The Beginning of a Great Revival (2011)

25% of critics liked it
(8 reviews)
30% of users liked it
(224 ratings)

Beginning of the Great Revival, known as The Founding of a Party in China and a companion piece to 2009's blockbuster The Founding of a Republic, details the historic events surrounding what is referred to as the Chinese Revolution, the period from 1911 to 1921, when Sun Yat-sen overthrew the Qing… More Beginning of the Great Revival, known as The Founding of a Party in China and a companion piece to 2009's blockbuster The Founding of a Republic, details the historic events surrounding what is referred to as 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 today's Chinese Communist government. The story shows the beginnings of the country's most influential first-generation leaders, including Mao Zedong, Chiang Kai-shek and Zhou Enlai. Just as The Founding of a Republic did, the film, co-directed by Jianxin Huang and Sanping Han, features a cast of China's biggest box office names such as Liu Ye, Chang Chen, Chen Kun, Andy Lau, Daniel Wu and John Woo. -- (C) Official Site

Rating, Runtime: Unrated, 2 hr. 20 min.
Directed By: Sanping Han, Jianxin Huang
Genres: Documentary, Drama

In Theaters: Jun 24, 2011 Limited
Studio: China Lion Film

Critic Reviews

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.
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.
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.
Marsha McCreadie, Film Journal International
History of Chinese Communism drowns in data.
Avi Offer, NYC Movie Guru
Epic with production values and a terrific ensemble cast, but often bland and emotionally hollow.
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.
John Hartl, Seattle Times
Perhaps the translation is at fault here, but why does the dialogue consistently do so little to flesh out the characters?
Bill Weber, Slant Magazine
A muddled would-be epic of the Chinese Communist Party's founding, this all-star propaganda pageant plays like an incoherent lesson plan.