Customer Reviews

The Founding of a Republic (Jian guo da ye)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

As far as the actual movie goes - it's really good, I quite enjoyed it. It was surprisingly accurate for a movie funded by the PRC. I really enjoyed how Chiang Kai-Shek was portrayed as an actual human being who thought he was doing the best thing for his country, not the soulless beast of a cardboard cut out I expected.
But the point of this review is to WARN you all that this is not an NTSC DVD - in other words, it will not play on the vast majority of North American DVD or Blu-Ray players even if it is region free/all regions. Beware of this!

Beware! This film has been misleadingly re-packaged and re-marketed in 2010 with the faces of three big kung fu stars on the cover BUT this is NOT a martial arts film! It is a self-indulgent Chinese propaganda film that is slow, boring and long-winded. Even though the new dvd cover states 'starring Jet Li, Jackie Chan and Donnie Yeung' these actors get bit parts for a matter of a few seconds - Jackie Chan takes some finding as a bespectacled Journalist with a moustache. If you are looking for a 'House of the Flying Daggers' type kung fu movie, then save your money! If you want a Chinese history lesson, then also save your money and buy something that is not so tedious and innacurate historically.

This is clearly government propoganda -- but everything produced in China is government-approved. In general, it is moderately accurate history -- but with a sugar coating for Mao. Actually, I think we could rate this the same way most Chinese rate Mao: kind of a 60-40 split between horrific and brilliant. Consider the history of the first half of the twentieth century in China, and you see horrendous chaos -- war, starvation, corruption, you name it. The single thing Mao did was bring stability and an end to chaos. He was a brilliant military commander who managed to lead everything from small guerilla units to a major million man army by 1948. He was a genius at politics, and is said to have been remarkably personable one-on-one. And he was a disaster at leading a country -- had not a clue how to do so. And his notion of permanent revolution was downright criminal.
It is interesting to ask what the inner belief is in each country or culture. In the United States it is that the individual is capable of great things and must stand on his or her own feet to survive -- some version of the rugged indiviualist. In China, I believe that the inner belief is that "without a strong central authority there will be chaos and hell." It is interesting to ask how the Chinese can balance capitalism with that inner belief. The Party keeps getting in the way -- and my observation when traveling in China is that individual initiative -- any thinking outside the box -- is not really encouraged or developed.
It is a fun move for an overview of the history of 1945-1949. Just take it with a grain of salt -- it is specifically for their 60th anniversary in 2009. Maybe something better will come out for the 90th anniversary.
My major complaint is that this issue of the movie is in black and white, and the original is in color. Pity. The subtitles, if you turn them on, are better than those of the original movie which had Chinese and English -- and the English was so small it was hard to see.

Even though this film was produced and created by the P.R. China in celebration of the 60th Anniversity of P.R. China, it is not a completely propaganda product as one would expect. The film fairly treats both sides of the conflict (i.e. the
Communists and the Nationalists). It is an epic with a large cast, many of the actors and actresses are unknown to Western audiences. However, there are some interesting surprises with those who are familiar to Western audiences. Jackie Chang, with a moustache and glasses, portraying a newspaper reporter. Ziyi Zhang as
a Communist cultural representative. Jet Li as a Nationalist admiral. This film is a must for high school and college courses in History and the 20th Century. It does provide a very good background of the emergence of the P.R. China as a global "Superpower" today.

this movie gives valuable historical knowledge on the chinese history during world war era 1940s. all hongkong super stars are in it. Highly recommended to view it.

Interesting perspective for an American to see in this year of the 60th anniversary of China's present government.

I couldn't even stand to watch the last half hour (it just got too syrupy and sugary sweet as Mao ascended his throne). This is modern day communist propaganda to the hilt - with every recognizable Chinese actor and actress making at least a cameo appearance (reminded me of all the US stars getting together for the song "We are the World" - except that was for a worthy cause). It actually started to sicken me toward the end. Mao, the greatest butcher of the 20th century, responsible for the deaths of three times as many human beings as Hitler, comes off smelling like a rose. He is even pictured in a loving scene playing in a flowery meadow with one of his children - of course any historian knows how brutally he treated and neglected his offspring. If the producers had "dared" to show ANY negative side of Mao, there might have been some hope, but in this movie everyone who opposed Mao is a villain. Insulting to the max for anyone who has a grasp of the historical data. I guess the Chinese are no better than Hollywood at getting the facts straight.