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The movie, under the genre of drama and war (not documentary), is a propaganda on portraying Zhu De (朱德) (Weng Wufu) as a wise strategist/militarist and the 8th Route Army (八路軍) as a tough unit in the anti-Japanese war in Xanxi between 1937 and 1940 in the mainland. As the film is produced by the Peoples' Liberation Army (PLA)'s August First Film Producer (八一電影製片廠), it is not surprising that the story embeds rhetoric in making an account on the positives of the nation's communist strategists.

There are 3 directors for the film with Wei Lian being the chief. By using linear and unrestricted narrative, they adopt parallel editing in narrating the warfare tactics of the 8RA, Kuomintang (KMT) and the Japanese. Lots of sequences are for portraying the relations between the key military commanders of the 8RA and the KMT. The directors use contrast and the rhetoric device of intensification to depict (1) the cruelty of the Japanese soldiers and the benevolence of the 8RA soldiers in treating the prisoners of war (POW) and (2) the brutality of the Japanese military commanders and the brotherhood of the 8RA's commanders, Zhu De in particular, in dealing with their respective subordinates.

In terms of visuals, the film comes with many exciting battle scenes (planes, tanks, trenches, intensive bombardment, guerrillas, rifles and bayonets) to denote the brutality of wars. CG is employed in the battle scenes of grand mise-en-scene. However, it seems that the images of the foreground objects (usually remains of exploded planes) are blurred in shots of explosion. Three aspects are observed in terms of cinematography, tonality and brightness: (1) shoulder-level shots are used almost throughout to emphasize the prowess of the soldiers; (2) the visuals are relatively brighter than those of the US flicks in both outdoor and indoor locales and (3) there is no (minimal) variation in colour tone among sequences of different emphasis. Besides, crane shots are used for most outdoor establishment shots and oval travelling shots are occasionally used for maintaining continuity for a few dialogue scenes.

The film presents the wise leadership of Zhu De and other key communist military commanders of the 8RA (including Dang Xiaoping). Many of the commanders became political leaders in the PRC after 1949. The film also vindicates the guerrilla (militia) warfare as the appropriate strategy in expelling the Japanese out of the soils of China. The film in its entirety, with the use of vocal motifs (mottos), establishes an explicit propaganda on the right path of the communist party in the history of the PRC. Though some elements might have been dramatized, intensified and downplayed by rhetoric for various reasons, it is a finely made epic for every Chinese, in both thematic and visual terms.

註：本評論純屬影評作者個人意見，並不代表本網立場。
Note: This views presented in this review is solely the views of the critic who wrote it and do not represent the stance of our website.

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