Perspective - Chinese Cinema Today and Tomorrow
Assembly
(Ji Jie Hao) by FENG Xiaogang
China / Action / 2007 / 125'
Starring: ZHANG Hanyu (Gu Zidi), DENG Chao (Zhao Erdou), FU Heng (Luo Guangtian), HU Jun (Liu Zeshui), LIAO Fan (Jiao Dapeng), WANG Baoqiang (Jiang Maocai)
The Film
Assembly is the tenth film by Feng Xiaogang. This prolific filmmaker (his first film was released in 1994), achieved the rank of a national star in 1998 with his film, Be There or Be Square, a comedy on love and immigration the first Chinese film shot entirely in the United States.
If Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige are also known abroad, FENG Xiogang is considered an extremely popular director. In 2003, his film Shou Ji (Mobile phone) in China was a genuine social phenomenon. The film tells the story of a TV host who not only cheats on his wife but also on his mistress (with a third woman) juggling his mobile phone to manage a backlog of appointments...
Using current immoral characters Feng Xiaogang innovates by making the comedy a reflection of changes in family relationships since the economic opennesss of the country. This mixture was a huge success.
Assembly is a relatively big budget film for the Chinese film industry (ten million dollars). Despite its cost, the film is closer to a tragedy of a lonely hero than to a great militaristic epic. The very real war hero, filmed by a LU Yue in full control of its resources, provides an apocalyptic vision of war. The colors are metallic, the light - precise, camera movements are sudden, sound effects are so dry that it gives the feeling of being in the middle of the action, in all its ugliness. War Hero is a film sometimes difficult to bear where the talent of Feng Xiaogang has excelled again. If Cell Phone broke all records in 2003 with 6.4 million in revenue in Chinese box office, Assembly made more than 34 million in 2007. Due its technical skills, its budget and its figures Assembly, symbolizes this new generation of Chinese films, like Peter Chan's Warlords or John Woo's Battle of Red Cliff.
Synopsis
In 1948, during the Chinese civil war The Huaihai Campaign halted for winter. Captain Guzidi, company commander of the Ninth National People's Army, lead an infantry unit composed of forty-six men on a mission to defend the south bank of the river wen. His orders are clear: fight until the final signal. The signal does not come. The company is fully destroyed except the captain saved by taking a uniform enemy. After the war, the sacrifice of his companions is not recognised. His last fight, the longest and most difficult will be to restore their memory and honour...