'Dunkirk' movie trailer shows desperate World War Two rescue

[December 15, 2016]    (Reuters) - One Direction boy band member Harry Styles makes his feature film debut in "Dunkirk," an action movie about the World War Two battle in which British, French and Belgian soldiers were trapped on French beaches by German forces.

The first trailer for the summer 2017 movie was released on Wednesday, featuring Styles, 22, as a soldier fighting for his life. The British cast also includes Tom Hardy ("The Revenant"), Mark Rylance ("Bridge of Spies") and Kenneth Branagh ("Wallander").

Christopher Nolan directs the movie, which recreates Operation Dynamo, in which some 338,000 soldiers were rescued between May 27 and June 3, 1940, by warships and a flotilla of pleasure boats and other small craft.

Described as a "miracle of deliverance" at the time by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the 1940 evacuation was considered one of several key events that determined the outcome of World War Two.

"Dunkirk" is due to open in movie theaters on July 21, 2017.

(Reporting by Reuters Television; Editing by Leslie Adler)

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