Customer Reviews

The Passion of the Mao

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Part mockumentary but motivated by true events - this liberal, stream of consciousness telling of Mao's life is hilarious...and would be frowned on by billions of Chinese. Worth watching - especially for Chinese history buffs. Sprinkled with animation - this is Mao as you've never seen him.

An excellent documentary. The director brings a tremendous amount of rich primary source material to the screen with an original and entertaining perspective, uncovering the relationship between Mao's political and policy acheivements with Mao's colorful life story, marked by some of his comedically bizarre traits.

Mao was an evil dictator who destroyed his country and killed tens of millions of people. This movie says Mao was a good man, but he ranks with Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and Amin as the most evil man in the 20th century! This movie was horrible.

Some of my students LOVED this madcap documentary which is partially hokey mockumentary, partially serious and a tiny bit academic. It is the perfect introduction to one of the most controversial figures in world history. Is Mao a savior that should be deified or an evil tyrant? The film reexamines the Cultural Revolution, corrects misconceptions about Mao and explains WHY he is viewed as both a hero and a villain using funny little cartoon clips (imagine rather drab Mad-Libs-style cartoons) that depict interesting and shocking (and sometimes vulgar) little tidbits about Mao's life as well as old footage from some Russian archives. Made by a teacher who has spent years teaching about Mao in his classroom making him an expert at telling Mao's story cleverly highlighting aspects young students will find especially fascinating, weird, funny, incredible or confusing.

Strangely entertaining (and for some hilariously funny)for a documentary about what is normally such a serious heavy subject, it gives historical background that is especially important for students in western countries to learn as it dispels popular misinformation prevalent in mainstream, ill-informed, media-fed views of this period in Chinese history. Although it is not dangerous to debase Mao in the west as it is in China, many or most students and adults have jumped on the bandwagon of talking about the evils of the Chinese system and have already put Mao in the villain class with the worst historical figures. This film does not argue against the judgement of Mao as a villain, but it does a decent job of helping the viewer to understand just how Mao became the beloved hero he (mostly) still is in China. Some statistics mentioned, such as the phenomenal rise in literacy rates of rural China under Mao's leadership. will be shocking to the uninformed viewer. These facts, rarely mentioned in the west are essential to understanding why Mao was worshipped like a god during one of the most complex and bizarre periods of human history. An understanding of why Mao was loved so much and why some Chinese are reluctant to face up to the horrible mistakes of the past and lay blame on their hero is essential to understanding China today.

The best thing about the film is its accessible and entertaining presentation style that is easy enough to follow for students as young as 5th grade. The narrator, Aaron Freeman, uses a quirky sonorous voice that takes nothing seriously and adds to the kooky, satiric quality of the film which is especially fitting when he reads some of Mao's crazy quotes that contain obscenities.

I highly recommend this film for any class focusing on China, although not every viewer will find it entertaining or funny depending on their sense of humor, this is an extremely MEMORABLE film for anyone that will shed much needed light on this historical figure who was/is SO important to one fourth of the world's population.