The Founding of a Republic

On the UK DVD summary the film is described as; 'Jet Li, Jackie Chan and Donnie Yen star in this action-packed, monumental epic for the first time in film history... With breath-taking cinematography, explosive action sequences" The cover shows the 3 actors above in white outfits taking up most of the cover.

Ignore this completely!! For one thing Jet Li and Jackie Chan have extremely small cameos which combined last around 2 minutes TOPS!! Their parts in this are not even worth mentioning.

There are 1 or 2 shots (at the most) that are anything like "breath-taking", one of these consisted of a shot that was in sepia style which was similar (but had unfortunately less impact) to the beach scene in Saving Private Ryan (including the extreme wide panning shots). The editing and many of the shots seem amateur making some parts seem comical, which is a shame as many of the actors seem very talented and don't deserve to be represented as poorly as they are in some of the scenes.

The "explosive action sequences" consists of a few explosions (one man has his foot blown off) and no action.

If you are interested in the history of China then this is a film for you, as I would suggest it is a good representation of the events. And the actors who ARE in the film are very good. For educational purposes, this film succeeds.

But if you read the cover in the UK then choose to buy thinking you will be getting 2 and a half hours of epic battles then you have been fooled. Instead prepare yourself for a very long, unwitty docu-drama. There are epic battles but unfortunately they are only political ones.

Using Jackie Chan and Jet Li to sell this is practically fraud.

The biggest problem with Founding of a Republic is that it is quite dull. An historic, or quasi-historic, film about the origins of the current government in China, the movie tends to be surprisingly free of anything of cinematic interest. The action is sparse, the dialogue is neither amusing nor animated, and all the major events are well-known to history students. The cameo appearances by several major Chinese stars, such as Jackie Chan, Jet Lee and Zhang Ziyi, are so short as to be hardly worth mentioning. We already know the outcome, and there is little in the film to hold the viewer's interest, aside from some of its subtle if unexpected features, such as its surprisingly enlightened attitude toward Chiang Kai-shek.

In much of the propaganda that pervades previous characterizations of Chiang and his Nationalist forces, the Chinese Communists have tended to portray the Chinese civil war as one of black v white, good v evil, with victorious communist forces "liberating" the people from an evil regime. These words still appear today when it is advantageous to Chinese communists' interest. But in this film Chiang seems reflective, fair-minded and concerned over excesses in his own regime--a rather positive image.

Mao is treated to several revisions, appearing jovial, tolerant, and even permissive of some forms of capitalism, the latter something Mao never actually was in his revolutionary days. Indeed, there is little revolutionary fervor in Mao's dialogue in this film, a fervor which in real life permeated Mao's thinking. This seems deliberate, as these ideas would accord little with the current regime in Beijing. In one scene where Mao is shown in an avuncular, loving role with children, even though in real life Mao abandoned his children to pursue his broad revolutionary ambitions.

While KMT excesses are detailed, including several assassinations, there is absolutely no mention of CCP atrocities committed during the Chinese civil war. And, while KMT violations of the interim treaty between the two sides are highlighted, there is no mention of CCP violations of the same pre-civil war accords.

While most of the film is richly detailed in costumes and settings, the special effects are not very realistic, with several airplane scenes being utterly unconvincing as they are obvious CGI. The film is a product of Chinese film makers, but political interests in Beijing factored heavily in its production. I doubt that the movie will generate much interest outside of China.

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.

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✊✊✊