Long zhi zhan

Enjoyed this historical production the the begins of the Eight-Nation Alliance multi-national military coalition Germany, Japan, Russia, Britain, France, the United States, Italy and Austria-Hungary invasion of China.

Yes, this film starts with a logo of the Chinese büro of propaganda. And still, it's a gorgeous masterpiece with a lot of taste and spirit. Hollywood could learn from the people who made this. I can't even begin to imagine how great the Avengers could be if they took a page from their book. Moreover, this film outperforms basically any US made flick even in terms of identity politics. Where Hollywood brings fake HERoes, China brings realistic gender equality which actually has basis in their history!

Chinese directors making historical war movies seem to have a simple formula. Find out how many participated in the actual battle and then hire that many extras. This movie is like "Saving Private Ryan" only with bigger battle scenes. Major battles are lavishly and realistically portrayed making the point that virtuous kung fu is no match for artillery and Gatling guns. The Chinese characters are fully fleshed out and well acted from the wily old general who comes out of retirement to fight the French to corrupt Imperial officials profiting from the war. The French are one dimensional, evil, greedy, heartless and willing to kill innocent peasants without compunction. Reminds us of the way many directors portray Asian enemies in American war movies. A word about the cinematography: outstanding. The opening scene is an overhead shot of a troop of Chinese calvary winding through the forest to a river. As they cross, we are suddenly taken underwater to watch alligators attack the calvary. It adds zero to the plot, but every second is breathtaking. Just like the rest of the movie.

Whilst it boasts a spectacular battle scene at the finale, The War Of Loong is a film that looks like it's been chopped to pieces in the editing room. It runs to one hour, forty minutes in length but it wouldn't be surprising if it was originally meant to be twice that. Events happen quickly and there are cuts everywhere, making for a confusing and disjointed film that happens to have one almighty ruck at the end.

The film tells the story of the Battle Of Bang Bo, a major event in the Sino-French war of the 1880s. It revolves around General Feng Zicai, a tough but aging military hero who comes out of retirement to fight the French. He pulls together a rag-tag army and then links up with an ally to conduct hit and run strikes on the invaders, leading to a huge clash in a picturesque valley.

And as stated, that battle is amazing. The landscape is torn apart by artillery, bodies are tossed through the air like ragdolls and sabre-wielding lunatics charge into one another with reckless abandon. It's a well choreographed and hugely entertaining war scene that takes up nearly a third of the movie. It's worth watching for the battle alone.

However, The War Of Loong also suffers because of how quickly it tries to get to that point. There's tension between Zicai and one of his sons which is never explored to the full potential. Plus there's at least one supporting character who's clearly had their own storyline cut out of the film. This makes it very hard to care about any of the people fighting and dying, even if their slow motion death scenes are impressive to watch.

It's enjoyable but to be quite honest, if you can find the battle on Youtube you may as well just watch that. The world building of the first two thirds is so rushed it might as well not exist.

This movie pertains to the Sino French War of 1884-5. The cinematography and battle scenes are well done. The movie is made by the Chinese and naturally portrays them in a favorable manner. The outcome of the War was a military stalemate which was resolved at the Treaty of Tientsin. The French got Indo China. Today the power balance is reversed and the Chinese want to seem to be invincible in the 19th century when they certainly were not. Western technology opposed Chinese manpower. The actual battle of Zhennan Pass involved 1500 French against 16,000 to 20,000 Chinese. You get the impression in the movie that thousands of French soldiers were killed although only 74 actually died and many more Chinese were killed. There is plenty of action but I could not see why the crocodile scene was in the movie. It possibly supported the theme of camaraderie and loyalty. The Qing Dynasty was weak and eventually was toppled by Dr. Sun Yatsen in 1911. I prefer the Chinese movies which are based on older historical periods for the spectacle. They don't seem to like making movies that are about modern subjects or issues. They would be too controversial.