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DVD Jian dang wei ye
 Run time: 140 min Rating: 2.3 Genres: Drama | History Director: Sanping Han, Jianxin Huang Writers: Zhe Dong, Jung Li Guong Stars: Bingbing Fan, Yun-Fat Chow, John Woo |
| Storyline A chronicle of the events that led to the founding of the Chinese Communist Party. |
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| Details: Country: China Release Date: 15 June 2011 (China) |
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Background: what I am talking about here is not the movie story background, as this movie has no story at all anyway. I am talking about the background behind showing this movie in Chinese cinema. All schools and companies are forcing their students and employees to watch this awful movie, no matter u like it or not, thats the direct order from "the party". so end up 90% of the audiences fell asleep in cinema which including me of course. what ridiculous is "the party" is not allowing "transformer 3" on show unless this movie's box office reach $xxxxx. w-t-f! just like the movie said, is that the party that loved by their people? I don't think so.
story: no storyline at all. I understand its all about history, but is that "history" real?? Humm…
actors: awful, worst chairman Mao ever.
overall:really awful, I would rate minus10 if there is an option.
OK, so here we have Beginning of the Great Revival. When I hear the word revival thus used, I think of religious shows in tents, but here it refers to the revival of China in the 20th Century. The significance of the "beginning" is, of course, that China owes its rapid and grand rise economically to the Communist Party, whose beginnings the story relates. The early parts of the film begin with the fracturing and collapse of the Qing Dynasty in China, then of course the brief time of Yuan Shikai, played by Chou Yun-fat as we know him in the West. Quickly we see the developing power of the corrupt Nationalist Party, and then a good part of the film is devoted to the young Mao Zedong. Mao appears to be a man who had the misfortune of being born with a receding hairline, with hair that naturally parts in the middle of his head. Joking aside, Mao is portrayed as an earnest and amiable young student who, after a very brief stint at Beijing University, returns to his home province of Hunan to help found the Chinese Communist Party. We meet his first wife, see their budding romance (no kissing), and see them go off to lead a life that was happy until Mao spotted his next love (not shown in film), and then the next, and the next…
If this all sounds like boring history stuff, that's because it's what most of this film is. There are no real surprises. We get a communist party view of historic events, complete with footage from Sergei Eisenstein's dramatization of the Bolshevik coup d'etat in Russia that was never quite the revolution depicted in Eisenstein's film. Much of the Beginning of the Great Revival seems to be an endless series of speeches–much loved by communist party leaders–some dramatic, some affected, mostly dull, interspersed with a few dramatic scenes of combat or mass demonstrations. To be honest, I forced myself to watch this film to the end, and once was more than enough.
As quoted by a professor in China, "It is an era of irony. You are encouraged to sing songs of revolution, but you are discouraged to make revolution. You are encouraged to see a film of founding a party (Beginning of the Great Revival), but you are discouraged to really found a new party." Another quote from China netizen, "It is a film about a group of people fighting dictatorship, and finally became the ones they originally fought against." Facts are somewhat filtered and neglected from the film. If talking about May 4th movement, why the two main thoughts are omitted. The thoughts of democracy and science are main theme too. Why is this neglected? Why does the film selectively depict the May 4th movement with students just like Red Guard in Cultural Revolution – breaking into people home to catch and burning house. There are actually protest and strikes, and the protest started right from Tiananmen square. Why the most important scene is omitted? Why were open debate allowed in Beijing University's library at that time? What would happen if protest and open debate today? One of the two China communist party founding leaders is Chen Du-xiu. Ironically, he left the party later and refused any help from the communist party. He turned to liberalism instead.
This movie is one of most terrible movies I've ever seen. By fragmentary story line, distorted historical facts, you can not learn what happened in China in early 1900s, and also can not know why the Communist Party was founded in China at that time. But this is not the point. The point is faking how great the Communist Party is. And it's regarded as a gift to celebrate the 90 anniversary of CCP.
So it's not a drama, not a comedy, and of course not a documentary. Maybe you can see it as a show, full of Chinese stars. But it's not worth 2 hours time
The Communist Party of China has existed for over 90 years, and has dominated China more than 60 years which is a great tragedy for our Chinese people. We loathe it very much, and we will eventually destroy it!!!