1911 - The Movie

I hope we get to see Jackie's kung-fu skills again in addition to the gunfights in the trailer

I enjoyed Jackie's other recent movie Shaolin. It is set in the warlord period and has a more serious tone than his early films like Drunken Master or Cooks and Kungfu

All in all, 1911 was a horrible movie that wasn't even shown in Taiwan, the Republic of China that the 1911 revolution was about.  The acting was bad, the plot was corny, and most of it seem to come out without much of thoughts.

I saw the movie yesterday. Seems to me simply a propaganda film. And Jackie Chan didn't play Kungfu in it.

Jackie Chan has got old and his physical condition is not up to some difficult moves. I guess he will act less in action movies from now.

Since the Founding of a Republic and Beginning of the Great Revival, the propaganda movies by mainland China involved more and more Hongkong and Taiwan actors. Oops

Originally posted by BoPoMoFo They need a focus to revolt against.  And there was no better one than the Manchu people.  They were foreign (if need to be).  They exploited the Han majority (by taking advantage of the system).  They had massacred Hans.  And (fair or not) they were responsible for the state of the country.  Finally, Manchus symbolized the imperial system.  The emperor was Manchua, and so were most of his supporters.

In fact, there were two attitudes toward Manchu people among revolutionaries: radical and moderate. The most passionate statement from the revolutionay point of view was made by Zou Rong and his mentor, Zhang Binglin. In Revolutinaary Army, Zou wrote,

When men love their race, solidarity will arise internally, and what is outside will be repelled. Hence, to begin with, clans were united and other clans repelled; next tribes were united and other tribes expelled, finally the people of a country became united and people of other countries were repelled. This is the general principle of the races of the world, and also a major reason why races engender history... China is the China of the Chinese. Countrymen, you must all recognize the China of the Chinese of the Han race.

Sun Yat-sen was a moderate in this regard. Althoug he and his comrades put up the slogan of "expelling Manchu barbarians", they didn't take it that seriously. After the Republic was established in 1912 and Han dominance asserted, the revolutionaries agreed to a Republic of Five Nationlities (inclucing Manchu people) and settled on the appellation zhonghua minzu (the Chinese nationality) for the nation. The national flag also featured five colour, signifying the Five Nationities.

Edited by longbaby - 07-Nov-2012 at 02:43

Some of its goals have been achieved: China has now modernised and is undergoing slow transition from dictatorship to greater freedom

Is that the reason the Chinese flag was originally five colors before changing to white, red and blue?

Which nationality does each color of the flag symbolise Longbaby?

I saw the movie on an aircraft and somewhat enjoyed it. In summary: Sun Yat Sen in coming for some important meeting, the Manchu secret police are looking to kill him, and the various revolutionary bands have to unite to put a security system in place to protect him from the assassins.  The street battles related to getting Dr. Sun out of danger did remind me of Kung Fu movies.