The Founding of a Republic

Currently, every film that is to be made in China has to be approved by the government first. Since this film is about the founding of the PRC, I expected that this film will be full of communist propaganda rhetoric materials. I was surprised that it has very few. It actually has some scenes which can be inferred to the current situation of Chinese communist party.

Sundry celebrities appeared in the film, it is almost like watching the CCTV's yearly Chinese new year show.

It seemed that it showed the history correctly without trying to make the Kuomintang people acting like idiots or clowns. Even though many historical people appeared in the film, this film is not hard to follow. I was captivated by it for the entire two hours.

The movie has big weaknesses.

* Mao Zedong is portrayed as almost childish at times and as leaving most of the work to Zhou Enlai and others. In fact, he worked hard on a mountain of issues.

* Areas where Mao worked hard were the military campaigns (with Zhu De) and land reform in the newly liberated areas. Yet the movie gives most of its time to maneuvering among the "democratic parties" of the capitalists and intellectuals; the CPC; and the KMT. We hardly see peasants.

These faults in this 2009 movie are a result of Deng Xiaoping's turn to capitalism, reversing the socialist line of Mao Zedong.

(I posted these remarks as a comment on the Youtube page for the movie. They disappeared overnight. Whenever it can, the Chinese government uses the same instant-censorship apparatus around the world that it uses within its borders.)

This is not a movie as such; but more of a propaganda film from some Chinese government brainwashing program. The films producer, the China Film Group (CFG) is actually a state owned media branch of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and are the sole importer/exporter of film in China. 'The Founding of a Republic' has to be the most classic example of communist propaganda to be produced by the CCP. Completely geared at glorifying the communist regime now in control of China, historical fact takes a back seat in this zombifying dissemination which is comparable to such films found in 1930s Germany. In the film the antagonists are the party who governed China during World War 2, the Kuomintang (KMT), while the protagonists are -yup you guessed it- the CCP; and not mention history's biggest mass murderin' glorious leader -Chairman Mao Zedong. And while the KMT ruled brutally, no one was prepared for the bloody reign of terror of Chairman Mao who left a body count greater than that of Hitler's and Stalin's combined. The regime has obviously spared no cost at producing a high quality production, but it can't hide the fact this film is cheesy and over dramatic as it attempts to incite ultra-nationalist sentiment in Chinese viewers. This film glorifies the dictator, it glorifies the regime, it glorifies the party. This government mouthpiece of a movie points the fingers at everyone else's wrongdoings, and condemns them for it, yet refuses to accept responsibility for or even acknowledge the crimes the communist party have committed, and indeed, are still committing. Whenever a film about a political party is made it can't amount to anything but propaganda and you just can't take it seriously. And less so when the direction and dialog is corny and the 'facts' are inaccurate and over-dramatized, and as the 2008 Olympics have taught us the regime in 'The Peoples Republic' are not shy to boast of their glory yet completely ignore their own heinous crimes.

If you ever watched the Yugoslavian war movies you will find the theme of this movie familiar.this movie is made to glorify communist revolution and to represent historical events.for me the movie was great very inspiring and interesting and all I can say at end is Long live communist China🇨🇳🇨🇳 and long live communism✊✊✊

People must see this movie this movie as an entertainment, opportunity to see something produced in other country with not conventional story. Some people says its propaganda and judges by their political views, but these same people dont say the same when its US movies like Black Hawk Down, Saving Private Ryan, Chuck Norris and Stallone movies about Vietnam War/Soviets and etc. Those movies arent propaganda??????? Also US movies dont talk about their attrocities commited in those movies, because no country talks bad about yourself. If you expect that dont even watch the movie.

The movie objective is to talk about the foundation of PRC and the film does well, have great actors, its good in their proposal. If you want to see costumes, behaviour of that times see the movie.