Le Sauvetage de l'impossible

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.

As a show, I'd give it an 8, but I watched "The Rescue" on NatGeo before this and that is a documentary of what happened, told mostly from the perspective of the cave divers who did the actual rescue. Because I know what I know, I had to knock this one down. Some say we finally get to see from the kids' and coach perspective (and in other versions of this story, we legally could not as one of the parents started a trust fund to protect the kids from Hollywood vultures), but considering the inaccuracies, I don't know that we really do. **UPDATE** after watching this one, i watched "The Trapped 13" which is also on NetFlix. It is a documentary that includes the kids and the coach and others.***

You'd expect some dramatization and changing of facts, but some of this changes the story tooo much, especially when I read that Jon Chu wanted to "tell the real story" of what happened. Most notably, the cave divers "accidentally" found and rescued 4 stranded pump workers nobody knew were in the caves before finding the kids. When those 4 grown men panicked and flailed and made it difficult to be saved in a shorter stretch of a swim, it had a huge influence decision on why the main/first cave diver thought they might have to sedate the kids. And in the last id that got rescued, the merged 3 different events to make it more dramatic and changed some things around.

I also thought they did a bad job of representing the first/main/lead cave diver and made him more arrogant than he actually is. In fact, I'd say it would be better represented if they swapped both the actors and the demeanors of the guy who played the first cave diver and the guy who mapped a lot of those caves.

And RIP to those who lost their lives. Thai Navy SEAL Saman Gunan died in the rescue attempt after coming out of retirement to help. And lesser known is Beirut Pakbara who died a year and a half after the rescue, due to an infection he got in the caves. There were 5000+ heroes who helped in the rescue and you men also gave all you had. And also RIP to "Beam" Papangkorn Lerkchaleampote who died 6 months before the series got released.

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.

I have watched 13 lives and this one. They are both great in different ways. You don't have to choose between them. Just watch them both and decide for yourself. In 13 lives I wanted to see more from inside the cave. Thai Cave Rescue delievers that. It also offers a wider perspective of all that was done to try and help the boys. Thats why I don't think you should compare it to 13 lives. 13 lives might be more accurate, but also a bit compressed. Think of Thai Cave Rescue as additional to the story.

This series gave me some hope for mankind during these dark times. But I am also sad the actor playing Coach Eak died in march 2022. RIP.