Chinese historical TV-Series and documentaries

[oirob]

Hello everybody,

I've noticed there are several historical TV-series on chinese television.
One of them, called 铁梨花 (google translator says "Iron Pear"), I dicovert lately while browsing the internet.
It is set in the civil war/japanese war times.
Since I'm mainly interested in the warlord era I tried to filter the the episodes for that periode.
So I found out episode 16 is interesting in terms of "warlord action".
The setting and action looks quite authentic.
It has everything of an adventuere "movie": (Warlord)-soldier, bandits/rebels and a pretty girl + a tragicomical guy.
I don't understand chinese so I have only an inkling of the story.
May be one of our chinese "forum-mates" can tell somthing about the main story and the episode 16 in particular.
I'm also intersted in the character of the warlord officer.

video link:

http://www.qiyi.com/dianshiju/20100601/n17403.html (ep.16)

http://www.qiyi.com/dianshiju/tlh.html

some screenshots:

vlcsnap-2011-04-14-09h48m52s176.jpg

vlcsnap-2011-04-14-09h53m04s131.jpg

(I like the way the guy rests his wounded leg on the machine guns, very cool )

vlcsnap-2011-04-14-09h53m31s132.jpg

Cheers
-Oirob

[oirob]

some more sceenshots:

vlcsnap-2011-04-14-13h26m00s0.jpg

vlcsnap-2011-04-14-13h27m08s230.jpg

vlcsnap-2011-04-14-13h27m22s202.jpg

[YC Chen]

Hmm...There are quite a few TV-Series which are set in Warlord Era and some of them are quite interesting(I myself sometime watch them). But many of them hardly have anyting to do with historical reality.
For this one, I think the uniform is Ok, but you should remember that LMG was not widely used in Warlord Era(many former warlord officers didn't remember they had LMGs) and Bren guns were not even introduced to China until 1940s(to me the LMG looks like a Bren gun with a ZB26 magazine but I'm not sure).

[TristaniaCorp.]

Looks interesting, know if there's anyway to get it with subtitles?
Also YC Chen, as far as I'm aware, the Bren gun is actually a modified ZB2B so they do look very similar.

[Bill Murray]

Hi oirob:
Thanks very much for the link to the TV series videos on Chinese history which I found very interesting.

I loaded all of the episodes and I have watched the first one and then I looked more at the site and found there are dozens of such series as well as films/movies on the subject of war in China to look at as well.

I too wish there was a way to get, in my case, English subtitles and I am sure there is some way to do this but at least using Google Chrome as my access to the site, I get English translations of the information pages.

There were a couple of things that I saw on the Iron Pear program as well as on a couple of others I looked at very quickly.

1. I was very, no extremely, impressed at the quality of the production, the acting and the visual effects that the mainland Chinese film industry is producing nowadays. As I have posted elsewhere on this sub forum, I was born in China in 1940, the son of a Marine Officer and his wife and as I left the country at age 8 months, the only memories I have are my dad's photo collection which shows a rather primitive country at that time. Certainly not so today.

2. As an American, I very much enjoyed the advertisements that you have to watch before the videos start.
In episode 1 of Iron Pear, there is an advertisement for Kentucky Fried Chicken and in another that I looked at there was an advertisement for a Cadillac car, this one photographed in Arizona in my country with Chinese actors. Very, very expensive.

3. I noticed also the number of "views" of some of the episodes of these TV series and some were in the many millions.
I have to continue to remember that my "Birth" country has a population of well over a Billion souls, almost 4 times the population of the country that I call home.

As there are several dozen such series plus all of the movies that one can choose from, I doubt that I will ever get the time to look at all of them but I thank you again for the opportunity to at least try to learn a bit more of my "Birth" country.

Bill

[oirob]

I'm glad some of you share my interest for this "discovery".
Of course it is a pity that there are no "international" subtitles availible but I think there will never be since western companys will have no (comercial) interest in publishing series like that.
The problem that I have with those productions is the sometimes more - sometimes less ideological component.
It seems to me the 1920s Era is often only used/needed as an explanation or prelude for the achievements of the 1930s revolution/wars and it always seems to leeds to the great chairman.
In my opinion its a bit sad that there is (or can be) no, more objective or exclusive consideration of this topic in those productions.
Indeed there is one tv-mini-series produced in 1987 that deals more or less exclusively with one special Warlord - FENG YU HSIANG.
Its called "Clash of the Warlords" (直奉大战) and seems to be quite unique in its way.
The initial part is even availible at Amazon.com( I'm not sure but perhaps even with english subtitles): http://www.amazon.com/CLASH-OF-THE-WARL ... B000OYNTCI

The whole story is availible here:
http://www.56.com/u75/v_NTExNTU1MjA.html

And just found this one: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjg5NzIzODQ=.html
A chinese documantation about FENG YU HSIANG.(of cause no subs but some nice original footage)

Further that I can recommend the american documentary "The Roots of Madness" from 1967 as I did earlier here
(ideological as well but in the other way ):
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 1&t=168385

The film is available here:

http://www.archive.org/details/gov.archives.arc.616322

I'll keep the hope that there are some international Directors and Film-companys who are "brave" enough to make movies like "Two Gun Cohen" (http://www.movieweb.com/news/doug-liman ... hen-biopic) or
"Man's Fate" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man%27s_Fa ... shed_film) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man's_Fate)beside all comercial interests.


Let me finally say, that I am very thankful for Sub-forums like this, where I can dicuss such special interests.
(Even if the dominating topic of the forum, for me as a 1975 born German who has grown up in the east part, causes more uneasiness than fascination.)

Best regards
Oirob

[Bill Murray]

Hi oirob:

Thanks for your continuing your thoughts on your thread and the additional links.

One thing to think of, I guess, is that China is not the first, nor will it be the last totalitarian regime to use the cinema medium to advance the justness of their cause. It certainly continues today.

On the other hand, democracies, of whatever stripe and to whatever degree they are democracies, do the same thing as well although it seems more in times of conflict than times of peace.

A sort of "side hobby" of mine is to try to watch the newsreels put out by various countries during wartimes whenever I find a link or sometimes even search a link. The US and GB had a very sophisticated cooperation between their central government agencies tasked with "promoting their cause" and the legitimate civilian radio and film studios during WWII and on through Korea and Vietnam in the case of the US. The weekly movie news I saw as a child in the cinemas here were every bit as clever as the German equivalents and I am sure the Soviet ones as well.

As the Vietnam war wore on and as communications from the front became less controlled by the military, this started to change, at least in my country. With the development of the Internet being fairly well along by the time the current Iraq/Afghanistan conflicts started up, the US government has really little or no control over what is reported by the press, the combatants or even ordinary citizens who may be citizens of the countries involved or citizens of the US or other countries. Then of course, there is WikiLeaks.....................

I say this not as a political statement, but more in the context that in both open and closed societies it is going to be more and more difficult to put out the types of "propaganda films" such as those we are discussing here and expect the general public to buy into the message.

However, the history is still there and I hope you will continue to keep us advised of new finds in your research.
My wife is totally confused as to why I am now watching Chinese films that are not translated to English and having been married to her for 50 years, it is nice to have a secret...............

Cheers
Bill

[YC Chen]

Hello,
I'm very glad that so many people here are interested in the history of Warlord Era. In our middle school and high school history textbook, the only thing that concerns with warlords is the Northern Expendition, although in some version there is a short introduction on the "Battle of Middle Land"(中原大战) in 1930 which in some ways can also be called a warlord battle. As a result, many of my friends don't even know what "things" the warlords were!
The reason for the warlords' "absence" from Chinese history was that most modern Chinese historians (in both Mainland and Taiwan) consider the warlords as "feudal power" that didn't represent the "main current" of Chinese history. But is that true???
Both KMT and CCP's voice can still be heard today, but what about the warlords? I think in fact they represented an attempt to combine traditional Chinese value with modern technology, thus played an important role in Chinese history.
P.S. Another Chinese documentary series worth watching: "The Fall of Beiyang Warlords" (北洋军覆灭记). It contains a lot of very interesting footage, although most of them(!) are incorrectly labled. For me the most impressive part was the footage of an improvised armored train of Nothern Expendition forces from episode 7.

[Bill Murray]

Hello YC:

Can you provide a link to the Bieyang Warlords video??

I looked on google for it but could not find it.

However, I did find this series that was put out by the US CIA in the 1950's which is quite interesting from a propaganda point of view. I have not figured how to get every episode yet, but I think I have most of them downloaded.

Bill
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k53plJsM0vA

[YC Chen]

Hello,
Different versions here: http://video.baidu.com/v?word=%B1%B1%D1 ... 0&fbl=1024
You can choose a clear version to watch. Note there are different episode, I think there are 8.
Here are some interesting views of an improvised armored train from episode 7:

[YC Chen]

Another rare footage, from the same episode: Fengtian army's Renault FT

[oirob]

I have not figured how to get every episode yet, but I think I have most of them downloaded.

Bill
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k53plJsM0vA

Hello Bill,

This is the documantary "The Roots of Madness (1967)" I mentioned earlier. The complete Film is availible online at the United States Government Films Archive: http://www.archive.org/details/gov.archives.arc.616322
There are some very interesting informations in it.
For instance (if I understood it right) that the son of Zhang Zuolin - Zhang Xueliang more or less forced Chiang Kai-shek to "unite" with Mao against the Japanese and was therefore kept in captivity by Chiang even after 1949 in Formosa/Taiwan!

cheers
oirob

[oirob]

Hello YC,

Thank you for the links. Very good quality indeed. Great!
I have another one from Youtube in rather bad quality simply named "Chinese Warlords"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSd0aq7ANqA

The interesting thing about that one is that it contains footage from the film "Modern warfare in china 1924" made by one of the white russian mercenaries in Zhang Zuolins Army. I obtained a copy of the film from the Imperial War Museum's archives in London. (http://www.iwmcollections.org.uk/dbtw-w ... 0&FG=0&QS=)
This film shows a lot of military actions and equipment during what I think is the Second Zhili–Fengtian War.
(improvised armoured train action too, YC )
I'm already planning for a while to write a review about this film here, may be I will someday.

Some screenshots from the original film:

vlcsnap-2010-07-27-14h08m08s212.jpg

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[oirob]

some more:

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Looks good, right?
You can contact the IWM by email to buy a copy of the film. Its about 50£

Cheerio
Oirob

[YC Chen]

Great! Does it cotain more armored train scences?
The price is a bit too high for me, but I'll contact one of my friends to see if he would like to buy one.