a bore-to-death old formatted Chinese movie

Rating: Null/10 (4 January 2012)

highly expected but then it turned out just flat and boring. we, my wife and i, never got connected with this pathetically written and directed movie. for those who played in this movie, i couldn't blame them did poor jobs since the screenplay, the dialog, the directing failed to get them connected with the emotion and sentiment that should be there in this worthless story written by a Chinese female author who lives in America. there were moments that we all felt the dialog in this film sounded like translated Chinese. from the very beginning, the plot already showed its shallowness and contrite of the formulaic way how the Chinese would make the battle scenes against the marching winning Japanese military force. there were typical formatted dialog and scenes that the Chinese communist party would use as a MUST to describe the kmt party and its army were not enthusiastic to fight against the Japanese, that's so typical way to fool their own people by claiming the communist insurgents were the only Chinese who loved their country, their people and they were the only party that fought the Japanese. yet the truth was already widely known to the world outside china, the communist insurgent force rarely engaged to fight the Japanese but only ambushed the kmt national army whenever they could. they were just fighting gorilla war against their own people and let the kmt led army to fight the war. it's just so contrive and disgusting to hear the similar dialog in every movie out of communinit china that they were the only people who cared about china's future, they were the liberator of china, the only hope for the Chinese people. but in the meantime, soldiers who stayed and sacrificed their lives in this movie were those from the kmt army, they were the only people who stayed and fought in vain to stop the Japanese invasion forces. by mentioning this historical fact, it also reminded me that the governing Chinese communist party just announced to ban most of the historical genre dramas related to any former dynasty, because those dramas only mirror imaged and embarrassed the current regime, not just on a par with all the corruptions in Chinese history but surpassed them thousand times. the other thing that made me feel that in this film, the Chinese women, young female catholic students or the Chinese prostitutes, they were just so pathetic in this movie. their country was in turmoil and their country people were killed by the Japanese, but these women were still so ridiculously looked down upon each other, they fought their own worthless social class turf war in a church surrounded by the invasion Japanese force, even the usage of a toilet got a social taboo. director zhang seemed to be non-exist in this film, just let the lifeless storyline to pan out without any personal touch. by signing c.b. and asked him to play a role in this movie also proved to be meaningless but wasted a lot money. from the very beginning of this movie, i never got a chance to get connected with any character in this pathetic movie. what i got were: boring storyline, boring scenario, boring characters, boring historical background, boring directing. there was nothing like watching similar movies about Jewish people were massacred by the Nazis, absolutely nothing worthwhile to watching. there was absolutely no emotional or sentimental sadness this movie ever touched us.