The film is loosely based on the evacuation of foreign nationals and almost 600 Chinese citizens from Yemen's southern port of Aden during late March in 2015 Yemeni Civil War.

[5] It serves as the highlight film presented to audiences as a gift for the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, as well as the party's 19th National Congress.

They immediately deploy the 8-person Jiaolong Assault Team of the Marine Corps as their forward unit to try to slow the progress of the pirates until the heavily armed naval vessels can arrive on the scene.

Using the assistance of a forward helicopter and a sniper dispatched as part of the assault team, they make significant progress to neutralize the situation and manage to eliminate all the Somali pirates onboard while awaiting the main Chinese fleet on duty in the Red Sea.

During the operations, the pirate leader attempts to escape, and though eventually he was captured, their primary sniper receives a crippling spinal injury from gunfire during the pursuit and must be replaced.

Jiaolong and the journalist track down the hostage (first priority of the mission) to a terrorist stronghold with 150 militants, the local leader Sayyid, and armed with mechanized artillery and tanks.

[10][11] Elliot Leung composed the score to Operation Red Sea, and a digital album consisting of 22 tracks was released two weeks prior to the Chinese premiere on 2 February.

[12] Over the years, the music of Operation Red Sea has grown in popularity and has seen placements in various TV shows (most notably Guarding Our City) and concert suite performances by various orchestras.

Distributor Well Go USA touted its launch, which outranked preceding weekend’s Detective Chinatown 2 when comparing straight averages, though that film played 115 runs in its debut.