022.
Film metadata comes from the open sources listed in Credits & Contact. Catalogue details may be incomplete.
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