SOAP OPERA...PROPAGANDA...AND ART
I have completed the lengthy indulgence of the Hong Kong soap opera, Into Thin Air, where the outlandish plot involving twin sisters and a man who can't tell them apart until when literally tripping down the wedding aisle the wrong one says, in Cantonese, "Deui-m̀h-jyuh" (which sounds something like "dum chia") instead of "sorry"...well, he should have just married them both Chinese style; there really was a number one and a number two.  Power Chan was charming in the only backstory of interest to me, because he was playing a former journalist, and unrequited love is always compelling (as long as it's someone else's).  He graciously relinquishes the object of his affection to his rival in the bustle of a Lan Kwai Fong evening...ah, if only I'd been there to carry the plot forward!

Concluding this series I was glad to watch King Hu's Legend of the Mountain, filmed concurrently with the hard-to-find Raining in the Mountain, a far superior piece of art; and then Musa -- which would have been more enjoyable if I had had the Chinese audio track.  I watch these things to learn language, and English dubs cheapen the experience.

But "Founding of the Republic,"a 2009 government-sponsored film commemorating the 60th anniversary of Mao's victory as the real last emperor of China, was in Mandarin. You may or may not like it.  Interesting take on the Communist triumph of 1949, as heartrending as the soap opera, featuring the very pretty Kun Chen (also of the 2008 Painted Skin and Hua Mulan) as the son of Chiang Kai-shek (and president-to-be of Taiwan) , and with cameos by practically every other Chinese actor of renown, including Jackie Chan, Donnie Yen, Jet Li, Zhang Ziyi and Andy Lau. (And this was not a Hong Kong kung fu film.) I can't remember any particular movie that deals so very specifically with the Chinese civil war.  If you already know something about the tensions and politics of the period, you will enjoy seeing this; the casting of Mao and Zhou Enlai (who I always thought was very handsome) is uncannily accurate.  China versus Japan has gotten a lot of attention (e.g., Ip Man, Lust-Caution, Red Sorghum, even Bertolucci's Last Emperor, and some others...and I fully expect someone will do a film version of the Rape of Nanjing--not something I would really want to see). But Founding of the Republic, dealing with a particular optimistic moment in China's history, beginning and ending October 1, 1949, is probably worth seeing if you are a student of modern China. Just take it with a dash of shoyu, and remember, it has nothing to do with the 25 years Mao was actually in power as Chairman; consdering the school of 70 percent right/30 percent wrong, as Deng Xiaoping said, this is about the 70 percent right part.

Followed that with Yellow Earth, a 1984 Chen Kaige film I know I saw some years ago, with cinematography by Zhang Yimou, about a Communist soldier in 1939 out in the Shaanxi countryside collecting folk songs.  It was  recommended to me by one of my Chinese painting classmates...gorgeous landscapes.  A touching story, a work of art.  But hard to find; I scored an old video tape on eBay.  It was worth every penny.

There is a fine line between soap opera, propaganda and art.  As long as you know where it is, I think it's okay to cross it now and then.