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Scenes 51 to 54

Scene 51: 1922 Shanghai, at Sun's house, at night

Sun studies a strategic map in his studio. Later he talks with Li Dazhao 李大钊 and Lin Boqu 林柏渠 in the living room. Li Dazhao says he admires Sun's writings and his plans, but Sun himself feels frustrated because he has not realised his plans. Li Dazhao points to the October Revolution which happened years later than the republican revolution in China but still was successful, and he explains the reasons. He thinks Sun should have chosen a different basis for his revolution; his basis should have been the masses of workers and peasants.
(Li Dazhao is a founding father of the Chinese Communist Party. Lin Boqu was a member of Sun's Revolutionary Alliance and joined the CCP in 1921. Here everything between Sun Yat-sen and the Communists is very harmonic. Qingling organises a snack for Sun and Li).

Scene 52: January 20th, 1924, the first congress of the reorganized Guomindang

Sun delivers a speech; he sees this congress as the beginning of a new era. Three days after the end of the congress (January 26th) the Guomindang holds a mourning meeting for Lenin. Sun's voice can be heard while several short-takes are shown: Sun shakes hands with Mao Zedong (the only time Mao appears in the movie), Li Dazhao and Lin Boqu; the protagonists of the congress walk out of the conference building; Sun, Chiang Kai-shek, Hu Hanmin, Liao Zhongkai and Soviet officers eat together with several hundred officers from the Whampoa military academy; Sun watches a parade at the Whampoa academy. During these scenes Sun's voice is heard saying that China has to establish a strong party, has to consider the experiences from progressive revolutionary nations as well as from backward revolutionary nations, that everyone has to consider that the former party was not able to stabilise the country, that even as there was no enemy from outside they were destroying themselves; therefore now they should join all together.

Scene 53: October 15th, 1924, Xiguan, near Guangzhou, at night

Shots of marching soldiers at the Whampoa academy are shown, at the beginning with Chiang Kai-shek's head on the screen, later without; everything, including Chiang's head, is very dark. In a scenery of explosions and fire, courageously fighting soldiers of the academy appear. Sun visits the memorial of the 72 martyrs; he wants to communicate to the martyrs that he is not going to come and visit them again very often (i.e. he understands he will not return), because he will go to the North; he also asks them symbolically for their approval and says he will always think of them. Then the whole Whampoa academy sees Sun of. (This is Sun's good-bye to his fallen comrades-in-arms).

Scene 54: December 1924, inside a train wagon

Sun travels to Beijing to talk over state politics with the Northern government. Sun looks old and sick. He complains about the politicians in Beijing who accept the existence of the unequal treaties and are afraid of standing up against the foreign imperialists; the people in Beijing demonstrate against these treaties and welcome Sun. Li Dazhao and Lu Zhongling 鹿鐘麟 enter the train. They want him to get off the train one station earlier than planned, as at the scheduled terminal stop there are waiting more than 100.000 people to welcome him, which they think is too dangerous. But Sun wants to go there to not disappoint the people longing to see him; when he arrives he is carried on a chair through and above a sea of people towards a rosy horizon.
(Here ends the story. Sun's death – like his birth and youth – is not shown. The message of this device can be seen as: Sun is not dead, Sun lives. It makes Sun more legendary. As Sun is too weak now, his task has to be continued by the Communists).

MANGELS