Jia wu feng yun (1962)

User Rating:

6.9/10   

Director:

Nong Lin

Genre:

History | War

Plot:

In 1894 the Japanese Imperial Navy provokes the Chinese navy to test defenses. Some Chinese want to make concessions while others want to fight. When Japan invades, some naval officers put up a heroic resistance. |

Plot Keywords:

Japan | Nationalism | Propaganda | Naval Battle | Japanese Navy

Cast

Jie Li	...	Liu Buchu
Muran Li	...	Deng Shicang
Xueqing Pang	...	Wang Guocheng
Ke Poo	...	Ding Rucang
Qiuying Wang	...	Li Hongzhang
Wenbing Zhou	...	Fang Boqian

Also Known As:

The Battle of 1894 (Hong Kong: English title)
The Naval Battle of 1894

Runtime:

China:95 min | Hong Kong:110 min (Hong Kong International Film Festival)

Country:

China

Language:

Mandarin

Color:

Color

Company:

Changchun Film Studio

Good story and acting tarnished by bad special effects

The literal translation of the title of this film is: the wind and cloud of the year 1894.

For starters, the movie only describe one naval engagement while in there were many in the 2-year war, so the title does not exactly match the film.

Second, the film actually used the Chinese naval frigates for the Imperial naval cruisers and battleships, which resulted in obvious disaster: The Chinese naval frigates were former-USSR 1950's design while the actual Imperial fleet was consisted of UK and German design of 1870's. The eighty-years difference in design resulted in very obvious looks that can be distinguished by anyone without naval expertise. Don't know why that the film crew had not used models.

Third, the gunnery dual appeared to be spectacular, but just like the way the 1950's warships were used for those of 1890's, the post World War II era smokeless powder were used for much older powder that generates tons of smoke. As a result, the battle scene looks more like a 20th century firework show instead of actual naval engagements of 19th century.