Almost as engaging as the first movie. The action is as good, if not better than the previous movie. The characters that the audience knows and loves from the previous movie return.

This time, however, they won't stay, so to speak. That is also why for me personally this movie was less enjoyable than the previous one. The previous one ended on a more optimistic note, which is rare in Chinese entertainment (especially Chinese war movies),so I enjoyed that divergence immensely, but this movie is threading the well-known path towards the bittersweet ending. It's still good, but more by the books.

This movie and its prequel, both are for the purpose to inspire the Chinese patriotism for the 1.4 billion subjects under the tight control of the CCP regime. The Chinese Communist Party has found their reign over its people has dwindled by several foreign influences: 1) The internet. All the lies, all the rewritten historical facts by them are exposed on the internet. They are losing control over their once obedient slave-like citizens. The internet has bad influence that endangered the stability of its once tamed subjects who begin to open their eyes and can think by themselves more freely.

2) The overlooked impact to allow their once brainwashed people to travel abroad. The open-gate policy allowing the Chinese people witnessed the democratic systems, the freedom of speech, freedom to think logically.

3) The influences by joined the WTO. Trading with the free world, not just with goods, but also thoughts.

There are more reasons to alarm the CCP to take emergent measures to retract and refrain its subjects back to the iron cage to be re-brainwashed and re-educated with their lies. How? The easiest and most effective method is through media propaganda, i.e., the movie industry.

Thus came with the new wave of patriotic movie productions one after another. To make their people re-ignite their blind, blood-boiled patriotism and the hatred to all the democratic countries, especially the United States and Japan. "The Battle at Lake ChangJin (2021)" and its sequel, "Water Gate Bridge (2022) movies were churned out with several other supporting ones, such as "Snipers (2021)", "My Country, My Parents (2021)", "My People, My Homeland (2020)", "The Sacrifice (2020)", "The Eight Hundred (2020)", "Hi, Mom (2021)" and so on. All of these movies are produced with one goal: To rekindle the dying and waning patriotism and loyalty to CCP and stabilize the infrastructure of Communist China. All of the above listed movies were enjoy fantastic success in box office. Record tickets selling were kept breaking, simply in China. Patriotism is always a good sale in China and only in China. High 5 to CCP, you did it and did it again, and again. Long live the CCP, long live the Communism in Chinese Style!

This war movie bounces between action scenes and emotional scenes. Much like other movies in the ww2 era, guns, grenades, bloods, and tears.

It might sound dull for an artwork. However, for front line soldiers in a war, the battleground might not be much different. Fight, mourn, fight more, mourn more, ... If this movie manages to show that two hours of that is already kind of boring, how about two weeks, two months, two years, or two decades in real life and in fear?

Disclosure: I am a pacifist who has spent an equal amount of adult life in both of the throat-cutting states in this movie.