the opium war ( film )
the film' s domestic release was also positive, with the opium war eventually winning the golden rooster for best film .
a spectacular account of the first opium war produced by legendary director xie jin .
the sci - fi movie
the opium war
will shoot 90 percent on location around syracuse .
posed to the conference in general). and, if you' ve found a link on the opium war, whether the history or the film ,
historical drama starting in 1839 in guangzhou where british merchants dealing with opium are to be executed because the opium is destroying the empire. after the burning of 20, 000 boxes of opium by the chinese, england declares war since the burned opium was the property of the british commercial attache who had bought it from the british merchants .
the opium war (鸦片战争) is a 1997 chinese historical epic film directed by xie jin. the winner of the 1997 golden rooster and 1998 hundred flowers awards for best picture, the film was screened in several international film festivals, notably cannes and montreal. the film tells the story of the first opium war of 1839–1842, which was fought between the qing empire of china and the british empire, from the perspectives of key figures such as the chinese viceroy lin zexu and the british naval diplomat charles elliot .
siddiq barmak' s afghanistan set opium war has won the golden marco aurelio critics' award for best film, while giacomo battiato' s resolution 819 earned the festival' s golden marco aurelio audience award for best film .
production: an emei film studio release (in china) of a sichuan
the opium war
film & television co. presentation of a xie jin / heng tong film & tv co. production. (international sales: the opium war film & tv co. , hong kong .) produced by chen zhigu. executive producers, wu baowen, zhang wei. directed by xie jin. screenplay, zhu sujin, ni zhen, zong fuxian, mai tianshu
two downed u. s. soldiers in rural afghanistan happen upon an opium - producing family living under a soviet tank in
opium war ,
siddiq barmak' s baffling second feature .
official afghanistan submission to the 2009 oscars in the best foreign language film category .
despite its clear political background (and its release on the eve of the return of hong kong to china), the film was generally well received by western critics as a workable example of the big - budget historical film. variety, in one review, begins with the fact that despite the film' s
unashamedly political message ,
the opium war was nevertheless
comparatively even - handed ,
while the film itself had excellent production values. the guardian recognised that the film, despite its official backing ,
was relatively nuanced ,
and praised the performance of bob peck as the venal opium trader denton .
at the time of its release, the opium war, with a budget of $ 15 million (usd), was the most expensive film produced in china. it was released to coincide with the hong kong handover ceremony in july 1997 .
local officials say the area is about to take a big step forward in the movie making business and cash in with all the economic spin off from
the opium war
shooting here soon .
millions of chinese are likely to see mr. xie' s'' opium war,'' but this film has even wider ambitions: it is the first chinese attempt to reach an international audience. the film tells the story of how the british empire promoted opium addiction in china and used chinese efforts to smash the british opium trade as a pretext for war, allowing her majesty' s government to extract reparations. thus queen victoria and her duplicitous foreign secretary, lord henry john temple palmerston, ripped the gem of hong kong and its deep, natural harbor from the bosom of the chinese motherland .
mr. xie saw this new wave of patriotism coming. in march 1995, he deftly announced to his fellow members of the communist party political consultative conference that he would make an epic film about china' s humiliation in the opium war .
unlike many of its contemporaries, the opium war was strongly supported by the state apparatus. despite its clear political message, many western commentators found the treatment of the historical events to be generally even - handed .
efa, the rotterdam film festival and french srf directors guild step up campaign .
a world premiere in rome, opium war is an afghanistan - japan - south korea - and france co - production about two american pilots whose plane crashes in the afghan desert .
shot in china and england, the opium war features an all star cast and delivers powerful performances from both britain' s and china' s leading classic actors. it is a dramatic period piece illustrating the cultural clash which brought war between the world' s most populous nation and most powerful empire .
the story of the opium war between china, in the waning days of the qing dynasty, and the british empire, in the 1830s, and the subsequent takeover of hong kong by britain; through the eyes of the key figures, fiercely nationalistic lin zexu, and opportunistic british naval diplomat charles elliot .
shame is a theme of the film. in the original script, a british opium trader named denton passed the time during the voyage by shooting sea gulls with his daughter. they playfully fired away while crossing the balmy pacific. but by the time the film got into production, the scene had changed to underscore the opium trader' s callous disregard for life: he blasts a virgin white sea gull out of the sky, and the bloodied carcass plops down on the deck in front of the horrified daughter .
historians of modern china may debate many things, but few will question the significance of the opium war (1839 - 1842) in shaping thecourse of modern chinese history. as an indication of the importance of this watershed event, three feature films have been made about the opium war during the past half century. they are wanshiliufang (eternity, 1943, dir. bu wancang), lin zexu (1959, dir. zheng junli) and yapian zhanzheng (the opium war, 1997, dir. xie jin). each reflects a particular set of ideological concerns and socio - political conditions of the times of production. like its two predecessors, the most recent production, the opium war, provides a window to the dynamics and confusions of politics and culture in today' s china. this paper is an attempt to situate this film in the context of contemporary discourse on nationalism, history, and modernity in china and examine the complex relationship between politics and arts .
historical drama starting in 1839 in guangzhou where british merchants dealing with opium are to be executed because the opium is destroying the empire. after the burning of 20, 000 boxes of... see full summary »
crews for the next film to shoot in the area should be rolling into town in a few weeks .
legendary director xie jin (with writer ann hui) produced this spectacular account of the first opium war. a shameful period in british history, in which british sea power was utilised in support of free trade – in this case opium – culminated in the seizure of hong kong. though the film received state support, international critics and historians felt that its treatment of the subject was accurate and even - handed .
china news digest' s outlined history of the quing dynasty may be a good starting place for information on the opium war as an historical event, or set of events. (a good pictorial history of the era is available through china. com .) several other general historical accounts are available on the web: see, for example, this account at cnn' s hk97 site... or this account at the public broadcasting system site... or this one posted by fox news... or this article, at asiaweek. the u. s. library of congress federal research division offers its own brief historical account of the opium war, as part of its publication, china - a country study. individuals, too, have posted their own historical accounts (such as those found here, here, here, here, and here), and at least one account speaks more generally on the history of opium in china. bits and pieces of the history are scattered about the web: one small site includes, at the bottom, some interesting statistics on the number of crates of opium smuggled into china during the period before the opium war began; another teaches an analytical history of the opium monopoly in china. the san francisco - based pacific news service has posted an account of one person' s return to hong kong to witness its
... liberation from a shameful history that began with the opium war .
that liberation was in part celebrated by telling a story of the opium war, through film .
the story of qing dynasty official lin zexu and his battle against british imperialist is set at the start of 1838 during the first hints of the conflict that would become the opium war which led to the ceding of hong kong to the british empire. lin zexu is dispatched to quangzhou to put an end to
the film' s central character is the famously
incorruptible
chinese envoy lin zexu, played by mainland actor pao guoan. under the command of emperor daoguang, lin forces the foreign merchants to hand over their opium. then, in the act that sparked the war, he sets fire to 22, 283 chests of the drug. not only that, lin has to contend with corrupt chinese officials, many addicts themselves, who are colluding with british opium traders .
attracted as much international hype as mainland director xie jin' s $ 15 - million nationalistic epic, the opium war. for the past year, film critics, historians and china experts all over the globe have speculated - - mostly cynically - - about the shape of china' s most expensive movie ever. now, the verdict is in .
ozon' s provocative film can do much to improve attitudes towards lgbti people .
regrettably, the emphasis that china leader' s are placing on xie jin' s film, along with the draconian new controls being imposed on the industry, add to a sense of an interregnum in the development of chinese film .
two downed u. s. soldiers in rural afghanistan happen upon an opium - producing family living under a soviet tank in “opium war, ” siddiq barmak’s baffling second feature. as in “osama, ” the afghan writer - helmer again uses a non - pro cast, but the result is stifled by poorly written english dialogue and a failure to reconcile apparent realism with occasional detours into absurdist tragicomedy. “war” inexplicably won best film (from a jury composed entirely of critics) at the rome fest, and represents afghanistan in the foreign - language oscar race .
and while mr. xie prospers - - he has a stake in the private company that owns the film - - much of the rest of the industry has come to a standstill as nationalism defines a new standard in chinese film making .
the director set out to make a chinese schindler' s list, a film that would expose the world to china' s 150 - year - old shame - - and britain' s shamelessness. but for many hong kongers who have benefited under british rule, the opium war simply does not have much resonance .
even though hong kong was founded on opium money, it' s hard to get really angry about the war ,
says one local .
let' s face it: hong kong is a lot better off than china .
alice chiu, all smiles as she departs the gala, says :
most hong kong people have never understood much about the war. the history was super .
david cameron' s last visit to china three years ago was marred by a minor spat over remembrance day poppies, after ministers resisted a chinese request to remove them lest they stir memories of the opium war. it was a reminder that relations have not always been harmonious; the war is still remembered in china as the start of a
century of humiliation
.
the story of qing dynasty official lin zexu and his battle against british imperialist is set at the start of 1838 during the first hints of the conflict that would become the opium war which led to the ceding of hong kong to the british empire. lin zexu is dispatched to quangzhou to put an end to the british traders mass selling of opium to the population, a move that leads him to blockade the east india company. the british trade rep eliot arrives in china to broker a public ceremony whereby the opium would be publicly dumped into the sea. this move does not please the politicos in london who promply dispatch massive firepower to attack china' s ports .
the opium war (yapian zhanzheng), directed by 74 - year - old chinese director xie jin, was released in beijing on july 1, 1997, set to coincide with the transfer of hong kong from britain back to china. xie jin described the film as a
special gift for the motherland and the people... to ensure we and our descendants forever remember the humiliation the nation once suffered .
we are in 1838, under the qing dynasty. the celestial empire, or more exactly its subjects’ health, is threatened by the opium trade mostly benefitting strangers, and particularly the british. emperor daoguang sends his adviser lin zexu to canton with the order to forbid drugs and get rid of the corrupted civil servants who encouraged its trade. the mission seems to be crowned with success: a big ritual ceremony of purification takes place in canton, during which lin zexu throws the ashes of 20, 000 confiscated crates of opium to the sea. but this ceremony is the starting point of the first war of opium launched two years after queen victoria’s accession to the throne. the british declare war on china. it ends with the defeat of the chinese emperor forced to sign the treaty of nanking and to abandon hong kong island to the british empire .
several reviews of the film such as that by the hong kong film critics society or publicly posted reviews at the internet movie database are scattered about the web, as are other interesting pieces of information (including information on its 1997 debut at the montreal film festival). perhaps closer to the core of the digital china / harvard project are the reports of the film' s initial screening in china and hong kong, and its further reception elsewhere. we find one such report by jonathan mirsky of the london times, and another such report by the associated press. a japanese correspondent, tetsuya chikushi, visited hong kong to view the film' s premiere there: his report is also available online. (rather unfortunately, several reports of the film' s first screening, previously online at the hong kong standard, have disappeared from the web .) xie jin' s own words on the film and its construction are particularly noteworthy .
though
patriotic ,
the opium war, is not the propaganda piece some expected. indeed, lead actor pao guoan saw his character, lin zexu, more as anti - drug campaigner than nationalist hero .
lin wanted to have trade with the west. what he opposed was britain bringing opium into china ,
he says. critics remarked on the film' s perceptive portrait of a corrupt bureaucracy - - something that strikes a chord in present - day china. and that might just be the key to the official slight .
uk line - producer peng wenlan, also chairperson of the meridian society, will introduce and discuss this film .
mahoney says the county now has a full time film commissioner whose sole responsibility is to create this industry locally .
in the end, perhaps it doesn' t matter whether the film is judged to be propaganda or not. british behavior toward china in the last century was hardly exemplary. and even if the making of'' the opium war'' were a paragon of objectivity, the act of making and promoting it during the season of hong kong' s return to chinese sovereignty panders to the nationalistic instinct rising in china. it encourages xenophobia and a dark sense of national grievance .
the opium war ,
now at the k - b janus, turns out to be a relic as well as curiosity. evidently the first communist chinese dramatic feature to receive regular art - house distribution in this country, the film was made in 1959 and the withdrawn upon the advent of the cultural revolution, possibly in line with a systematic suppression of productions that predated mao' s new social scheme and possibly because the lead, chao tan, was out of favor with chian ching .
instead, the beijing premiere of the opium war was a curiously subdued affair. true, the severe limit on media passes prompted a scramble among journalists and television crews. but in the end, the evening turned out to be a sideshow rather than a gala. though held in the great hall of the people, the screening was shoehorned into a meeting room. instead of guests in their thousands, it was attended by several hundred people, including schoolchildren in the opium war t - shirts. and the only real vip in attendance was foreign minister qian qichen. if the project had received jiang' s initial backing, signs were that the result disappointed the chinese leadership. though the film had plenty of pre - launch publicity, the premiere received little coverage in the mainland press. this muted response was in stark contrast to the media attention lavished on the opening of red river valley, a staunchly nationalistic movie about tibetan resistance to british colonialists in the 1800s .
two downed u. s. soldiers in rural afghanistan happen upon an opium - producing family living under a soviet tank in “opium war, ” siddiq barmak’s baffling second feature. as in “osama, ” the afghan writer - helmer again uses a non - pro cast, but the result is stifled by poorly written english dialogue and a failure to reconcile apparent realism with occasional [ … ]
'' film has always been a propaganda tool in china under the system where the ministry of propaganda controls everything,'' says ye daying, director of'' red cherry,'' the most popular film produced in china this year, about chinese living in moscow during world war ii.'' there has never been pure art. of course the artists strive to pursue art, but one must always serve the interest of the party and the state.''
to almost everyone' s surprise, china' s first blockbuster is a fascinating, multi - faceted journey back to the 19th - century. the opium war, which eventually led to the ceding of hong kong, was an infamous moment in british history. britain' s war effort was aimed at compelling china to free restrictions on foreign trade - - especially opium imports from colonial india. xie' s account could have been a simplistic indictment of western imperialism. instead, it is a compelling and sometimes comic chronicle of what was a monumental conflict .
it' s impossible to account for the suppression on the mere basis of the movie itself: a pious, stilted patriotic costume drama extolling the character of lin tse hsu, an imperial minister endeavoring to stop the opium trade introduced in canton by british merchants during the 1830s. the film expresses unimpeachably nationalistic sentiments. the only tangible sources plistic, outmoded exposition and poderous pictorial stlye - in short, the pervasive klutziness of it all .
a british foreign trade rep, charles elliot (british theater actor simon williams), arrives to broker a solution that involves the opium being ditched in the sea in a public ceremony and the u. k. government guaranteeing the traders’ money back. as elliot expected, this does not please the politicos back in london, who in 1840 dispatch massive firepower to attack china’s ports, launching the titular war .
in the 1842 treaty of nanking, the first treaty in the modern history of china, london gained hong kong island as a reparation from the qing court, desperate to stave off escalation of the military conflict then underway. (the image to the left is a fragment of that treaty .) one particularly important document which led to the opium war (and, ultimately, this conference and site) was drafted over 150 years ago: commissioner lin' s letter of advice to queen victoria, decrying the evils of britain' s opium trade with china, and demanding its termination. click here to read that letter .
after three years in which it has struggled to define its place on the international calendar, the rome international film festival has charged gian luigi rondi and piera detassis with upgrading the event .
the next morning, the popular chinese - language apple daily declared the opium war
a serious production filled with epic and astounding scenes... every character was formed by an idea and a motivation .
in short: thumbs up. the film is filled with dazzling images. there are beautifully recreated 19th - century british warships braving the south china sea and thousands of hard - laboring chinese coolies, queues trailing down sweaty backs. possibly most spectacular is xie' s recreation of the canton (now guangzhou) waterfront. the streets bustle with snake charmers, musicians, dolled - up prostitutes, british merchants and sikh soldiers in white turbans. then there are the languidly evocative opium dens, glowing under lantern light .
all post - production was done in japan. print caught was rushed to unspool at the cannes market; a six - track dolby dub is apparently in the works for the film’s release .
the film bureau is where the dirty work of censorship is done. the bureau' s power is all - encompassing, and no director can get through post - production or compete in international film festivals without its approval. but it is rare for a film simply to be shut down. the usual torture is when'' they don' t pass any movie and they don' t kill any movie,'' mr. wang said .
who can blame him? in many ways, the opium war is the crowning achievement of his 54 - year filmmaking career. now xie is pushing for its release in 350 cinemas across china and in 61 countries. and, judging from the response of hong kong audiences and critics, the film should do well. take the charity premiere. three hours of a late - night screening can be exhausting, but most of the audience stayed the course. when they did duck out, it was only for a quick trip to the washroom .
i didn' t want to miss any of the action ,
says one chinese viewer .
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now mr. xie, never a darling of the international film set nor a mentor to china' s film prodigies who followed him, sits in the catbird seat with a $ 10 million epic while many of the most innovative directors are out of work, going abroad or hardly working under the heel of the most tenacious censorship campaign imposed in this decade. even the walt disney company, which has grand expansion plans for china, has run afoul of official views on politics and entertainment because of a subsidiary' s links to a martin scorsese film on the dalai lama .
she says the central new york hub for emerging nano industries, being built right now in the collamer crossings business park, will help attract filmmakers because of the huge film post - production unit it will house .
mr. jiang, and many other directors, believe that the crackdown on the film industry will last perhaps into the fall of 1997, when the communist party will hold its 15th party congress. after that, and after the position of china' s new generation of leaders is more secure, they may loosen up. until then, he said, chinese film makers will bend under the invisible gale of party pressure .
the caption says,'' xie' s proposal was encouraged and supported by jiang zemin and ding guangen, minister of propaganda, and president jiang has shown his personal care to the production of the film.''
if you' re aged 16 to 25, you can get £3 cinema tickets at bfi southbank to any film, any time .
last april, the party' s chief propagandist, ding guangen, called film industry leaders to changsha, the capital of mao' s home province of hunan, and read them the riot act: spiritual pollution was threatening to undermine the socialist values of the chinese, he told them .
still, mr. xie insists that he is not making a propaganda movie and that the government is not involved in either the financing or the production. but several actors said that most of the extras in the film were dragooned from local units of the people' s liberation army and that the chinese navy provided extensive logistical support for naval combat scenes .
pic delivers an unashamedly political message, dealing with the war between the u. k. and china that led to the brits’ grabbing of hong kong 157 years ago. the ceding of the rocky island was one of the most humiliating events in chinese history — though ironically a major shaper in 20th - century china’s development, given h. k. ’s [ … ]
'' if you are making a film, you have two choices,'' said jiang wen, one of the country' s best - known actors, who has turned director.'' if you don' t want to compromise, you don' t make a film,'' he explained.'' if you want to make a film, the question is how. i try as much as possible to do what i want, and that is why for one year my latest film could not be shown in china; only after one year and many revisions did it get shown.''
he and most of his colleagues in the british troupe involved in the film say they are resigned to the fact that they are participating in a project that has a strong propaganda component.'' at this point, there is nothing i can do about that,'' mr. peck said.'' the history is pretty damning, and there are not too many heroes in this film.''
come over a rise on the dusty dirt road west of this small industrial town near hangzhou, and the scene of the crime suddenly appears: an antique city reflected in a dark lake, built to replicate the waterfront of mid - 19th - century canton, where opium dens and teahouses were the languorous backdrop of a coarser era .
after 150 years of british rule, hong kong reverts to chinese sovereignty at midnight on june 30, 1997. and on july 1, mr. xie' s'' opium war'' will make its world debut as an unsubtle piece of chinese propaganda dedicated, as his shooting script states,'' to a great moment in history,'' the return of the emerald city that hong kong has become .
that was not a doubt one had about “osama, ” where barmak stretched the story of a little girl disguised as a boy without losing believability or emotional touch with his characters. here there is no emotional contact of any kind, just a succession of shameless stereotypes and weird situations. film’s ultimate message may be anything from war is hell to afghanistan is unconquerable .
when two american soldiers find themselves stranded in afghanistan after a helicopter crash, they encounter a local family that lives in the shell of a soviet tank and grows opium to survive. the soldiers now find their lives in the hands of this bickering cast of family members .
rome' s audience prize is voted on by regular cinemagoers via a newly installed electronic voting procedure. the system was created by the company is s. p. a. in conjunction with rome' s cinema foundation. the festival said 64% of film goers participated in the voting .
mr. ding, a rising star under president jiang zemin, told studio managers and directors to start making more patriotic films of high quality. directors who tried to avoid censorship or to export their film without permission would be fined as much as 10 times their investment in the film. this amounted to a threat to financially ruin any director who did not put himself in thrall to the propaganda apparatus of the party .
costume drama about the war between uk and china that led to britain' s acquisition of hong kong 157 years ago. supposedly the most expensive movie production in the history of chinese cinema this is a well produced historic drama, if not a bit biased - naturally. not really that suspenseful, but watchable .
in the brochure that he prepared for potential chinese investors in his film, a large photo shows him standing with president jiang, his longtime friend and patron from shanghai, his hometown. the two are flanked by mr. ding, the propaganda chief, and zeng qinghong, director of the general office of the communist party central committee .
during his 2010 vist, cameron wore a poppy in his lapel despite china' s request he remove it because officials said it reminded them of the opium wars. photograph: frederic j. brown / afp / getty images
this moment also places mr. xie in the vanguard of artists willing to stoke the flames of nationalism in the service of the communist party as china reassembles the territories lost in the last century and goes, not so gently, into the new era that will follow the death of deng xiaoping .
xie wanted to tell
the whole story of the opium war ,
from the empress dowager to the common people. he does an impressive job, weaving in a range of reasonably well - conceived characters. there' s a patriotic prostitute, a qing - era suzie wong, who tries to stab a british client with a pair of scissors. perhaps most moving are the chinese commanders and manchu advisers, fiercely fighting to maintain their country' s dignity .
if hong kong is granted to foreigners, i will kill myself before you ,
a geriatric mandarin wails to the emperor. the british characters, however, are mostly caricatures. stereotypically callous, the naval officers are nonchalant as their cannons pound out death and destruction in the ports .
in one scene that had the audience chuckling, lin gathers the venal chinese bureaucrats in a room and announces :
we are all here to meditate for six hours straight .
lin' s intention is to weed out the addicts and send them to the gallows. for the first hour, the officials coolly sip their tea and feign meditation. but as a cuckoo clock marks the passing hours, one by one, the officials collapse, shaking and begging for mercy, unable to continue without their sustaining puffs on the opium pipe .
rome - - a wasted opportunity by afghanistan’s best - known director siddiq barmak to convey the harsh reality of his country to a curious world, “opium war” will disappoint fans of his luminous “osama” while it struggles to find venues outside of festivals. despite some eye - catching visuals that recall samira makhmalbaf’s work, this surreal tale of two american soldiers stuck in the desert with a family of impoverished afghan nomads is pointless and more than a little offensive. it is so alarmingly off - the - mark in depicting the yanks, one can only wonder whether there is anything at all real about the afghan characters .
web - only exclusives november 30, 2000  from our correspondent: hirohito and the war a conversation with biographer herbert bix from our correspondent: a rough road ahead bad news for the philippines - and some others from our correspondent: making enemies indonesia needs friends. so why is it picking fights ?
lin tse - hsu ,
as the film was originally titled, scarcely qualifies as an artistic event comparable, say, to the discovery of some lost silent classic or the soviet union' s release of the second part of eisenstein' s
ivan the terrible
in the late' 50s. the closest american equivalents to
lin tse - hsu
are such rarely revived exotica as
the egypyain ,
land of the pharoahs ,
demertius and the gladiator
and
the barbarian .
in good conscience we couldn' t dummp those schnorrers on the chinese market, but if
jaws
and
star wars .
pic delivers an unashamedly political message, dealing with the war between the u. k. and china that led to the brits’ grabbing of hong kong 157 years ago. the ceding of the rocky island was one of the most humiliating events in chinese history — though ironically a major shaper in 20th - century china’s development, given h. k. ’s subsequent success — and in that respect the movie arrives with official fingerprints all over it. the surprise is that it’s not simply a slice of xenophobia, and is comparatively even - handed in its treatment of both sides .
some directors report that state - controlled film studios were hit last spring with a wave of personnel changes. more ideological managers replaced those deemed lacking in socialist enthusiasm. at the same time, censors simply stopped approving scripts and started holding up films already in the censorship pipeline .
zhang yimou, a fifth generation film maker whose'' raise the red lantern'' has been accused of pandering to western tastes, said,'' the changsha conference made it clear that there would have to be a number of patriotic films made every year.''
'' they just killed my film,'' he said, shaking his head, in a conversation over coffee at a west beijing hotel.'' this is the first time that a movie is killed in the process of making it. my investors are crying.''
the film was shot in the hengdian world studios in zhejiang province, a common filming site for historical films which has been dubbed
chinawood .
in order to recreate the streets of 19th - century guangzhou, nearly 120 construction teams from surrounding villages were assembled. in contrast, nearly all post - production took place in japan .
at 73, xie jin (pronounced syee - eh jeen) is almost unknown in the west; he made his name largely inside china, playing to domestic audiences with sentimental films about the suffering of the common man, though he was always scrupulous not to blame the communist party or any of its leaders. mr. xie never pushed the limits of his craft like the younger, so - called fifth generation directors, who emerged from film school as china was emerging from the chaos of the cultural revolution and mao zedong' s last decade in power .
'' i think the movie is just and objective,'' mr. xie said at the end of a day of shooting, before he uncorked a bottle of fiery white liquor for his late - night meeting to plan the next day' s shooting.'' this was the biggest drug trade in world history and some british people say it is a shame that they sold opium to china.''
what
lins tse - hsu
conspicuously lacks is adequate dramatization of this intriguing outline. in part the filmmakers seem inhibited by deliberate chauvinistic obfuscation. the british are depicted as leering, cringing villains, and their forces are last seen beating a hasty retreat from the rocks and spears of lin' s stalwart militia. in fact, lin' s mission was a temporary triumph at best. the british imposed their will during this period of history and one of the things imperial china lost as a conswquence of the wars provoked by the opium trade was hong kong .
with captions bridging the gaps, the team of four scripters have distilled events into a workable format that can be followed easily by first - timers. starting in 1838, the story spins round a viceroy, lin zexu (bao guoan), who’s dispatched to guangzhou (canton) by the qing court to put an end to british traders’ mass selling of opium, which is enfeebling the population. chief among the traders is denton (bob peck), of the powerful east india co. , who arrives at the home of an old friend, he (sihung lung), and soon finds himself blockaded and he thrown into prison by the incorruptible, fiercely nationalist lin .
'' the operations of the film bureau have almost come to a halt,'' said wang shuo, one of china' s most popular novelists. his earthy stories were headed for the screen until last spring.'' people have been waiting months for scripts to be cleared, but they just sit there,'' mr. wang said .
what seems to most entrance barmak are the visual possibilities offered by the stunning afghan desert and its waving fields of pain - killing poppies, dramatically photographed by georgi dzulaiev. at one point, a column of identically - dressed women in burkas gracefully glides across the sands, only to reveal themselves as bearded opium smugglers with hidden kalashnikovs. why hide in the middle of the desert? later, identically dressed soldiers wearing sunglasses appear out of nowhere accompanied by donkeys and ballot boxes, bringing “democracy” to the illiterate nomads. but long before then, most of the audience will have given up in despair .
amuch - hyped, long - planned project with a clear political message ,
the opium war
is a consistently eye - pleasing historical costumer that' s a superior example of its type without moving any mountains. further reduction of the running time to the two - hour mark would help its chances in western markets, though its best bet lies in the six - episode, six - hour tv miniseries to be hewn from the mountain of footage. the reportedly $ 15 million pic has so far been sold in east asia (at record prices), and will open in china and hong kong on july 1, when the latter territory reverts to mainland rule. the movie is in every respect a major improvement on the previous chinese treatment of the subject, the stodgy' 50s
lin zexu ,
and veteran mainland director xie jin (
two stage sisters ,
hibiscus town
) has come up with some moments of fine drama between the regulation historical stuff that such large - scale costumers are heir to. hong kong director ann hui, billed as an associate producer, helped out on the action scenes, and senior taiwan helmer lee hsing was a consultant on the project, which also uses some taiwan - based actors .
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onondaga county executive joanie mahoney tells newschannel 9 ,
all of the locations have been chosen, people are prepared, so when they come they' ll be able to film the whole movie in about eight weeks, but all of those people in town it' s a benefit to us to make more of this happen .
still, xie' s expensive history lesson did hit home with many british members of the audience .
there really is no excuse for what my country did ,
offers one businessman as he leaves the cinema .
this film certainly made that abundantly clear - - not only in black and white but in technicolor .
a century and a half after the fact, perhaps concessions like this are the greatest victory for director xie .
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his comedy,'' an awkward life,'' was in midproduction when censors at the ministry of radio, television and film, which reports to the minister of propaganda, simply ordered shooting to stop. even his novels have disappeared from book stalls. mr. wang believes that in the wake of the changsha conference, censors feared they would be rebuked by party leaders if they allowed his story of an adulterous love triangle to be filmed .
resolution 819, also a rome world premiere, is a french - polish - italian co - production about a volunteer french police officer that heads out to srebrenica to research evidence of genocide. receiving his award, battiato said,' part of this money will go to the refugees, and another part will go into the next film.'
to promote inter - disciplinary research in social sciences and humanities from both the perspectives of the east and west .
the giveaway that this is a movie set is the cranes, the reflectors, the megaphones barking at hundreds of extras, and, in the midst of it all, xie jin, the director, in coolie chic: a broad peasant hat to shade his ample girth, which is covered by a chinese tunic with cut - off sleeves, shorts and beat - up nikes. he is trying to convey to a group of british actors, through an interpreter, that they should accentuate the imagery of their evil, their conniving and their inhumanity toward the chinese, whom they are poisoning with opium in the name of british mercantilism. when they get it right, he nods enthusiastically and says,'' hao, hao, hao!'' ('' good, good, good!'') the interpreter interprets:'' director xie says the performance is good.''
the film opened to much buzz in hong kong with three well - attended premieres. shanghai - based xie flew in for the events, as did several of the film' s taiwan and chinese actors. popular charity operation smile, which operates in china, sponsored a gala attended by more than 300 celebrities and moneyed locals. among them: former chief secretary sir david akers - jones, socialite fund - raiser alice chiu, art - house filmmaker wong kar wai and a bevy of television stars. xie, 73, in a slightly crumpled suit, thick glasses and a giant corsage pinned to his lapel, looked distinctly mainland - like - - and proud .
never mind that her rejection is out of character for an opium tart who plied her trade in those long, low stretches of vice that canton had become by 1840. one can imagine that next year, when she is forced to submit to british lasciviousness on the big screen, all of china will feel her shame through xie jin' s lens .
mr. ye, the son of a senior space scientist, grew up in the bosom of the party, so his bluntness about censorship is surprising; his words probably reflect the views of many directors who chafe under the new regimen but are unwilling to express them so candidly in public .
some advance reviews had me aniticioationg breathtaking vistas of the forhidden city and the great wall and canton. those scenic wonders turn cut ot be fleeting at best, and two decades in the vault has done nothing to enhance the movie' s colour, which looks as faded as the color in a typical theatrical print of american films of the same vintage .
like virtually every movie ,
lin tse - hsu
reveals interesting things about the culture that spawned it, but it' s difficult to greet this 20 - year - old mediocrity as a major culture revelation. perhaps the import of earlier and later chinese features will put it all in perspective. in the meantime one can' t help wondering what sent
lin tse - hsu
to the head of the american import line. it must have been either the drug angle or the fact that the british are the bad guys .
the story of two men, who met as apprentices in the peking opera, and stayed friends for over 50 years .
read stories based on reporting for “trump revealed, ” a broad, comprehensive biography of the life of the 45th president .
bao humanizes the character of the upright lin zexu as much as possible, but the main acting honors on the chinese side go to lin liankun as qi, a performance that’s a clever, and sometimes humorous, mixture of duplicity and ignorance, and to su min as the ruthless but realistic emperor daoguang. among the brits, peck steals the show in several acting set pieces as the bottom - line denton, with williams gradually shading his playing as the snooty elliot. several other actors, including corin redgrave and nigel davenport, pop up in minor roles .
a white officer, don johnson (peter bussian), and his black subordinate, joe (joe suba), crawl out of their helicopter into a poppy field in northern afghanistan. in one of pic’s many cliches, johnson is a smart brute, while joe, from harlem, isn’t knowledgeable about anything except opium. however, their continuous bickering pales in comparison to the goings - on in the clan of the local one - legged patriarch (hamid hozouri), who owns the field. “osama” protag marina golbahari (who also did continuity duty) co - stars as a mad member of the barmy family. some striking visual compositions and a locally flavored score are the only standout tech contributions .
lewi is a consortium of 28 universities from north america, europe and asia. the institute, with hong kong baptist university (hkbu) as the host institution and base, was established in 1993 with the aim to foster inter - disciplinary social science and humanities research and cultivate collaborative scholarship between the east and the west .
bob peck, who played the dinosaur keeper in'' jurassic park,'' helped mr. xie create the denton character .
buzzing comedies such as the spy who dumped me await you in our summer movie guide. check in for all the info you need .
party bosses want to be seen as protecting the motherland from'' splittists'' in tibet,'' separatists'' in taiwan and pro - democracy'' counterrevolutionaries'' everywhere. the masses may not fully approve of the communist regime, which is still judged to be corrupt and incompetent in much of the country, but their patriotism is resonant with the themes and slogans the government is articulating .
no matter. public reception promises to be much warmer. at an earlier promotional event, movie buffs were out in force to snap up signed copies of commemorative picture books. there was plenty of other memorabilia: coffee mugs, stamps. even scripts. clearly, merchandising is one area where the film is breaking new ground. and if it scores at the box office, director xie may well have set a marketing trend for chinese movies.
the opium war ( 鸦片战争 ) is a 1997 chinese historical epic film directed by xie jin . the winner of the 1997 golden rooster and 1998 hundred flowers awards for best picture , the film was screened in several international film festivals , notably cannes and montreal . the film tells the story of the first opium war of 1839 – 1842 , which was fought between the qing empire of china and the british empire , from the perspectives of key figures such as the chinese viceroy lin zexu and the british naval diplomat charles elliot . unlike many of its contemporaries , the opium war was strongly supported by the state apparatus . despite its clear political message , many western commentators found the treatment of the historical events to be generally even-handed . at the time of its release , the opium war , with a budget of $ 15 million ( usd ) , was the most expensive film produced in china . it was released to coincide with the hong kong handover ceremony in july 1997 . 
the opium war (鸦片战争) is a 1997 chinese historical epic film directed by xie jin. the winner of the 1997 golden rooster and 1998 hundred flowers awards for best picture, the film was screened in several international film festivals, notably cannes and montreal. the film tells the story of the first opium war of 1839 – 1842, which was fought between the qing empire of china and the british empire, from the perspectives of key figures such as the chinese viceroy lin zexu and the british naval diplomat charles elliot. unlike many of its contemporaries, the opium war was strongly supported by the state apparatus. despite its clear political message, many western commentators found the treatment of the historical events to be generally even-handed. at the time of its release, the opium war, with a budget of $ 15 million (usd), was the most expensive film produced in china. it was released to coincide with the hong kong handover ceremony in july 1997.
the opium war (鸦片战争) is a 1997 chinese historical epic film directed by xie jin. the winner of the 1997 golden rooster and 1998 hundred flowers awards for best picture, the film was screened in several international film festivals, notably cannes and montreal. the film tells the story of the first opium war of 1839 – 1842, which was fought between the qing empire of china and the british empire, from the perspectives of key figures such as the chinese viceroy lin zexu and the british naval diplomat charles elliot. unlike many of its contemporaries, the opium war was strongly supported by the state apparatus. despite its clear political message, many western commentators found the treatment of the historical events to be generally even-handed. at the time of its release, the opium war, with a budget of $ 15 million (usd), was the most expensive film produced in china. it was released to coincide with the hong kong handover ceremony in july 1997.