I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Great struggle! What an impressive movie with great casts. The actors and actresses have done well. The movie was filled with lots of suspense. Chow Yun Fatt and Andy Lau were superb. There were so many well known actors and actresses in this movie. All the casts have done well to illustrates the titanic struggle to unite the country. The peaceful protest,demonstrations and the nationalism portrayed were very realistic. I have watched it several times and some scenes reminded me of the OWS movement. The movie did awesomely in portraying how the conspiracy to divide China inspired the people to go against the corrupted officials. I highly recommended all to watch.

Before deciding to watch "Beginning Of The Great Revival", I read some of the comments here on IMDb. Actually, I was quite stunt that a motion title released only recently had so many reviews, most of them filled with hatred and wrath. Something was out of place, and after seeing the movie itself, it's quite obvious what's at stake.The first an most mentioned fact is the 90th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party. I guess that was pretty obvious from the first title in the movie itself, and all those who found this to be insulting could just switch off the player or leave the cinema. If something is dedicated to the milestone of CCP, it's most probable that the content will be affirmative towards it.Next big argument is "the lack of story". This is often heard from people who have no knowledge of Chinese history or China what so ever. True, this is not a classical shallow saccharine polluted Hollywood style story, where everything has to be chewed and re branded, so the average redneck Joe with 10 bux in his pocket could get it into his head. "Beginning Of The Great Revival" is a semi documentary film, where the basic idea consisted of connecting certain historical turn points in modern Chinese history. Have the scriptwriters manage to make that connection well is a different question, since Chinese history in the first two decades of the 20th century was violent and turbulent, as the old empire collapsed and a new republic became to exist together with the Koumintang. That struggle continued in blood for the next 20 years, following Japan's invasion, and later a civil war between Communists and Chang Kai Shek. The story may not be fluent, but it can hardly be when so many historical moments have to be packed in a brief 2 hours. Is it historically partial? It undoubtedly is, since the Communist prevailed, and history is written by those who win. I guess Lincoln would be depicted as a thug in modern cinematography if South did rise again... Yet another problem with some viewers (though I suspect they managed to last the whole movie with attention) is Mao. You may like him or not, still he remains an important players in modern Chinese history as one of the CCP founders. Actually, his figure was not the main character in the movie, but I guess his plain appearance and mention is enough to hurt someone's feelings.This movie is widely criticized by those, whose hate is more or less directed towards communism in general and modern China, without much insight in history or reality. It's been a long time since I've seen so much negative energy directed towards a movie, and reading such comments actually entertains me. Funny...Concerning my point of view, I think the movie is decent. Not great, brilliant or unforgettable, but plain decent. Actors did a fair job, visual experience was up to the task, and the historical moments were brought to life in a depicting manner. Does "Beginning Of The Great Revival" deserve 10 stars? By all means no. Still, I decided to give this rating only in defiance towards haters who hardly see beyond their short noses.BTW, even with all Maoist propaganda, "Beginning Of The Great Revival" is more historically accurate and pleasant to watch than for instance that "The Kennedys" piece of sludge.

The reviews for this movie are too much plagiarized by US propaganda (rating this as 1) and Chinese propaganda (rating it as 10). If you take an unbiased view from a normal Chinese people, it's just a rather average movie. Hey, let's rate a movie based on its merit, the impression it gives people and so on, not just by politics!The initial scenes are a bit dull and disconnected with the whole story. The film fails to tell the story of Tao Chengzhang (the guy with the bomb, later get murdered) at all so these scenes should be cut-off completely, just a waste of minutes.After that it went quite fine with the story of Yuan Shikai (Chow Yun- fat) and Cai E (Andy Lau), it's quite touching to see General Cai could barely stand but still directs the victory over Yuan who elected himself as the emperor. And the Mao Zedong (Ye Liu) line is also OK and quite touching.The May fourth movement part is a performed very well. For a Chinese, it reminded of a story the government often fails to tell. The tensions with the Japanese about the invasion of Shandong, the government's inability to make diplomatic maneuvers, and the fanatic approach of the students. I would say that's a nice historical lesson to take, especially in nowadays China where student movement is mostly a banned topic (because of the 89' Tiananmen square accident). Some of the speeches of Chen Duxiu (Feng Yuanzheng) are well carried out indeed, that it feels like the audience in the film were really convinced by him and were fully supporting his ideas.However, the government side could be strengthened a bit. It talks about Wellington Koo (Daoming Chen) and his diplomatic efforts, but these were cut too heavily so the full story was not told very clearly.Then the final scenes are not so good. The story lacks a climax and it looks to have ended without any major thing happening. OK the CCP formed, secretly while being hunted down by the police but so what? That ending can definitely be strengthened quite a bit. A few scenes on the things that happened in the next years, or a mere history time-line will make the epic feeling much better.Overall, the film is ambitious in trying to condense 10 years of history into a mere 2 hours. But that turns out to be a bit too ambitious so in the end many things are told by just hand-waving. It could be made better by cutting off some of the less relevant scenes and making the main plot more concentrated on a few major characters (e.g., Yuan Shikai, Cai E, Mao Zedong, Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao). But in general, the cast is good most of the time and at least the told historical facts are accurate (of course there're a lot of omitted trivia, e.g., Chen Duxiu went too often to night clubs and was sacked by the Peking university because he was found fighting for a prostitute). So if somebody is paying (e.g. the Chinese government) for the tickets, it's worthy to see it for free. But I won't pay to watch it, so a good strategy for the CCP would be to make it freely available online, after they've netted the 8 billion box office gross by the left-pocket, right-pocket trick.

Very interesting to see history alive on the big screen. Very busy identifying the characters and the stars and associating them with what we have learnt in history class. As a movie, character development is weak because there are simply too many people parading in two hours distilled from a turbulent 10 years of contemporary China. As an education aid for Chinese history, this is very interesting, lively and educational, thanks to the on screen description. As a mirror to reflect recent China's development, my eyes moist to see history not only repeats itself but somehow even moves backwards. Same passion from the students, same type of demonstration against the weak and corrupted government. Same demand to open government doors. Even same style of kneeling down to appeal. Didn't we learn anything from history? The students in 1919 even hit some government officials and set fire on their houses. But the Nationalist government did not crash them to death or force them to leave the country. When some students started a hunger strike in jail and asked for newspapers to read as a deal, the prison guards gave in. Can't we see the film is trying to tell us a message about the present state through historic events? A party based on the strength of workers, farmers and soldiers and the have-not's have developed into a unique style with Chinese characteristics where those at the bottom of the pyramid are still suffering. The movie may seem boring or bland on the surface. We need to contrast that with reality. The message is safely disguised under the name of history. Where else in China can we see large scale demonstrations, deemed legitimate, in a Chinese movie? I look forward to seeing a movie on the Cultural Revolution and the June 4 incident with equal dedication.