He Long jun zhang (1983)

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Directors:

Xinzi Chen
Wenzhi Shi

Genre:

War

Cast

Kai Huang	...	Zhou Enlai
Yu Liu	...	Bai Ying
Hongying Ma	...	Wang Jingwei
Zongyou Xia	...	He Long

Country:

China

Language:

Mandarin

Color:

Color

Company:

Xiaoxiang Productions (China) Ltd.

There was a much bigger drama behind the screen in the TV debut of this film

The literal translation of the title of this film is: Army Commander He Long.

He Long was the 5th Field Marshal of People's Liberation Army who later was persecuted to death in the Cultural Revolution. This film concentrates on his earlier life and when it was premiered in movie theaters in China, it did not cause nothing controversial, not yet, because the controversy would not appear nearly a decade later.

The cause of the controversy was the premiere of the trio Decisive Campaigns (Da Jue Zhan) I, II, and III in early 1990's. In the trio, history was honestly reflected, including acknowledge the achievement of Field Marshal Lin Biao, who was responsible for helping Mao to launch Cultural Revolution during which many people were persecuted, and many eventually died, and Field Marshal He Long was one of the victims.

When the trio aired, the public was enraged because acknowledge the past accomplishment of Field Marshal Lin Biao resulting in his portrayal as a positive figure and this was totally unacceptable to most people.

Such fierce reaction was enough to prompt the governmental censorship to attempt a balanced act by making the TV debut of Death of the Field Marshal (Yuan Shuai Zhi Si, 1980), which is the movie that describes the persecution suffered by Field Marshal He Long and his eventual death in Cultural Revolution, so that the positive figure of Field Marshal Lin Biao would be even out by his negative portrayal.

The Chinese media workers strongly opposed such move because it is already known the negative deeds Field Marshal Lin Biao had done, what needed to be let known is his accomplishment so that history can be faced honestly as a whole, and a person, or any person, for that matter, can be judged as whole, both for his goods and bads, the balancing act would not help in accomplishing this.

Finally, the governmental censorship gave in and as a compromise, this film was chosen for its TV debut instead of The Death of the Field Marshal, and the fighters for freedom of the press in China had won a tiny victory.