- English name：The Opium War
- Broadcast time：June 9, 1997
- Starring：鲍国安（Guoan Bao）
- director：谢晋
Introduction
Today, I will introduce a Chinese film which called The Opium War (鸦片战争yā piàn zhàn zhēng). So let us have a brief introduction.
The Opium War is a 1997 Chinese historical epic film directed by Xie Jin (谢晋Xiè Jìn). 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 Opium War between China in the waning days of the Qing Dynasty and the British Empire, through the eyes of key figures like the fiercely nationalistic Lin Zexu (林则徐Lín Zéxú), 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 US$15 million, was the most expensive film produced in China. It was released to coincide with the Hong Kong handover ceremony in July 1997.
This is a very fabulous film.
Plot
During the Daoguang reign of the Qing Dynasty, Britain’s opium trade posed a serious threat to the Qing Empire. Emperor Daoguang (played by Su Min) was forced to issue an edict and appointed Lin Zexu (played by Bao Guoan), the governor of Huguang, as the imperial commissioner to go to Guangdong to ban opium. However, the opium trade was complicated, and corrupt officials were in collusion with British businessmen. Lin Zexu’s anti-smoking campaign faced many difficulties. On the one hand, Elliot, the British Commercial Director in China, asked British merchants to cooperate with the ban on opium and hand over opium to ease the contradiction between Lin Zexu and British merchants, but on the other hand, he planned a bigger conspiracy.
On June 3, the 19th year of Daoguang, Lin Zexu directed the gunpowder on the Humen Beach in Guangzhou, which made the people applaud. But soon, the British merchant Dent was commissioned by Elliot to return to Britain to lobby everywhere, and the British declared war on China. The British navy was well-equipped and went straight down to Tanggu from the mouth of the Pearl River. Emperor Daoguang was weak and incompetent. He only blamed Lin Zexu for angering the foreigners, dismissed him, and sent Zhili Governor Qishan (played by Lin Liankun) as an imperial envoy to reconcile with the British. Later, the British proposed to cede territory and pay compensation. Daoguang could not bear to cede territory, so he ordered the navy to fight. Guan Tianpei (played by Jiang Hua) and others led troops to fight the British army at Humen Fort, but they eventually lost due to backward weapons, and all officers and soldiers died for their country. Lin Zexu was exiled to Xinjiang. The British and the Qing government signed the Treaty of Nanjing in 1842, and Hong Kong became a British colony.
Professional evaluation
1、The film is based on historical facts and truly reflects the beginning and end of a war between China and Britain, praising the heroic spirit of the Chinese nation in resisting the oppression of foreign powers. The film breaks through the weakness of one-sided stereotyping in domestic films, reappearing historical figures on the screen, leaving a deep impression on the audience. The film respects history and reality as its starting point, and is a good work among previous films of similar themes.
2、In this film, Xie Jin no longer simply describes the people’s struggle against the British, but strives to point out the comprehensive destruction of national vitality caused by long-term feudal rule. At the same time, he does not simply narrate the general process of the event, but puts it in the historical background of the world at that time to observe it, so that the audience can have a deep understanding of the national disaster, achieve the artistic effect of learning from the pain, and also make realism reach a higher level in the exploration of historical themes. An important feature of this film is that it fully displays the historical background of the Opium War, reveals the various activities of the British invaders, and gives the whole film a macro historical scale. In particular, the film is not for the purpose of simple comparison, but puts both sides in the long river of history to observe, so as to write about China’s backwardness and the negative state of Western civilization. The film gets rid of the dogmatic mode that previous historical films often fall into, and truly enters the field of realism. It also proves that Xie Jin’s realistic artistic pursuit is entering history from reality and making another breakthrough.
3、In this film, Xie Jin, with his strong ability to control the story and his consistent, almost sentimental, humanitarian and warm stance, handles a historical subject in a tortuous, moving and fascinating way, thus finding a point of convergence between the mainstream cultural discourse and the public sentiment, that is, to express history with legendary stories, to complete the expression of mainstream ideological discourse with the ups and downs of the fate of the characters in the historical process, to complete the “historical representation”, and “history” is transformed into an experience image that directly connects with the public’s daily emotions. Based on the omniscient narrative viewpoint since “The Founding of the Nation”, the film focuses on the portrayal of the characters’ personalities and destinies, rather than simply affirming or denying the opposing sides.
