Jeri Jacquin

Coming to On Demand from director Simon West and Screen Media comes a look at disaster coming from below shooting out into SKYFIRE.

As a young girl on the beautiful island of Tianhuo, Xiao Meng would see it all crumble before her eyes as the volcano wipes out everything. Now, years later, Xiao Meng (Hannah Quinlivan) is back on Tianhuo doing research and surveillance on the volcano that took her mother.

What stands now is an island resort for people to come see a live volcano. Making plans to expand is Jack Harris (Jason Isaacs), up to his eyeballs in debt and needs the investors who have come to see the resort. Xiao Meng tries to have a conversation with Harris to let him know she has a bad feeling about the readings from the volcano.

Someone else who has a bad feeling is Wentao Li (Wang Xueqi), Xiao Meng’s father who she has a tenuous relationship with. She is even more irritated when fellow researcher Bo Teng (Lingchen Ji) lets her know that Wentao Li has arrived and almost immediately, both Xiao Meng and Wentao Li are being proven right.

What happened before is about to happen again!

Quinlivan as Xiao Meng is a young woman who has a history with the island, and it is not a pleasant one. Trying to make sure that the resort now on the island is safe, people see her as an alarmist instead of someone who not only knows what is possible but has created a model that ensures she is right. The only one who does not think she is overreacting is the person she does not want to talk to! Quinlivan gives her character strength, intelligence and daddy issues, but it does not stop her from doing what is right. 

Xueqi as Wentao Li is a father who has made many mistakes based on his own emotions about the island. When he sees his daughter has returned to the place of their nightmares, he just wants to get her away. That is hard to do when Xiao Meng has made up her mind and is just as stubborn as he is. Xueqi finally gets it and instead of questioning her actions, he makes sure that he is there every lava filled step of the way.

Isaacs as Harris is the resort builder who thinks he knows better than science and brings more and more people to a dangerous place. He sees money instead of seeing the danger and lets everyone around him know that he is the final word. That is until mother nature decides he is just a little too arrogant for his own good. Nothing like a lesson from something you can’t buy!

Other cast include Bee Rogers as Young Xiao Meng, Shawn Dou as Zhengnan, An Bai as Jiahui Dong, Liang Shi as Professor Jiang, Tongjiang Hou as Grandpa, Yiqing Li as Shanshan and Alice Rietveld as Sue Miller.

Screen Media is an international distributor of television series and films, licensing content through theatrical, home video, pay-per-view, free, cable and pay television, and subscription and advertising video-on-demand platforms.  In 2017 Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, Inc. acquired Screen Media which is in its 23rd year as a leading global independent distribution company. With one of the largest independently-owned libraries of filmed entertainment in the world and license agreements across all forms of media, Screen Media’s distribution capability enables direct distribution of all rights in all countries, thus enhancing the profitability of Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment productions. The company is continually looking to add films and television series to its content library.

SKYFIRE is a disaster movie just like I like them. Fast paced, a little romance, family issues, research deniers, the arrogant rich, and mother nature saying ‘here, hold my beer’. From the first screen to the last there are jumps, turns, drones and a few smart people who figure out how to get around a few streams of lava.

With a mixture of English and Mandarin, the flow is smooth, and the results are disaster with warm fuzzies for the surviving carbon-based units. The actions is very cool and the special effects are almost seamless which lets the viewer go on a thrill ride knowing one things said in the film by Isaacs character – that we love to go into places that are dangerous because part of us knows we are safe.

In the end – it can happen twice on the same island!

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