So THAT’S How The Republic Was Founded
Three months ago I had a post planned where I would review The Founding of a Republic (建国大业), the Chinese film timed for the 60th anniversary of the most important day of the 20th century: the founding of Communist China. I was going to write a review extolling how the film portrayed the true greatness of Mao and the wickedness of the Guomindang, the Americans and the Japanese. It would show the hard working cooks and workers who made the glorious revolution possible. The joke of course was that I would write it a month before the film would be released without actually seeing it.
I got lazy and missed my chance. But now I’ve seen it (or at least the first two hours before we left the theater). Let’s go through the highlights:
- Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek shake hands in Chongqing to set up durable lasting peace for all. As a demonstration of goodwill Mao says that the Communists need to make a concession first to show they are serious. Chiang Kai-shek uses this as an opportunity to attack the Communists and destroy what would have been a long-lasting and wonderful friendship.
- Mao enjoys giving piggyback rides in flowery fields to small children. Jeepers, what a nice guy.
- When the Guomindang send in planes to kill Mao, he has just taken a sleeping pill–although it appears to be the middle of the day–so cooks and workers carry him out on a stretcher because he’s two groggy. This is something I find ironic because I had always heard stories about Mao getting carried for large portions of the Long March. Sleeping pills were not central to that theme.
- A cook meets Mao and is so excited that he develops the demeanor of Zhao Benshan. Mao generously gives him a cancer stick, which he puts behind his ear because he wants to cherish this cancer stick from the great leader for years. Mao of course then gives him the whole pack. Apparently propaganda films can’t have useful messages like “don’t smoke.” Needless to say, that cook is martyred within 10 minutes. He’s running back to get Mao’s food in the middle of a bombing raid because Mao hasn’t eaten yet (presumably sue to the fact that he was too busy taking afternoon sleeping pills). I’m not making this up.
- Every Chinese star you’ve ever heard of is in the film for 32 seconds with the Yao Ming on the Chinese national team look (”so if I do this I can continue my career afterward, right?) I know, I’m so cynical. I’m sure that Jackie Chan, who built his career in Hong Kong in the 1970s, when he would not have been able to pursue his career in the mainland, was really eager to glorify the Communist Party.
- I should point out that I missed the end of the film, so if anyone out there knows who ends up winning the war, please let me know. I’m really eager to find out. I’m also eager for the sequel: “The Destroying of the Republic: The pre-Opening and Reform Years.”
What I found most remarkable was how thinly-veiled the propaganda was. I’ve seen all those miserable Mao dramas on television, but this film had real production value. There’s a right way to do propaganda and a wrong way. When Dick Cheney commissioned FOX to air “24,” it was brilliant. Coming up with a GI Joe action figure so that kids understand the greatness of the military-industrial complex before puberty, again, brilliant. Having the man who sanctioned the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution frolic through the dandelions as he races around with an eight year-old girl on his back…ummm.
What exactly does this tell us? Well, normally most of us in China think of the country as a rapidly advancing place where nationalism can rear its ugly head when targeting monstrosities like CNN and France. But at the same time there is a tendency to believe that 1960s-style propaganda is too transparent for the modern Chinese population–at least those with reasonably good educations.
Perhaps most modern, middle-class Chinese thought The Founding of a Republic was as goofy and silly as I did. For all of its production value and big-name stars, it was just another clumsy step back for a genuinely emerging superpower.
Jerry Zhang responds:
Posted: December 6th, 2009 at 12:49 pm →
There are too much spin in your review after reading it and you mention too many things that weren’t even relevant to the film itself. You bring up the mistakes Mao made after PRC was founded, it would be propaganda if this film glorified the 60s – late 70s, but this film was strictly based on everything that happened before. Mao was truly revered and loved by the peasants and the intellectuals. How do you think Mao – a nobody could accomplish what he did and commanded the loyalty of so many highly educated people that gave up high posts in the KMT to work for him? How could Chiang Kai-shek and his KMT hand over the entire country to a bunch of lowly communists? Of course, CCP took direction for the worse in the 30years after, but again, this film was not about later time. So this film was not exaggerating at all like you so desperately try to convince everyone that it is.
I am sure you know what Chiang Kai-shek did to suppress the CCP after he took power. This film didn’t even mention too much about that. Also, CCP was the under dog both in man power and technology. Chiang Kai-shek had his chance at ChongQing conference when KMT was the top dog to secure a joint two party government with KMT as the majority. He thought he can just win the war and be a one party dictatorship and he went with it.
Lastly, I have a question for you. If you were the director, how would you have made this film showing how PRC was founded? You would have done the exact same thing as the film shown. Even in the film itself, Chiang Kai-shek said at the end; “KMT destroyed itself” not giving CCP too much credit. The facts were, CCP had the peoples’ support, they won the war in an overwhelmingly fashion, was relatively democratic, more democratic than Chiang Kai-shek’s KMT and its fixed presidential elections and all the dirty politics while the country was at war with itself.
I agree that there were scenarios such as the cook running back for the food was pretty stupid. Perhaps the film should have shown the wealthy and the powerful following Chiang Kai-shek to Taiwan to compare and contrast exactly which sectors favored who.
cai responds:
Posted: December 30th, 2009 at 4:52 pm →
He who can earn the love & respect of ~600M people (China’s population back in 1949) deserves to rule the nation.
steven responds:
Posted: February 1st, 2010 at 12:11 pm →
This is the worst film I have ever seen, If I had not seen some of these actors in other films, I would have told them not to quite their day jobs… it was like the actors were reading out of a Comic book, It was horrible… I want my 2 hours of wasted life back…