May 1960. Mount Everest, the second step under the cliff. The four members of the China Everest Climbing Commando are attacking the most difficult and most difficult "second step". This is their fifth assault. The first four failures have cost them too much physical strength - finally, the wind and snow stop the gap.
I have watched a lot of accounts and dramatizations of mountaineering expeditions, but this is the oddest one I have seen. I guess it is because this film tries to be more than one genre. It is part thriller, part documentary of Chinese Himalayan history, part romance and some propaganda thrown in for good measure. Too much of everything at different times, it seemed to me.
The thriller part was like a Hollywood movie, with more last second rescues and literal cliffhangers than any climber might experience in a lifetime, and some of them so dramatic I expected to see a superhero cape flapping in the howling winds.
Likewise the romance angle seemed overplayed at times, descending into melodrama. Romantic happiness seemed harder to achieve than summitting Everest itself.
I watched it to the end, however, hanging on because the special effects seemed good to me, if a little disjointed, plus I could appreciate the restrictions the Chinese director was under in mailing this national celebration of a movie.