MovieChat Forums > Jian guo da ye (2009) Discussion > Appetizer for PRC's 60th birthday

Appetizer for PRC's 60th birthday

posted 15 years ago by zheng-qingq
6 replies | jump to latest

I went into this movie with no expectation. I knew it was made for the 60th birthday of the PRC. I knew the movie would depict events prior to the founding of the PRC, that it has a whole bunch of super mega stars (Chinese stars, that is. Most non-Chinese wouldn't recognize half of the cast.) But I didn't know what to expect of the movie.

12 hours after coming out of the theatre, I still don't know what I saw in there.

First of, if you are not already familiar with the history of China between 1938-1949, you are going to find the plot difficult to keep up. Because the movie does not introduce the background of nearly all of the characters. Many characters appear, say or do something, then disappear. So if you don't already know who the characters are, and what role they played in the Chinese history, you are gonna go 'what's that about?'.

Secondly, the editing is nearly terrible. Almost every scene is chopped and cut, and just jumps from one scene to another. Which makes the movie seem like a collection of bits and pieces, like a montage fest.

Thirdly, the super star cameos. There are some cameo appearance which were absolutely unnecessary. I mean like, really really really no need to be there. These scenes were there purely as a show-of for the movie production companies. The movie is not helped but damaged but these star appearances, because the audience just go 'that's who and who!'. Forget the movie, this is star spotting time! Ugh.

What a pity, the movie has such potential to be great.

[–] cunningham-5 15 years ago

I went to the theatre in Beijing in great anticipation. I had seen some of the same actors in the made for television series about Yenan and wanted to see this epic. I was not disappointed but as zheng-qingq rightly points out you must have a good knowledge of the events or you will be lost. You will recognize the party heroes immediately but if you do not you may find this hard to understand. The characters were wonderful but I wish Zhu De had gotten more time. The scenes did jump around but I did like to see the characters come to life. The movie indeed could have been better but it still was a visual feast.

There was one thing that was rather odd. The Mao as democrat theme was a bit overplayed. Mao is morphed into whatever the present generation wants him to be. The humanization of Mao, going on for some time on television and in the cinema, seems complete with this movie. The humanization of Chiang was interesting and I see a sub-text of appeasing some on Taiwan.

[–] Lexx-2 15 years ago

I'm from Melbourne, Australia and I saw the film yesterday with two friends. We honestly went in expecting a laughable propaganga documentary (flyers advertising the film were in such poor English that they made it sound like a doco, and not a narrative film), and what we got was a crushingly tedious bore. While the dialogue was subtitled, the bits of Chinese text introducing each character weren't, meaning we often had no idea what the significance of each person was. Also, the film made absolutely no concession to international audiences that mightn't be familiar with the background of the events, which was very alienating.

But worst of all was the storytelling, which kept concentrating on the committee elements of the events, rather than depicting actions. This was exemplified by the text revealing one character to be a KMT spy who was later executed. It would have been far more dramatically interesting for that to have been shown, and not thrown away in text like that.

We still got a chuckle from the hilariously beatific portrayal of Mao, not to mention the absolutely laughable performance from the "American" ambassador (played by an Australian, with no attempt at a yank accent). The star cameos were totally unnessecary, except from a propaganda standpoint, especially Zhang Zhyi's cameo as the girl who tells Mao how "excited" the new flag makes her.

Anyway, this failed to work as either cinema OR propaganda. It was simply too damn slow and boring.

"Oh, I did my thesis on life experience." - Anonymous Harvard Guy, The Simpsons.

[–] zheng-qingq 15 years ago

Whoa, this movie was/is actually shown in Melbourne? Where at? Jam Factory? No, wait, is John So still Mayor there? Hmm...

Anyways, the film is clearly not meant for international audience.

[–] Lexx-2 15 years ago

I saw it at Chadstone, and it's also on at Melbourne Central, so I assume its exclusive to Hoyts.

"Oh, I did my thesis on life experience." - Anonymous Harvard Guy, The Simpsons.

[–] Paul63 13 years ago

Re: Chiang Kai-Shek - the PRC government actually doesn't give a damn about Taiwanese sensibilities: never has done. Indeed, the KMT otherwise come out of the film badly. But there is in China an increasing interest in and rehabilitation of Chiang Kai-Shek, who is now to be seen as a great patriot, if mistaken in some of his views, and otherwise fully paid up to the ideology of "one China" (a point tellingly emphasised in a key scene in the film, actually). This is as oppose, say, to those in Xinjiang, Tibet and Taiwan who wish to "break up" China.

[–] wxw_88 14 years ago

No offense but what did you expect from what is essentially a glorified CCP history propaganda film. Nevermind the bad directions and editing.

The only reason most of the Chinese and HK superstars even signed up for it was to curry favours with the CCP for future projects and such - "Hey look I love my country and the CCP so much that I'd show up in a 5 second cameo for free".
I understand them though, any stars that weren't overly enthusiatic to join would've been under suspicion pretty fast ("are you not patriotic, do you question the CCP's history?" etc)

If you wanna see an unbiased and realistic history film/tv series regarding KMT and the CCP, plenty of better media out there (ZouXiangGongHe and Blue Kite comes to mind).

Sorry to the rest of the westerners who tuned in thinking it might've been another jackie chan or jet li action/comedy film. Even I still can't believe John Woo signed up.