Major TV series reveals courage at sea

Ding Haifeng [Photo provided to China Daily]

She also spoke about their dedication to the job.

"Most of the rescuers are veteran divers or helicopter pilots. They can easily find higher-paid jobs but most continue to do this work," Li says.

But the heroes of China Rescue and Salvage are less known to the public although the unit was founded in 1951.

"Over the past six decades, the unit has rescued 74,547 people, saved 5,028 ships from sinking and salvaged 1,775 wrecked ships. The cargo they have retrieved from the sunken ships over the past five years is worth nearly 30 billion yuan ($4.5 billion)," said Zhu Jialin, chairman of China Communications Press Co Ltd, the series' major financer, during a promotional event in Beijing on Sunday.

"Most inland residents may not even know the existence of such a unit. We hope the TV series will increase people's knowledge."

With a budget of 170 million yuan, the series has more than 400 special-effects scenes, some of which were created by professionals from the United States.

Six veteran scriptwriters, with expertise in different aspects－from characters and suspense to action scenarios－were dispatched by the financers to the unit's bases scattered along China's coastline of 18,000 kilometers.

"When I decided to shoot the TV series, many thought it was an impossible mission. From the directors to the scriptwriters, they all said it was the first time they had heard about the unit. So we sent them to the bases," says Li, who started the project in 2012.