Héros de guerre

Assembly is a gripping film about the Chinese civil war and its aftermath, recounted through the story of a doomed company of Communist soldiers and the subsequent struggle of their commander, Gu Zidi, to win recognition for their sacrifice. Hanyu Zhang is superb in the role of Gu Zidi, carrying the memory of his lost and forgotten comrades, and is the focus for a film that is by turns brutal, moving and provocative.

The opening battle scene is Assembly is startlingly violent and throughout the film the portrayal of modern weaponry and its effect upon human bodies is truly frightening. The battles are impressively staged and meticulously detailed, from the soldiers' uniforms to the networks of defensive trenches. There are some eye-opening details about the nature of warfare in the Chinese civil war, including the deployment of 'political officers' to encourage Communist troops to act in line with Party doctrine.

Admittedly, much of the film's appeal stems from its foreign origins. The Chinese civil war and the subsequent war in Korea are not often portrayed in the cinema, and it is even more rare to get a Chinese perspective on these events. Certainly this makes it difficult to find a point of reference by which to assess the success of Assembly. Nevertheless, I did have some reservations, including the camera-work. The battle scenes cut frantically between different shots, unlike, for instance, the opening scenes in Saving Private Ryan, where the action relentlessly tracks the soldiers' landing on the D-Day beach. This repeated cutting and changing conveys some sense of the chaos of warfare, but I feel that the shaky camera-work was overplayed and found this a bit irksome after the first few battle scenes.

A more general problem is that this film focuses almost exclusively on the actions of the Communist soldiers. It would have been interesting to learn more about the Nationalist Guomindang soldiers, but they are barely afforded any speaking roles. Although Assembly is written from the perspective of the winning side, it does not begin to examine why the Communists were at one time so short of munitions and especially men in fighting the war against the Nationalists. The story of Gu Zidi's company of men is a battle against the odds, but the film does not delve into the root causes of their desperation.

But although Assembly is a portrait of one side in a long military conflict there is surprising depth to this portrait. The film does not follow a straightforward triumphalist narrative about Communist war heroes, but instead builds a complex tale of an individual (Gu Zidi) who struggles for the posthumous recognition of individual soldiers who made an individual sacrifice. These were soldiers who were scared and sometimes balked at the dangers before them – as would anyone – but they made the ultimate sacrifice and Gu Zidi strives to have their efforts recognised as a unique contribution to the war effort. That it is such a great struggle for Gu Zidi to secure a memorial for these fallen comrades is at least partly an indictment of post-war society and government in China.

Assembly achieves a remarkable amount in less than two hours. It is a vivid reconstruction of struggles during and after the war and is moreover a deeply moving experience, especially in its final frames. And if part of the appeal lies in the fact that this is a foreign film about a little-known war, then that is all the more reason to seek it out.

I gotta say that in the first 40 minutes of the battle show, I did spot scenes from Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers and the Korean: Taegukgi hwinalrimyeo (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0386064/). Actually, I'm not surprised at all, I mean who (the directors) wouldn't do the same thing? Some directors might curse Steven Spielberg for not leaving them much room to shoot a different war movie after Saving Private Ryan, and indeed this movie has, in my opinion, in no way transcended the 1998 war masterpiece. Still, I'd like to give credit to this Chinese director for his guts to do such a Chinese war movie that well handles battle scenes with great details, tells the audiences the past without being necessarily affected by current Chinese politics, and touches a lot of people simply because most of the story feels just down to earth and so damned real. I won't go any further on these points, because there's one more significant thing about this movie, i.e., it's the first of this director's works that could be appreciated by all the audiences other than those from mainland China only.

The director has been a big name in Chinese movie industry by the end of last century, bringing Chinese fresh outlooks about domestic movies. However, one could probably better understand the director and his previous movies only from a "Chinese" perspective. And when I say "Chinese", I mean you'd better be living in mainland China, excluding SARs like Hong Kong. But this time, as I said, it's quite different since anyone could understand and appreciate the story. It's a good shot to see how far Chinese movies can go internationally without the presence of Kongfu and male characters with long braid at the back of their heads, without the setting in a remote and underdeveloped Chinese countryside, and without bold and overused sexual scenes.

I read about this movie on the internet for the last few days, and it was this piece of information from a Chinese blog that drove me to watch it, and I quote and translate this information as follows: "... at 23:00 when the movie Ji jie hao ended in a Beijing's big movie theatre tonight, with no presence of any of the directors and actors with the movie, the audiences were unwilling to leave their seats, and along with them was only their tears and standing applause."

With no stars in this movie, it was reported that the box office hit 2,000 million Chinese dollars 2 weeks after the premiere in China. I will definitely encourage both Chinese and non-Chinese to watch this movie. And for those who might be interested in our ancient country, I recommend two other quality movies: Huozhe ("to be alive" 1994) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110081/; and Ba wang bie ji ("farewell, my concubine" 1993) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106332/.

In 1948, during the Chinese Civil War, the Captain Gu Zidi (Hanyu Zhang) from the Liberation Army falls in disgrace with his superiors after an incident with prisoners of war. He is assigned with his forty-seven soldiers from the Ninth Company to defend a coal mine until they hear the retreat assembly of the bugle. Gu Zidi never hears the call, his men die and he gathers their bodies inside the mine. Gu Zidi awakes in a hospital and neither his identity and nor his officer ranking are recognized; the forty-seven soldiers that heroically died are only considered missing and their action is completely unknown by the high-command. Gu Zidi fights in the Korea War and spends the rest of his life feeling guilty for the death of his men and trying to prove and achieve recognition for the honorable deed of his forty-seven soldiers.

"Ji Jie Hao" is an impressive movie about the Chinese Civil War of 1948. The director Xiaogang Feng succeeds in promoting the true story of the journey of a man that spends his life trying to prove the bravery of his men that are in complete anonymity through a touching story. The extremely realistic battle scenes are comparable to "Taegukgi Hwinalrimyeo" and "Saving Private Ryan", with stunning camera work, performances and choreography. The cinematography is magnificent, and Hanyu Zhang has an awesome performance in the role of the tireless Captain Gu Zidi. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "Assembléia" ("Assembly")

After so many years waiting, there comes "Assembly", the first military blockbuster of China that Chinese movie and military fans have been hardly expecting for such a long time! I believe this movie will pose an extreme important position both in the movie history and military culture of China.

Since Steven Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan" and Tom Hanks' "Band of Brothers", shooting an excellent and extraordinary warfare movie becomes a great dream among Chinese movie and military fans. Due to political and history reasons, military is a sensitive subject for normal directors and production companies. The official August 1st Movie Studio of PLA is nearly the only producer of military movies. Though there were also many famous works such as the epic trilogy of "Decisive Engagement", the majority of this studio's products are mainly designed to meet propaganda and political priorities, then secondly for art or to restore history. As for those so called "main theme of nowadays" military TV series and plays, absolutely rubbish! (Except "A Soldier's Charge")

"Assembly" becomes a turning point. Yes, August 1st Movie Studio did supply some assistance during the making, but "Assembly" is not an official product of the Authority. It aims at entertainment area, uses commercial method combined with modern movie technology, rather than compulsory propaganda, to win the New-Year-Eve movie mark campaign in China.

Director Feng Xiaogang did it. "Assembly" sets a new level for Chinese military movies. And wins the hart of many audiences, fulfills its mission to be the first military blockbuster of China that people expecting long. I don't mind the special effects of war were created by the same team in Korea's "Taegukgi hwinalrimyeo". I'm just so pleased that China is now also able to shoot such a warfare movie that shake my heart so greatly and touch my emotion so deeply, that reflect the brutality of war and restore history details so really! Just like the Hollywood did! Nearly-real combat scenes and explosions shot by a shaking camera, old weapons and uniform (Type 55 uniform of PLA) in history exactly restored, native language of that period, and so on…… These scenes only exist in our dreams before, now they finally come into big screen!

Unlike the epic works of August 1st Movie Studio that mainly focus on great leaders, "Assembly" precisely draws the inner heart of a normal person for the first time. What's more, the director didn't avoid sensitive history matters. In order to gain martyr identities for his gloriously died comrades, Company Leader Gu Zidi came through lots of unfair treatment after the founding of new China. He never gave up and continually to fight, to find his men's bodies, until they were formally confirmed as martyrs and buried in 1958.

By the end of the story, when 47 heroes finally received the medals and salute that belong to them, tears break out from the eyes of every audience. That is the real glory of a Chinese soldier, the real spirit of Chinese people!

ddeell72,Christmas Eve, 2007

"Saving Private Ryan" it is NOT, but certainly it is as equally worth viewing for any fans of military/warfare film. And for any "westerners" unaccustomed with China's history, it may give some insight to tiny part of her modern part some 50+ years ago events that led to fall of Chang Kai Shek and rise of communism under Mao Zhe Dong's.

The story line is compelling, similarly to "SPR" we have some well drawn all-human characters and their war story laced with brutal, bloody and yet so mesmerizing scenes, an insight to mankind at its worst.

The acting is excellent, even the supporting actors and extras performed all great or at least sufficiently enough to make us believe the scenes we are watching could have happened exactly as they are portrayed on the screen.

Why then I gave it 9 instead of 10? Well. Firstly. The film, although officially not the production of "1st of August Film Studio" (official Chinese communist party's propaganda flicks maker), it still suffers a bit from their propagandist influence. The red comrades are nicer than their nationalist foes and - according to this film's tones and "between the lines" messages - they fought for their country (implying that the Chang Kai Shek's nationalists were traitors). Like the hundreds of millions Chinese murdered later by the China's Communist Party during the years that followed have never happened, hmm. But, of course, for the characters shown in the film, it is their future. They don't know it yet - OK, I can believe that. But why PLA's foes (the Nationalists) are basically the shadows in this film? For a "humane warfare film" (as this film is pretending to be about) it is very unhuman depiction of 'the other side' - and I didn't hear anything about Mr. Xiaogang Feng plans to make a sequel about them... (like Clint Eastwood did with "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Letters from Iwo Jima") Second. While the fighting scenes and visual FX are great, the sets weren't prepared as equally. And I really mean it. The hand-held camera actions, the gory, the over-all realism of the brutal warfare scenes are almost as great as the ones in "SPR". But unfortunately the set decorators more often than not were skimping on the realism of the set. So-obvious spray-painting black patches on the walls (to masquerade them as burnt-out or post-explosion marks) is so evident failure of completing the film's realism to me (and I'm not even mentioning those PLA soldiers wearing US helmets - after all it *may* have happened somehow). Yes, I understand that most of the film-viewers wouldn't even notice it, but since so much energy, so much attention to other details was paid during the production of this film, why oh why they couldn't close it complete in every detail?