Robert Woo from Global Voices takes a look at people’s feedback on the film The Founding of a Republic. The following translated thoughts from Han Han are excerpted from the post:
I am highly suspicious that the director is employing irony in his method. Take for example that scene when those founding generals uproariously sang L’Internationale, and when Mao Zedong said, we should be forever united. (At that moment) I sensed this movie’s real potential to become a true classic: if it did not end in 1949, but rather in 1976! In 1949, the sincere people sincerely embraced the sincere Mao Zedong and the sincere New China. Yet, after 60 years, the people still do not own even a single meter of their own land. We are all no more than tenants. Before, our ‘old society’ was composed of many classes. Now it is much simpler, there are only four: the poor, the housing slave, the rich and the obscenely rich.
In another sense, The Founding of a Republic is like a love story. It artistically recounts the story of an impoverished boy who was pursuing a rich family’s daughter. The Communist Party was the poor boy, the New China is the daughter waiting to be married, the KMT is the fiancé and all those democratic parties and independents are the daughter’s friends. The boy’s secret to success is to have dreams, brag about future, relentlessly network and make many empty promises. Of course, being unafraid to fight is the most important of all. At last, he successfully married the New China. Apparently, the life after this marriage is not much different than the life after your marriage.
Have you met your promises you made when you were dating?
