China Translated

Han Han is a celebrity racing driver, novelist, and budding public intellectual - an outspoken and flamboyant critic of many aspects of Chinese society.  On his blog, which is extremely popular amongst young Chinese people, he has spoken out against the CCTV fire, the vitriolic campaign against Sharon Stone for her ill-advised ‘karma’ comments on the Sichuan earthquake, and the Green Dam web filtering software pushed by the government.

Now he has turned his ire on ‘The Founding of a Republic’ - the epic of the founding of Communist China that is taking the box offices by storm as the People’s Republic prepares to celebrate its sixtieth anniversary.  Here is my translation of his review:

‘As I was watching this film, I wondered if the director and the actors where being satirical?  It made me think there was a great film waiting to be made, this film stops in 1949 - the great film would end in 1976.

In 1949, a sincere people placed their hopes in Mao Zedong and a new China.  60 years on, the people still don’t have one square foot of earth to call their own, everyone lives as a parasite.  Back then, society was composed of lots of classes, now there are only 4 - the poor, the house slaves, the wealthy and the billionaires.

In another way, the film is like a love story, a penniless little boy in love with a rich woman.  The communist party is the little boy, China is the woman, and the non-communist parties and the girl’s friends stand in the path of the union.  The little boy succeeds by talking about ideals, making promises, writing worthless cheques, and of course the odd scuffle.  At last he succeeds in marrying the new China.

The only thing we learn from the film which is completely accurate is when the Communist Party occupy Shanghai and seize all the most desirable property.  If you want to get the girl you have to have a nice house.’

Hard hitting stuff.  You can see more about the film here and Han Han’s blog is here.

Culture, History