The cast of The Bravest attend a press conference in Beijing on Thursday. Photo: IC

 "We may easily forget them so we need to remember them with film."

Adapted from the true story detailed in Inner Mongolian writer Bao'erji Yuanye's book Zuishen De Shui Shi Leishui (Tears Are the Deepest Water), firefighter film The Bravest will hit Chinese mainland theaters on August 1, the film's producers announced at a media conference held in Beijing on Thursday. 

Bao'erji book collects the reports he wrote about a huge fire that broke out in Dalian, Liaoning Province, on July 16, 2010. 

Started from an oil leak, the huge fire took more than 2,000 firefighters an entire night to extinguish. Fortunately, no one was injured or killed in the fire. 

The director Chen Guohui, original writer Bao'erji and members of the cast such as Huang Xiaoming, Du Jiang and Yang Zi attended the conference.

A trailer for the film was also released at the event. It shows the fire quickly spreading throughout factories after an explosion causes oil tanks to leak. As the city falls into chaos, firefighters head to the frontlines to extinguish this threat and protect the city and its residents. 

At the event, Bao'erji  recalled his memories of the fire in 2010. 

"Flames 10 meters high burst forth from a 60,000-square-meter oil refinery, water from the sea quickly turned to steam as it touched the fire," said Bao'erji. 

Over two months, the writer interviewed firefighters who were on the scene and was incredibly impressed by their heroics. 

"I always thought that we couldn't  make a film like this because I thought the fire would be too difficult to realize on film," said Bao'erji. 

"But they finally succeeded, and I think it will be a great movie."  

Chen, who has directed films Love in Space and Bride Wars, explained that shooting the film was a "mission impossible." They built a 1:1 set modeled on the harbor and refinery where the fire started and all the actors had to shoot their scenes among the first without stunt doubles. 

Liu Weiqiang, one of the film's producers, joked that he had to trick the actors to head into the "fire." 

"To make this film perfect, to show the greatness of the firefighters, we needed to light a real fire," said Guo. 

"Huang Xiaoming had to jump into a sea of fire, Du Jiang was trapped in a fire until the oxygen ran out... everyone risked their life while shooting." 

According to the film's studio Bona Film Group, this is the first outing in its "China's Pride Trilogy," which the studio is making to mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1. 

The next two films in the trilogy are Chairman Mao 1949 and The Chinese Pilot.