Movie Review: Beginning of the Great Revival/建黨偉業

Communism WOW!

Beginning of the Great Revival/建黨偉業, formerly known as Founding of a Party(as part of China’s Founding franchise that began with Founding of a Republic) is a big, fat “Happy Birthday to Us!” from the Chinese Communist Party to… well, itself.

Liu Ye as the audience and the microphone as the CCP.Note the expression of excitement and admiration.Suck it, bitches.

Anyone else will feel a little left out.

Historians, cinema fans, Tang Wei Fans, you know, those people.

The question is not whether fellatio had any influence on the choice of people appearing in this triptych. The question is who performed it.

Because this ‘film’ makes as much narrative sense as reading out the signatures on a birthday card signed by all your friends, or all your coworkers. Lots of congratulation, virtually no exposition.

thought vampires weren’t allowed in China films any more.

How do you pack 30 years of history into 2 hours?

Volume, volume, volume!

Andy Lau as an anti-aging agent; his love interests never get any older even as he does.The film follows a basic premise; introduce a character, then show him or her doing something.

Introduce another character. Usually a star cameo. Show him or her doing something righteous.

John Woo takes one for (access to) the China Market. His expression tells us where he’s taking it.

Introduce a non-Chinese character. Show them for the evil, ignorant scum they are.

Repeat as necessary.

Robert Downey Jr. as Zhou Enlai 周恩来

For two f@#$ing hours.

Oh, and truth is rarely if ever necessary.

“If my wife was here, she’d rip my balls off…”

So I decided to structure my review the same way. Because the film deserves it, and because I have lots of better things to do with my time.

“Why are you stopping me from ripping his balls off?”

This film is all about how great, glorious, and great the CCP is. The film is also chock full of laughable revisionism, my favorite being “The Russians had a revolution and now they are free!”

Yeah, free to experience the joys of Soviet rule for 70 years.

I’m getting an erection just thinking about it.

Sometimes being in a movie for about 45 secondsis something to smile about.

Chiang Kai Shek appears in the film, but gets no title card. He is the only person who doesn’t get one.

Daniel Day Lewis as Mao’s 2nd wife, Jiang Qing (江青).

He is portrayed as an assassin.

Its only fair since so many Chinese citizens have cameos in jingoistic American propaganda films.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d never put CSK up for any humanity prizes. But the simply childish way his name is left off only amplifies its absence. If you’re not afraid of him, why do this?

The film’s final shot cannot be accused of flag-waving jingoism, because the final shot  is a waving Chinese flag, with subtitles extolling the glorious advances China has made and the shining future that awaits China.

I can’t wait for Birth of a Great Leap Forward or Founding of a Cultural Revolution or Fuck You Taiwan or Tibet is Ours So Fuck Off.

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What a lousy review. Well, it matches the shameless clusterf@#$ that is  Beginning of the Great Revival/建黨偉業.

Today is July 1. Chinese Communism turns 90. Please lets do all we can to keep it from ever seeing 95, much less 100.

Here’s a simple lesson.

This is your brain on Chinese Communism:

Taken June 4, 1989 at “10 Iron Men Circle” or something close to it.

Fuck Mao, Lenin, Communism, the Chinese Communist Party and everything about them. If you way of government is so Goddamned wonderful, why do you need fences to keep people in, you murdering, filthy scum? Die soon and make way for a better world.