29
Metascore
5 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- A worthy history lesson on the founding of the Chinese Communist Party with only partially entertaining aspects.
- 25Slant MagazineBill WeberSlant MagazineBill WeberBeginning of the Great Revival is muddled, all right, but it's the helter-skelter speed at which it ticks off names and incidents, both in hopelessly confused action and on-screen text, that seems nearly unprecedented.
- It demonstrates that mainstream Chinese cinema can be as guilty of self-indulgent overstatement as anything out of the West.
- There hasn't been such an egregiously self-congratulating piece of Communist propaganda since, arguably, the peak of '60s Soviet musicals, but Revival is so repetitive and po-faced that there's no kitsch value to be had.