The Founding of a Republic

First things first, this film is obviously made for the Chinese market. Why? You gotta know your Chinese history, and you also need to be pretty comfortable with the Chinese view of their government - and I'm not talking about those country-loathing people you see complaining on the papers. I'm talking about the Chinese people who love how China has risen to where they are now - as a technical point of view. What was up with the editing? I'm tempted to say it was the fault of the version I saw, or they did mess up the cutting of the film. Other than that, well... casting was perfect, like the actor playing Mao actually looked a lot like him. The cameos were alright, I guess... but I could have done without them especially if they bring in the crowd thinking that they're in for a Jackie Chan/Jet Li martial arts film, when it's not. The star-studded epic charts the ascendancy of Chairman Mao was made by the state-owned China Film Group and is intended as a focal point for anniversary celebrations which will culminate on Oct 1. With hundreds of stars from China and Hong Kong, including the kung-fu hero Jackie Chan and Jet Li, telling the story of the Communist rise to power in 1949, the film is being tipped as one of the biggest box office hits in the country for years. In a break from a long tradition of ideologically sound but mind-numbingly dull Party propaganda, the film's producers say they hope the cast-list - as well as the subject matter - will attract in a younger, internet-obsessed generation back to the big screen. Centred on the exploits of Chairman Mao and his rag-tag band of revolutionaries, the film chronicles the heroic but arduous birth of Communist China through the defeat of the Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai–shek in a series of bloody battles between 1945-49. The £6 million budget for The Founding of a Republic, or Jianguo Daye in Chinese, was kept in check by the fact that many of the film's celebrity cast donated their time for free, dropping onto the set for a few hours at a time to record cameo roles.