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      The Beginning of the Great Revival

      2011 2 hr. 20 min. History Drama List
      25% 8 Reviews Tomatometer 28% 250+ Ratings Audience Score Historical events surround the formation of China's Communist Party. Read More Read Less

      Audience Reviews

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      wali k Despite what most critics here are saying, this film is an absolute must-see for any Chinese history buff, and definitely still an enjoyable watch for someone with a loose grasp of the history. I first saw it in 2019, with almost no understanding of the history, but I still liked it then. Now that I rewatched it only a few days ago, this time with a full understanding of the history of the time, I can assure that this is a great movie and one of the best I've seen in a long time. It definitely requires a little bit of understanding beforehand, though. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 05/13/23 Full Review Audience Member Review: What an epic movie! This film certainly looked great and the costumes and scenery is superb but I didn't have a clue about what was going on. I didn't know who was who or what was where. The small captions on the bottom of the screen and the subtitles didn't help and the different storylines just made the whole movie hard to follow. Its a shame, because the acting is great and the I did feel a sense of intensity throughout the film but it's hard to keep up with the epic, political concept which changed China forever. The director over complicated the concept and he even added a love story, so there is way too many things going on at once. It reminded me a lot of the Founding Of The Republic, which was also extremely hard to follow and I personally gave up watching after a while. They could have easily split this film into 2 movies, so the director could have concentrated on different elements of he storyline. Anyway, although it looks great, the storyline is all over the place and I personally lost the plot. Disappointing! Round-Up: After watching a few Oriental movies, I did recognise a few faces throughout this movie but I still found it hard to follow. The movie was directed by Sanping Han who also directed the confusing Founding Of The Republic with Jianxin Huang. Sanping Han has produced some top movies like Shaolin, Confucius, the great Let The Bullets Fly, the Karate Kid and Mission Impossible 3, so he's certainly got experience when it comes to big movies but he really did over complicate this one. I have to commend the directors on there efforts and the scale of this film, especially in terms the huge cast and the amazing cinematography but from an entertainment perspective, there is just too much to concentrate on. I recommend this movie to people who are into their history/dramas starring Chow Yun-Fat, Angelababy, Daniel Wu, John Woo, Andy Lau, Simon Yam, Chao Deng, Xun Zhou and Kun Chen. 3/10 Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 01/18/23 Full Review Audience Member Propagandistic movie about the beginnings of the Chinese Communist Party. Too ambitious and packing too much in too short a time. Still, of historical interest. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/26/23 Full Review Audience Member A quick rundown of the events leading to the formation of the communist party. Be careful history might be twisted a bit. Rated 1 out of 5 stars 01/18/23 Full Review Audience Member A film that makes little effort to hide it's communist propaganda agenda. Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 01/28/23 Full Review Audience Member Aside from a host of HK heroes, this who's-who of Chinese cinema is for the history buffs only. As with its accompanying feature 'Founding of a Republic' the film is havy on drama with little scattered action scenes throughout, albeit great performances from all. I tried... Rated 2 out of 5 stars 01/27/23 Full Review Read all reviews Post a rating

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      Critics Reviews

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      Andy Webster New York Times "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. Rated: 2.5/5 Jun 24, 2011 Full Review Maggie Lee Hollywood Reporter The highly-charged crowd scenes in which dissidents clash with authorities are staged with visual flair, conveying an exhilarating sense of self-empowerment which is the essence of revolution. Jun 24, 2011 Full Review Mark Olsen Los Angeles Times "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. Rated: 2/5 Jun 23, 2011 Full Review Marsha McCreadie Film Journal International History of Chinese Communism drowns in data. Jan 6, 2012 Full Review Avi Offer NYC Movie Guru Epic with production values and a terrific ensemble cast, but often bland and emotionally hollow. Rated: 6.19/10 Aug 9, 2011 Full Review Brent Simon Screen International The technical accomplishment and narrative scope of this propagandistic telling of the origins of the Chinese Communist Party stand in contrast to plotting that is stodgy and characterizations that are thin and functionally sketched. Rated: C Jun 30, 2011 Full Review Read all reviews

      Movie Info

      Synopsis Historical events surround the formation of China's Communist Party.
      Director
      Sanping Han, Jianxin Huang
      Screenwriter
      Zhe Dong, Jung Li Guong, Xin Huang
      Genre
      History, Drama
      Original Language
      Chinese
      Release Date (Streaming)
      Feb 28, 2017