Characteristics of the Film

“Kaiguo Dadian” was produced to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the founding of the PRC (People’s Republic of China). The film shows not only the major incidents of the nine months leading up to the foundation of the PRC, but the fates of the two rivalling parties, the Nationalists (GMD) and the Communists (CCP), in general. Although the film includes several battle scenes, it mostly focuses on depicting the personalities involved in these two parties to answer the question of why the GMD, after so many years of being in power, was finally overthrown by the smaller CCP. The reasons behind the CCP’s victory are explained as manifold, but a strong accent is put on the different characters and abilities of both parties’ leaders: on the one hand there is the foresight of Mao Zedong, on the other the stubbornness of Jiang Jieshi.

Mao is shown to treat his comrades—such as Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, and Liu Shaoqi—with great respect. He is kind and patient and takes their opinions into consideration. Even when they dispute, they behave like a group of close friends. Mao Zedong and his comrades are often shown sitting together in small rooms or humble surroundings, discussing things in a warm atmosphere, emphasising how close they were to each other. Even though Mao is always positioned in the centre of the group, he is not shown as towering above everybody else, but rather as a primus inter pares.

In contrast, Jiang Jieshi is always physically apart from his men. He is depicted as someone making decisions all by himself without seriously taking into consideration his staff. When his officers do offer advice, especially concerning war tactics, he high-handedly dismisses their views. Jiang seems to be rather feared than liked by his subordinates, and the movie stresses mutual distrust among the top leaders and strong contradictions within the party itself, leading to fragmentation and the forced official resignation of Jiang as president of the Republic on January 21, 1949.

A special contrast between the two parties’ leaders is marked by the respective father-son relationships which are constructed in a parallel way for comparison: whereas Jiang treats his son in a rather old-fashioned manner, teaching him “Confucian” morals and obedience to the family, though aiming at installing him as an “heir” at the same time, Mao, but for all his caring for his son, clearly assigns family relations a secondary status with regard to revolutionary spirit. Thus, he does not permit his son to receive any special treatment or privileges – and in the end would lose him in the Korean War. [However, the personal take on Jiang and Mao was appreciated by many film critics after many years of presenting both merely as icons of good or bad morals. In fact, Mao is also shown as at times furious and overreacting, i.e. with minor human defects, whereas Jiang in his relationship to his grandson almost seems like a mild and loving grandfather, arousing sympathy].

Another reason the movie proposes for why the CCP triumphed, is that the GMD treated the population merely as subjects of the state, whereas the CCP sees itself as a party of the people, championing their interests. Mao is shown among the people, laughing with them at celebrations, talking to them or eating with them. At the end of the movie when Mao stands on top of the Gate of Heavenly Peace (Tian’anmen) and declares the foundation of the PRC, the people are shown wildly celebrating, and Mao shouts “Long live the people!” (Renmin wansui 人民万岁) several times to express that the party’s victory is the people’s victory and that it was only with their support that the old order was defeated.

In contrast to the close relationship to the public that the CCP displayed, the leaders of the GMD are never shown in close contact with the masses. Jiang has lost the trust of the Chinese, because he and his party were not able to provide good living conditions for them. Jiang rather put the fight against the Communists (and thus his personal interest to maintain power) above the well-being of the nation, though realising very well that without the people’s support one cannot maintain power. (Cf. his statement that “who wins the sympathy of the masses wins all under heaven; who fails to win the sympathy of the masses loses all under heaven“ 得民心者得天下，失民心者失天下 de minxin zhe de tianxia, shi minxin zhe shi tianxia.)

Thus, the CCP obviously triumphed because of Mao’s better leadership and because of the party’s appeal to the masses. Jiang, on the other hand, seems to have anticipated that the end for his rule was near by early 1949, yet he stubbornly continued to fight. As a result, he lost everything and had to take refuge in Taiwan.

In all, the most important message of the film is summed up as: ”Without the CCP, we would not have a new China.” (Meiyou Gongchandang, jiu meiyou xin Zhongguo 没有共产党，就没有 新中国). The film explains that if it were not for the victory of the CCP (and its sacrifices), there would have been n o revolution, and China would not have become a new nation. The leaders of the CCP thus are honoured by the film for finally bringing peace and well-being to the country. Therefore, although the movie focuses on depicting the strengths and weaknesses of the leaders of the warring parties, there are also several war scenes which are meant to illustrate to the Chinese audience that the revolution was a very hard struggle: “The new China was not easily achieved” (Xin Zhongguo lai zhi buyi 新中国来之不易) thus is the other important message of the movie. In these scenes, dead and wounded soldiers are shown, and at the moment of triumph, Mao is grieved because of the high human cost at which victory was realised. [Interestingly, the movie does not show how hard civilians struggled during this time. The collapse of the economy during that period is hardly mentioned.]

In order to make the movie as historically accurate as possible, the directors Li Qiankuan and Xiao Guiyun usually filmed in the same settings where the actual events took place. Thus, they visited twelve different provinces to shoot the film over a period of six months. The script by Zhang Tianmin and Zhang Xiaotian was finished on July 22, 1988, and they began directing on November 11 in Zhongnanhai (which is until today the headquarters of the CCP), starting with the final parts of the film (including the scenes on Tian’anmen with the proclamation of the PRC, which, in fact, would soon turn into a difficult place to film such scenes). On June 11, 1989, i.e. only less than a week after the bloody end of the protests on Tian’anman square, they finished the costly (officially sponsored) and lengthy movie, presenting 130 important figures of modern Chinese history during 180 minutes of film, to demonstrate at October 1, 1989: ”Without the CCP, we would not have a new China.”

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