I have never watched anything about mountain climbing before watching this. So I really went into it with absolutely no idea what was going to happen other than the hint from the title. I only watched this because I binge long video essays on YouTube in my spare time and this popped up. To my surprise it was actually a documentary.
As far as documentaries go this is decent. There is no conspiracy theory being pushed and the narrative is mostly about the events that occur and paying respect to the unfortunate souls who were lost on the mountain during this expedition. They obviously skewed the story to revolve around the people who they could interview but not in an entirely disrespectful way. You just don't get a lot of focus on the Koreans or Sherpas, and it feels like part of the story is left untold.
Speaking of which, I have almost no idea about mountain climbing after watching this. I learned that K2 is the deadliest mountain on Earth but aside from that not much else. They did not explain why it is different from other mountains or how mountain climbing actually works. I'm guessing this is a documentary made for people with prior knowledge but that isn't really a deal breaker for me.
What was really awkward was the timeline this film opted for. It starts with the climb up the summit before going backwards in time to the weeks leading up to the climb and just carrying on from there. Why start from somewhere without any real reason to? It wasn't a flashback or anything it was literally just a restart of the story. Why?
Another why that went through my mind was why did these people do this. And the answer is mostly because white people are crazy. Apparently from my hour of slight research after watching this, most people that climb these mountains and enter the danger zone are white people with too much time on their hands, and Sherpas who make a living off keeping foreigners alive on the mountains. It is really disgusting and this documentary shows why. Personal challenges are good and all but when they endanger the lives of other people is when they get sinister.
It is surreal to know that two people died and they still continued to climb to the top. Then they took pictures smiling. There is something going on with the brains of these people.