Epic war film blasts records
The Battle at Lake Changjin wows audiences with tale of heroism by volunteer army
For the fourth consecutive week since its opening on the eve of the National Day holiday, The Battle at Lake Changjin — an epic in honor of a war fought seven decades ago — has continued to top the country’s box office, signaling a trend change among Chinese audiences for local blockbusters.
According to the producers, the 176-minute film — which cost 1.3 billion yuan ($202.7 million) to become the most expensive of its kind in China — casts a group of A-list actors and actresses, and recruited a sizable crew of around 12,000 members to shoot intermittently for two years, with its special effects-laden scenes teaming up over 80 companies from home and abroad.
Set during the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea (1950-53), the film centers on a heroic company of the Chinese People’s Volunteers army, reflecting CPV soldiers’ iron will and great spirit to safeguard the then newly founded People’s Republic of China.
Resonating with an audience running into the millions and enhancing their pride in China’s great achievements, the film has become hugely popular, smashing a total of 26 records, mainly in terms of box-office and admission figures.
As of Oct 20, the movie had raked in more than 5 billion yuan, exceeding F9: The Fast Saga to become the second-highest-grossing film in the world this year. The top position is currently occupied by another Chinese hit Hi, Mom.
China’s movie market — which has fulfilled its pre-pandemic goal to accumulate more than 80,000 silver screens earlier this October — has seen this year’s box-office receipts exceeding 40 billion yuan as of Oct 17, surpassing that for the same period in 2019.
Aside from arousing public interest in history, the film has prompted many viewers to commemorate martyrs in a wide range of ways, varying from taking flowers to visit the Chinese People’s Volunteers Cemetery in northeastern China’s Shenyang city to writing memorial articles online.
In recent years, the Chinese film industry’s rapid development has laid
the foundation for local filmmakers to raise big budgets and create marvelous visual effects, resulting in a string of patriotic blockbusters like Wolf Warrior 2, Operation Red Sea, and Chinese Doctors.
Continuing their shared successful formula, which relies on stardom and visual effects, The Battle at Lake Changjin had a bigger scale than most of them, but also encountered more challenges.
Yu Dong, the chief producer, recalled that the project was commissioned by the China Film Administration, the sector regulator. Alongside Huang Jianxin, the chief executive producer, they pitched a tone to use advanced techniques and creative storytelling skills, thus making it possible to create a classic and earn a seat in Chinese cinema’s history.
“After deciding on this plan, we found it would be difficult for any Chinese director to shoot the movie alone in such a short time after I talked to almost all the top directors in China,” said Yu.
Also chairman of the Bona Film Group — a leading player in the patriotic film genre — Yu convinced Chen Kaige, Tsui Hark and Dante Lam, among the most prestigious directors in Chinese-language films, to co-helm the movie.
It was an unusual try, as previous Chinese blockbusters directed by several directors were mostly anthologies of stand-alone tales. Interestingly, it has sparked one of the most discussed topics among die-hard fans, whose interest revolves around identifying the three directors’ distinctive contributions.
According to Yu, Chen — an iconic figure in China’s “fifth-generation” of directors — was in charge of the tone and theme with his profound knowledge of Chinese history; Tsui worked on crowd-pleasing elements and cinematic aesthetics with his bold imagination, and Lam directed the stunts and battle scenes with his experience in action sequences.
Responding to online skepticism that it might have been written hastily, Huang, the chief executive producer, explained that the original story was first written by veteran scriptwriter Lan Xiaolong seven years ago. The project actually started shooting in early 2019.
The script was later revised more than 30 times to make it more condensed, with the main plotline following a couple of siblings, starring Wu Jing as a company commander and Yi Yangqianxi as his younger brother, also a new recruit in the company.
“We had more than 10 teams to coordinate the complex procedures, varying from shooting sets to props and weather, trying to make each of the three directors’ content smoothly connected,” said Huang.
Chen, born in Beijing in 1952, had heard the battlefield stories from CPV veterans when he was young.
“Figuratively speaking, the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea was like a signal flare, which rose into the night sky in the 1950s and lit up the future of our country,” said Chen. The battle in the film’s title took place between Nov 27 and Dec 24 in 1950. With the temperature in some areas plunging to minus 40 C, the lowest in 50 years, more than 100,000 soldiers from the 9th Corps of the Chinese People’s Volunteers army ambushed enemies on snowy areas near Changjin Lake, also known as Chosin Reservoir, enduring freezing weather, shortage of food and lack of adequate winter clothing to repulse the elite US troops, turning the tide of the war.
Wang Shuzeng, the film’s history consultant and a renowned militarythemed novelist, said the battle has a very important strategic meaning to guard the national dignity of the Chinese people and ensure China’s peaceful development in the following decades.
Wang, who had spent seven years writing a book about the war, said that as he researched a lot of archival material, he was shocked to discover that most of the CPV soldiers did not have adequate thick winter clothing and carried frozen potatoes as food.
“But their rivals were the ace troops in the US army who were equipped with world-class weapons and had plenty of clothing and quilts to resist the bitter cold. Chinese soldiers faced off their enemies with the spirit of fighting to the death, which has always been revered, and we now have a film in honor of them,” said Wang.
The film is scheduled to be released in North America and Europe, with the overseas distribution work in progress.