As a special gift on the 60th Founding Anniversary of the People’s Republic of China on October 1st, the Chinese film industry collaborated on producing a movie which commemorates the said historic event. The movie features renowned film directors and famous stars from China and Hongkong including big celebrities like Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Stephen Chow, Zhang Ziyi and Andy Lau among others.
The release of the film is one of the main events in the celebration which aims to inculcate patriotism to the young generation. The film reminisces the crucial times in Chinese history when the most enduring communist revolution began from 1945 when they fight against Japanese aggression up to 1949 when they won against the Kuomintang group, ended the Chinese Civil War and formed the People’s Republic of China.
Although this movie has the biggest gathering of highest-paid stars, the producer revealed that the production cost is comparatively lower than many of today’s commercial projects. It might be because most of the cast members and celebrities who made guest appearances did the film without asking any pay.
Jet Li plays a Kuomintang naval admiral while Jackie Chan cameos as a reporter. During the movie premier (Sept. 10), Jackie admitted that he liked the role of Chairman Mao but the director chose Tang Guoqiang as he has just the right age to play as the Chairman. Another chairman behind this historical film is Mr. Han Sanping, of China Film Group, one of the biggest Chinese film distributors.
Watching this movie is a good reason to find out why the face of Chairman Mao is still in the country’s bank notes over so many years now despite many other things that happened in Chinese history. The movie will be shown across China this Sept. 17th and in Hongkong, on or before Sept. 20
