I’ve seen a lot of Chinese-made movies about Chinese history: An Empress and the Warriors (set during the Warring States period), Hero (set in the reign of Qin Shih Huang Ti), Red Cliff (Three Kingdoms period) – and I’m planning to rent House of Flying Daggers (Tang Dynasty) – but they’re all set in ancient times or medieval times. The last two centuries of Chinese history are just chock-full of action: The Opium Wars, the White Lotus Rebellion, the Taiping Rebellion, the Boxer Rebellion, the Republic of China, the Civil War, the Japanese invasion, the victory of the Communists, the Hundred Flowers Campaign, the Cultural Revolution – why no movies about all of that? The only one I can recall is The Last Emperor, and that was made by an Italian. Does the PRC government, for some reason, want directors to avoid recent history as a theme?
Well, there’s Farewell my Concubine. IIRC, it covers history from the early days of the ROC to the 1970’s. To Live was similar; it’s been described as a “Chinese *Gone with the Wind *.” They’re both rather good, but Farewell My Concubine is pretty long.
off the top of my head, Fearless and Bodyguards and Assassins, both set around the end of the Qing dynasty.
Play around Youtube. I’ve found historical movies made outside the US by plugging in keywords for the Boxer Rebellion, The British invasion of Tibet in 1904, The Russo- Turkish Wars, the Swedish/Polish-Lithuanian/Russian wars of the 17th century, etc. etc., all made by the countries these events effected.
They’ve all got state-sponsored or subsidised film indusrties, and axes to grind.
There’s “Zou Xiang Gonghe” (Toward the Republic), a Chinese tv miniseries about the years between 1870-1917. The last episode was actually cut by the censors and didn’t appear on TV, because it contained a speech by Sun Yat-Sen on his “Three Principles of the People”, and the need for constitutional government.
There’s also Chang Cheh’s “The Boxer Rebellion”, but that was made in Hong Kong in the 1970s.
In fact, you might like this wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Chinese_history_in_film
There are a lot of films there, many made in China, set during WWII, the Cultural Revolution, the Opium War, and other periods of modern history.
Just a caveat here to the OP. Most of the films you have mentioned are more fantastic in nature and the any history is just backdrop. House of the Flying Daggers, for example, could be set in any dynasty and still works. Not so much so for Red Cliff, but its take on the Three Kingdoms is even more romanaticized than the novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
You may want to look for TV serials on the life of the various Qing dynasty Emperors and Towards the Republic, mentioned by Captain Amazing. The irony is that it is probably harder to find films/series that are more faithful to history for stuff older than 200 years ago. (There is a TV series on Liu Bang, founder of the Han dyanasty, but it is more of a wuxia/comedy/soap opera combination).
We have like 5000 years of history. The last 200 is merely a drop in the bucket.
Also, most of us are still obsessed with our past, probably to an unhealthy degree
Not to mention the last 200 years aren’t the most glorious period ever for China, what with it being colonized, defeated in the Opium War, trampled on by the Japanese during the first and second World War, and so on.
Last Emperor count?
Besides Bodyguards & Assassins, there’s also the recent Founding Of A Republic which covers the tail end of the Chinese Civil War and how Mao Tse-Tung ended up in charge. It’s also notable for actually portraying Chiang Kai-Shek in a fairly sympathetic light, too.
Also, there are a few “Hong Kong” films set in the 1930s, including the excellent Kung Fu Hustle.
Since the writers and director were all Italian (I can’t determine Mark Peploe’s nationality, but since Bertolucci is his brother-in-law, I’m going with Italian), there is a case for excluding it from consideration.
Would these be considered “epics”? It’s a nebulous term and I honestly don’t know first hand.
It’s a tough call. Personally, I think people jumping through the air in slow motion whilst firing guns or doing incredible wire-fu moves qualify as “Epic”, but I was really addressing the wider point that not all Chinese movies are set either in some mythical “Anytime” before about the 18th century, or modern-day Hong Kong.
One recent film that covers the Nanking massacre is the beautifully shot but very brutal Nanjing! Nanjing! by Lu Chuan.
I think the changing way that China conceptualizes it’s history is fascinating. Please note that I am not an expert and these are just my own conjectures.
During the cultural revolution, there was a big push to reject the past. Monuments, temples, historic sites, etc. were destroyed. China’s past became a dirty word. The Communist Party positioned itself as a distinct break from the past, with it’s “century of humiliation” and feudalism before that. They were extraordinarily successful. I live in a town with 4,000 years of history, and there are only a handful of buildings more than a few decades old.
In more recent times, the powers that be have done a 360, and realized they could position themselves as the legitimate continuation of China’s history. Suddenly it’s all about glorifying the past. In my opinion there is a bit of emphasis on the strong leaders of the past, presumably adding legitimacy to today’s autocrats. Historically, China has a tendency to break into competing states. In my opinion, today’s leaders have a legitimate fear that this very nightmare could happen today. So I believe right now there is a lot of mythology about how a strong leader unified China and led it into glory- the very role that the current administration would like to be perceived as fulfilling.
It’s also my personal opinion that there is an emphasis on nationalism these days. Almost all nationalist movements do the whole “let’s return to past glory” thing. No doubt part of it is that the other side is no longer around to complain, so you can basically come off as all good.
Flipping through the channels, I’d venture that 30% of the shows I see are historical dramas. It’s kind of extraordinary. Lots of these are set during the period of war with Japan. I imagine a lot of this stuff doesn’t make it to the States because “Japan’s the worst thing ever” doesn’t really play as well.
If one is counting kung fu flicks, then I should mention both the Once Upon A Time In China series, and Legend of the Drunken Master and Drunken Master II, both circa 1900ish.
Would “The Sand Pebbles” count?
As well as Fist of Legend, a retelling of the earlier Bruce Lee Chinese Connection, both set pre-WW2
If you count kung fu flicks, Iron Monkey is set during the Manchu dynasty. You can tell by the hairstyles.
My personal opinion is, very few actors are willing to shave their heads for the roles. Since the producers have to spring for period costumes and props anyway, they simply rewrite it to an earlier time period.
Not made by Chinese filmmakers, but *The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor * (aka, Mummy III) is pretty epic.