'Propaganda film'?????

Because it portrayed the West in a less-than positive light. HOW DARE THOSE COMMIES lol

Although the issue may be forgotten here in the West, in China it still rankles... or at least, THEIR view (i.e., the official party line) of what happened still rankles, and created a minor diplomatic row when Chris Patten (Governor of Hong Kong) flatly contradicted the Chinese account of the story.
Imperial China was an absolute monarchy, in which almost nothing was allowed to change - kind of like Medieval Europe. The puzzle is that Marxist theory (supposedly the foundation of the Chinese government's viewpoint?!) proposes the idea that societies MUST change. Feudalism, then mercantilism, then capitalism, then socialism... then communism. The Chinese Emperors however were opposed to the idea of transition, and were VERY happy with Feudalism - the system that placed THEM at the top of the pile. They imposed an heirarchical social structure in which merchants (destined by Marxist theory to inevitably take over from the old aristocracy) were firmly at the BOTTOM of the pile, and were going to STAY there. As English monarchs had discovered in the 14th century however... society evolves, and you can't stop it evolving. Feudalism is a social state in which merchants are INEVITABLY going to become more powerful.

Along came the west, and wanted - in fact DEMANDED - trade with China. But China lacked the infrastructure for trading. They had the world monopoly of silk and tea... and the Emperor insisted that ONLY he could sell it, and he wanted payment in pure silver. British merchants found a loophole in the trading system being imposed by the Emperor. They could sail to India, and buy opium (for which there was already a huge demand in China) sail to some Chinese backwater, and sell the opium to Chinese traders for silver... then sail down the coat to an "official port" and swap the silver (which they'd just loaded!) for tea and silk. The emperor's objection, when he finally worked out what was going on, was not to the import of Opium... but the threat to the social stability which underpinned his powerbase. Foreigners were working with TRADERS to change things, and traders could NOT be permitted to grow in power or influence! Weren't the wicked British just doing deal with DRUG DEALERS? Sure they were... but remember, "Drug Dealing" was a perfectly respectable activity until the first quarter of the 20th century. The line taken by the 21st century Chinese Communist government seems to make little or no sense. Clearly, there was ALREADY a massive demand for opium in China. The Westerners didn't CREATE it. The reason why the Westerners supplied the stuff was largely because of the Emperor's attempt to totally control the terms of trade: He, and ONLY he, could sell Chinese products, He was only going to sell a very limited range (tea and silk) and the ONLY payment he would accept was silver bullion. By the mid 1800's only Germany and Russia accepted the idea of a ruler with "absolute power". The Brits, the French and the Americans had already fought revolutions in their own countries to bring an end to such government. No surprise then that they found ways to circumvent its commands.

I hated this movie partly 'cos it wasn't very accurate in its' depiction of how all the sides behaved. Both the Chinese and Europeans(including British) were just as arrogant, cruel and callous with one another. They felt extremely self-entitled to their own behaviours, no matter how outrageous it might have turned out to be. However, only one side's behaviour was depicted in this movie: China had effectively stagnated itself with its reliance on neo-Confucianism for over 1000 years but they just had to portray China as a society fairly free from problems, eh.

Both sides treated their females just as poorly at times: for the Chinese females, it was the foot-binding that crippled them to their beds and all those other social norms that stagnated China's growth as a more humane society. For the British females, well, weren't they essentially properties of their husbands or fathers? I'm not sure how the treatment of British females came to be but it wasn't that great either. =P

Both the Chinese and the British thought they were equally entitled to whatever they were fighting over: territory, this and that, etc. Basically it was a giant pissing contest and well, as with most conflict or wars, people often get hurt or die in it. You also have to recall that this was still part of the time when both Europe and China still had a load of pride leftover from the times when: Europe thought they ruled the top of the world while China believed the world revolved around it. I can't recall the historical details but I think it'd something to do with the collapse of all those empires and stuff. And their egos were massively hurt.

And repeatedly, in this movie, China is portrayed as the poor maiden who has been corrupted and despoiled by an evil witch. In truth? All complex issues rarely stem from a single source but from multiple areas. And often for problems in history, it is a long chain of consequences that occur over a few hundred to over a thousand years.

So, yes this is essentially propaganda. Also recall that at the time this movie was released in China, there were still a ton of problems in that country(I'm not going into this). Essentially, this movie likely served as a useful tool for the troubled young + older generations to believe in, and to focus their hatred on an enemy of the past.

K well, back to The Vampire Diaries and Supernatural. =)