Historically based films almost always use the past to comment or reflect on the present, and "Full River Red" is no exception. This is directed by Zhang Yimou, the person who brought you "Hero", a film that suggests unification trumps tyranny and thus making tyranny forgivable. The tyrant in that story was Qin Shi Huang, an emperor who burned books and buried scholars alive by the mass. In the case of "Full River Red", it borrows from the legendary story surrounding the hero of Yue Fei by using Qín Huì, the person who purportedly was instrumental for Fei's death, as the pivotal character to spin an intriguing story not so much about loyalty and betrayal to the emperor as one would expect from the plot, but interestingly sidelining the climax to a different focal point about awakening the army to pledge allegiance to Fei's defense of the Sung's dynastic unity. That was a call to battle for the army to claim land that was lost to the invading Jin. How this point becomes the focusing nexus for the entire film was at that very scene, the army recite in chorus the famous Fei's poem: "Full River Red ", and that recitation was built to a powerful climatic high point of emotional crescendo. This is what the story is really about. Army allegiance to defend territorial integrity. A sentiment that is in harmony with the current context of Sino-geopolitical ambition from the Chinese Communist Party perpetual helmsman Xi's perspective. Looking back at the message from "Hero" to now, you may say "Full River Red" is an extension of that same sentiment. That said, Zhang also brought you "To Live" in his earliest works. A film that shows empathetically from the inside the harrowing plight of Chinese nationals as they try to adept and survive in the topsy turvy political turmoil of China, especially under the Cultural Revolution and the ruling thumb of the Chinese Communist Party. That grassroot perspective is not lost in "Full River Red" either. If you look beneath the sophisticated and well-polished veneer of the film which serves subtly as a Party instrument calling for army's loyalty to defend national integrity, you will see beneath that veneer the overbearing stench and corruption coming from omnipotent power, the callous self-serving use of others, and the maneuvering skills one needs to stay alive where personal truth and integrity if there are any are always best kept close to the chest. As said so at the beginning of my review, historical films are to use the past to reflect and comment on the now and this is exactly what Full Red River is doing. As such, you can say it is propagandistic.
Review of Full River Red
