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Plot Summary
BEGINNING OF THE GREAT REVIVAL details the historic events surrounding the Chinese Revolution - the period from 1911 to 1921 when Sun Yat-sen overthrew the Qing Dynasty and planted the roots of what has become modern-day China's Communist government. The story charts the beginnings of the country's most influential first-generation leaders, including ambitious warlord Yuan Shikai (Chow Yun-Fat, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), who undertakes an attempt to revive the Chinese monarchy, Tsai Ao (Andy Lau, Infernal Affairs), the pro-Republic governor of Yunnan, Mao Zedong (Liu Ye, Curse of the Golden Flower) and others.
Rotten Tomatoes Movie Reviews
TOMATOMETER
25%- Reviews Counted: 8
- Fresh: 2
- Rotten: 6
- Average Rating: 4.5/10
Top Critics' Reviews
Rotten: "Revival" is a proud statement by an ascendant society. But it demonstrates that mainstream Chinese cinema can be as guilty of self-indulgent overstatement as anything out of the West.
Rotten: "Great Revival" is in many ways the very definition of propaganda - it even ends with an image of a waving flag - but "Revival" is too harmlessly flabby to be taken quite that seriously.
Rotten: Perhaps the translation is at fault here, but why does the dialogue consistently do so little to flesh out the characters?
Rotten: A muddled would-be epic of the Chinese Communist Party's founding, this all-star propaganda pageant plays like an incoherent lesson plan.
Customer Reviews
The Official Story
This originally has the Chinese title 建党伟业, "the magnificent achievement of creating the Communist Party." If you want to see the Communist Party's official story of how its founders were perfect saints and anyone who disagreed with them were devils, this is the movie. for you.
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