The ultimate awesomeness of VLC + a review of The Founding of a Republic

Yesterday I went to Boston to visit some friends up at Marsh Chapel to talk about academic matters upon my abrupt return. However, I visited Chinatown and picked up, along with some lunch, a copy of a new Chinese blockbuster released back in September, The Founding of a Republic 《建国大业》. Sadly, the DVD was coded for Region 6 and my WinDVD is permanently set to Region 1, so I had to watch it in VLC (to which I can only say ‘开放原始码运动万岁！’ – that’s ‘long live the open source movement!’ for you non-Chinese speaker types out there).

There were some in both the American and the foreign media who wrote off this film as yet another official government-driven propaganda piece, and perhaps understandably so – but it was about the tumultuous period in Chinese history out of which the current government was founded, so my expectations going in were shaped by these considerations. For someone unfamiliar with Chinese history, this film would be hopelessly confusing given its immense cast (all of whom are introduced with Chinese nametags at their first appearance), which is a pity, since it is actually an almost Shakespearean drama. (To be perfectly honest, it might be said that a lot of Shakespeare’s plays themselves were propaganda pieces favouring the ruling monarchs of his time. His portrayal of the ancestors of Elizabeth I Tudor in his Henry VI progression and Richard III, and of James I Stuart in Macbeth, were flattering often well beyond their historical desserts, and his portrayal of their enemies almost always as villains.)

And what a drama The Founding of a Republic is! The producers of this film were much more generous to Jiang Jieshi 蒋介石 (leader of the Guomindang government which is now Taiwan, played by Zhang Guoli 张国立) than Shakespeare was to, say, Richard III Plantagenet, and the film is more powerful (in my opinion) for that consideration. We see in General Jiang a man who is thoughtful, reflective and even caring, but whose tragic flaw is his inflexibility: he is stubbornly determined to tighten his grip on China and quash his political opposition despite the urgings of his wife, his close friends and his trusted advisors. We watch him as he spurns Mao Zedong’s 毛泽东 (played by Tang Guoqiang 唐国强) diplomatic gestures and refuses to entertain notions of a multi-party democratic government; we see him falter as his son uncovers deep corruption and even treason within his own family. But if this is propaganda, it is certainly fairly tame and considerate, even generous, to General Jiang’s character – the directors are not encouraging us to hate him and view him as a fascist devil. Behind the smile of the general-turned-politician we see the subtle movements of hesitance, of worry and of pain in his face (even as he is ordering political assassinations and turning a blind eye to blatant abuse of power), and we pity him – even at the end when he has truly lost everything he sought to preserve, alone, grieving and facing the rain.

On the other hand, Mao’s portrayal does have some rather retro flourishes of old-timey propaganda about it, as he is portrayed as an only slightly cynical nice-guy whose sole vice is the occasional cigarette (or four or five). We see him playing with children, who call him ‘daddy’ and ‘Uncle Mao’, in a field of flowers while discussing strategy with Zhou Enlai 周恩来 (who gives a piggyback ride to one of the kids). He is always cool, collected, affable and polite; portrayed either as a genuine nice-guy or as a thoughtful, hard-nosed realist puffing wryly on his cigarettes – never the firebrand revolutionary. When he speaks about defeating the powers of the reactionary government in the name of the working class, it almost sounds like an afterthought, a throwback; almost as if it is done tongue-in-cheek, though the historical man clearly would have taken himself more seriously. Closer references are made to the literary-historical figure of Liu Bei 刘备 from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms: in particular, Liu Bei’s flight from Chang Ban, when he refused to leave behind the civilians he had brought into peril. Mao insists similarly that he prefers to have lost the land and have kept the people. Indeed, throughout the movie, we see Mao as being more than a bit of a softie – it’s a big emotional moment when he is in the big military procession in Beijing after the Gongchandang have taken it, and is giving his salute when the frames slow down and we see a great tear of gratitude rolling down his left cheek.

The cinematography in this movie is slow, careful and deliberate, much like the rest of the movie, but fantastic. The movie shows some hints of indecision when it forgets that it is a human drama and decides it wants to be a big explosion-filled action movie or a TV documentary. Brief bits of documentary exposition are scattered throughout, cutting to a grainy black-and-white filter and giving some written explanation of political event it is showing. We get more than one art-film shot of armies moving either in triumph or defeat done in this style. Special effects were used liberally but unobtrusively (as special effects should be, rather than being shoved in the faces of the audience), particularly during the equally brief, equally interspersed war scenes. Aside from the special effects, there were some other particular interesting cinematographic conceits: the disgruntled Guomindang officer firing the rifle in target practice, after which the scene cuts immediately to the startled flight of a flock of pigeons around Jiang Jieshi and his son Jingguo (the subtext being the growing unrest and abandonment of Jiang Jieshi’s cause by his own men in favour of the Gongchandang). These little graces in technique and storytelling saved the movie in my view, but it’s still a film that takes on too much (as its rather ostentatious title suggests).

Would I recommend it? I can’t in conscience recommend it to someone who doesn’t already have some background in this period of Chinese history – I have, and I found it difficult to follow at times, the cast being as well-peopled as it was. It’s also quite militaristic, but that is to be expected from most Chinese historical dramas these days (with the possible exception of A Battle of Wits 《墨功》). But it far exceeded my own expectations. It is not to be dismissed as mere propaganda; if it is propaganda, it is surprisingly subtle in its treatment of its characters and its tangled, meandering narrative, and quite worthy of serious aesthetic appraisal.