"Assembly, Chinese war movie" Topic

I found this on Youtube. The complete 2007 movie is there. You can get English sub-titles by pressing the CC button. It starts with an intense battle scene set in the Chinese Civil war. The battle scenes are pretty much up to current standards with hand-held cameras, flashing tracers and ghastly wounds.

It's about a Communist Chinese soldier. Not bad. It is a peasant army. After the political officer is killed, there's only one soldier in the company who can read and write. The combat does go on into Korea, with one short combat sequence against US troops. The later part of the movie concerns the post-war efforts by this soldier to find his missing comrades.

Link?

Interesting premise. According to Jean Kirkpatrick (yes, the later UN ambassador) Mass Behavior in Battle and Captivity, a study she made of Chinese PWs taken during the Korean War, the Chinese armies committed to the Korean peninsula comprised mainly former *Nationalist* soldiers who had surrendered and submitted to re-education at the end of the Civil War.

These men were sent to Korea to prove their revolutionary fervor and because they were expendable. Ms. Kirkpatrick's book contains a number of accounts of the cognitive dissonance these men suffered, having been brain-washed that their own experiences as soldiers fighting the Japanese never happened (The Nationalists never fought! Only the Communists!). Some were deprogrammed in the PW camps. Others clung to their re-education, since that was the only way they could ever go home.

In spite of its dry title, Mass Behavior is a bizarre and surreal book. It made an impression on me, and I recommend it.

link: YouTube link

While the Communists are portrayed as the good guys (surprise, surprise) there is a scene late in the film where the old vet has a meltdown while being questioned by party members regarding his service. It surprised me.

I own the DVD. Like the S. Korean movie 'Taegukgi' (aka 'Brotherhood of War'), it copied SPR in its gritty combat sequences. It's mainly follows a Chi-com leader's attempts to bring justice to the men from his unit who died and were not given proper recognition by the government.

It's got two good combat scenes, the opening one against Nationalist Chinese (KMT) forces and a later one in which they had to fight off a KMT assault with M26 Pershing support.

Watched it tonight. Much better production values than I expect from Chinese cinema. Is this supposed to be a true story? When Guo was digging away at the coal mine, I thought of the Maoist parable of The Foolish Old Man Who Removed The Mountain. I wonder if the allusion was intentional? The generation that made the People's Republic is passing away. It's time for nostalgia.

Taegukgi is often compared to Saving Private Ryan. Taegukgi is a deeply conflicted movie. The brothers are brutally drafted into a war that isn't their own. Throughout the movie the brothers and their extended family are treated with cruel injustice by South Korean authorities. The hero brother actually switches sides and dies fighting for the Norks, although we see very little of North Korea, other than a few glimpses inside the Red Flag Unit. In the end, the message seems to be that, "All Koreans are brothers."

In Saving Private Ryan there is little overt patriotism, but it's perfectly clear who the good guys are, even if the good guys sometimes do questionable things like shoot surrendering enemy soldiers. The movie asks, "Was it worth it?" and answers, "Hell yes, it was!"

Assembly is even more direct and unconflicted in its patriotism, and its admiration for China's Greatest Generation, to the point of frequently jerking tears.

Three rather different movies.

Um. Some elements of Chinese cinema don't change.

Whenever a minor good guy character bites the dim sum, his friends all have to run over, shouting his name at the top of their lungs, and they all have to touch him. "Jiao! Jiao!"

Then, even though he's obviously bleeding out or cut in half or cooked to a smoking crisp, they all babble encouraging nonsense to him. "Never say die!" "Don't give up!" "Hang in there, man!"

Finally, the decedent with his last gasp gives a heart-rendingly selfless, yet somehow inane, deathbed speech, "Always keep our flag flying high, fellows!(gork)"

His friends are much affected. "Yes, yes we will Jiao!" "We'll keep it flying high!" "Wait…we don't have a flag."

Just like in the Kung-fu movies.

Yeah, good production values, exciting combat sequences and standard Chinese corn all mixed together.

I was surprised when the main character threw a chair at the party members.

In the opening credits they say it is based on a novel.

Have the DVD. Good movie with excellent production values and interesting character arcs.