A star-studded cast pose with a Chinese army flag at the premiere in Beijing of the war epic "The Founding of an Army," July 24, 2017. (Photo/ China.org.cn)
After Hollywood's dominance of the lukewarm Chinese film market for the past few months, two rival domestic hardline military films are leading the battle to revive the market and mark something even bigger –the Chinese army's 90th anniversary.
The war epic "The Founding of an Army" is the third installment of the "Founding of New China" trilogy -- The previous two installments being "The Founding of a Republic" in 2009, and "The Founding of the Party" (also known as "Beginning of the Great Revival") in 2011.
Andrew Lau, who directed the critically-acclaimed "Infernal Affairs", is leading the project to tell the story of how the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) was created, using more than 50 A-list stars in order to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the Chinese army falling on Aug. 1.
The story opens with the Nanchang Uprising in 1927, which was the first major Kuomintang-Communist engagement during the Chinese Civil War. The uprising was carried out by the fledging Red Army to counter the anti-communist purges of the Kuomintang.
The film's producers, including China Film Co., Ltd., Bona Film Group Limited., Nanchang TV and August First Film Studio, held premieres both in Nanchang on July 19 and Beijing on Monday with a star-studded cast attending. Most of the cast are young actors and teen idols portraying the younger versions of the great revolutionary heroes.
For example, Liu Ye, 39, plays a young Mao Zedong and Zhu Yawen, 33, plays a young Zhou Enlai, while 23-year-old Dong Zijian is cast as Deng Xiaoping.
Zhang Hongsen, deputy head of the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, wrote an article to recommend the film, calling it "grand-scale, bold and showing great wisdom." He also revealed he had asked the filmmaker to cut all the clichés and excessive "political correct" content.
Han Sanping, the producer, director and former head of the China Film Group Corporation, directed "The Founding of a Republic" in 2009 and co-directed "The Founding of the Party" in 2011 with Huang Jianxin, who served as general initiator and art director for the latest film.
He endorsed the casting of the young stars though some critics doubted the wisdom of casting such "fresh meat", believing teen idols could hurt the film's box office chances due to their immature acting skills, explaining: "In 1927, the people's republic's founding fathers and national heroes were also in their 20's or 30's. The young actors' ages fit perfectly.
"These young actors do have hordes of young followers, but they worked hard with maturity to reenact the key roles. We decided on the actors according to the content, rather than their fame and popularity."
Han added finding the director for the project was also a most correct decision, "Lau injected fresh blood into the making of revolutionary films", while producer Huang Jianxin said Lau created a world-mainstream presentation well-fitting young people's taste.
But at least one revolutionary descendant didn't buy it. Ye Daying, a renowned film director and the grandson of the late Chinese military leader and a founding father of PLA, Ye Ting, published a post on his Weibo yesterday afternoon:
"Now that the 'The Founding of an Army' is hot in the headlines, serious revolutionary history has become horrible entertainment, which is an insult and distortion of history. As a descendant of General Ye Ting, my question to Huang Jianxin and Andrew Lau would be: Do you actually understand history? Or do you have a certain agenda to exploit historic events and make a windfall?"
He then posted a photo of 24-year-old Chinese actor and singer Oho Ou, "Finding this girlish fresh meat actor who can't even stand straight to play Ye Ting, what a humiliation!"
The crew of "The Founding of an Army" swiftly responded last night, "The film will be released on July 27, we are looking forward to Director Ye's examination of it as well as his review."
Despite controversy, Yu Dong, president of Bona Film Group and a producer of the film, believed it could easily gross more than 1 billion yuan (US$148 million). Yu's company has successful precedents in terms of making good and exciting Chinese revolutionary and military films -- "The Taking of Tiger Mountain 3D" (2014) by Tsui Hark and "Operation Mekong" (2016) by Dante Lam.
Yu is also one of producers of another military blockbuster to come in this particular anniversary season, namely "Wolf Warrior 2."
Action star Wu Jing's military action film "Wolf Warrior" ignited huge enthusiasm among Chinese patriots and hard-core military fans in 2015 and grossed 540 million yuan at the box offices.
The second installment, also directed by the actor, will send the protagonist to Africa for a rescue mission, with upgraded and more explosive scenes, including having 100 cars destroyed in explosions. American movie star Frank Grillo ("Captain America: Civil War") and Chinese actress Yu Nan also star in the film.
Wu hoped to use the film to motivate Chinese patriotism once again and send a message that the motherland will always be there for any Chinese citizen who encounters danger overseas. "I hope China's passport will be the best in the world. Maybe, now, it cannot allow you to go to every place in the world, but it can help you come home from any place," the actor and director said at the premiere held on Sunday in Beijing.
Both films are set to open on July 27, 2017 and will occupy most of showtime of Chinese theaters across the nation.
