The Secret of China

红星照耀中国

China, 2019, colour, 2.35:1, 107 mins.

Director: Wang Jixing 王冀邢.

Rating: 6/10.

Superior PRC 70th anni production, centred on US journalist Edgar Snow’s historic 1936 meeting with Mao Zedong.

STORY

Zhabei railway station, Shanghai, 28 Jan 1932. US journalist Edgar Snow (Kenan Heppe) runs to warn an employee (Xiaoshenyang) that Japanese troops are in the streets. They are later shot down, but next day Jiang Jieshi (Guo Jinglin), leader of the Nationalist government, still refuses to declare war on Japan as his main concern is to wipe out the Communists. Foreign Affairs minister Chen Youren (Li Youbin) resigns in protest. Beiping [modern-day Beijing]-Hankou railway line, 1936. Edgar Snow, disillusioned by the Nationalist government, journeys to interview the Communists. (Since 1929 he had been shocked by the poverty in rural areas and the Nationalists’ executions of Communist sympathisers. To understand better the aims of Communist leader Mao Zedong he had later met sympathisers in Shanghai like Song Qingling [Jiang Wenli], wife of the late founder of the Republic Sun Zhongshan, and well-known writer Lu Xun [Li Xuejian]. On 9 Apr 1936 senior CPC official Zhou Enlai [Hou Xiangling] had met KMT representatives to try to persuade Jiang Jieshi to reverse his policy with Japan.) Edgar Snow gets off the train at Zhengzhou and boards one to Xi’an on which he meets Lebanese American doctor George Hatem (Roger Gadreau), who’s making the same journey to give medical help. In Xi’an they dine with with Shaanxi provincial governor Shao Lizi (Cao Li), an old friend of Edgar Snow but a KMT supporter. Edgar Snow and George Hatem are then secretly transported by Communist sympathisers into Red territory in northern Shaanxi. En route they are hosted by Zhou Enlai, who has prepared a full 92-day itinerary for Edgar Snow. They finally reach Bao’an, the temporary capital of Red China, where Edgar Snow meets Mao Zedong in person and conducts a series of interviews. Dressed in Red Army uniform, and escorted by CPC Foreign Affairs Ministry employee Hu Jinkui (Guo Yiming), Edgar Snow visits a front line in Gansu province, and joins Peng Dehuai (Sun Hao), an army commander, on an expedition. Afterwards he meets and interviews another army commander, Xu Haidong (Xu Seng), the most notorious of the so-called “Red bandits”. After four months in Red territory in northwest China, Edgar Snow leaves for Beiping, where he holds a press conference in the US embassy, praising the Communists.

REVIEW

Along with Mao Zedong 1949, released six weeks later, The Secret of China 红星照耀中国 is a superior PRC 70th anniversary production, with top-class production values and a fine performance by Wang Pengkai 王鹏凯 , 34, as the young Mao. Its subject is the four-month stint with the Communist army in northwest China in 1936 by Edgar Snow (1905-72), a China-based US journalist who interviewed Mao and others, and then published Red Star over China (1937), the first detailed account in English of life in the Red territories and the CPC’s aims. Low on bombast and strikingly shot around the actual locations by d.p. Luo Xun 罗逊, it’s unfortunately let down by an unnuanced, eager-beaver performance from US actor Kenan Heppe, 30, as Snow that makes his character much less believable than Mao’s – a pity, as Heppe looks much like the 30-year-old Snow of the time as well as, like Snow, speaking acceptable Chinese. At RMB34 million, box office was only a quarter of that for Mao Zedong 1949.

Heppe, who played the theatre director in New York-set rom-com Love Is a Broadway Hit 情遇曼哈顿 (2017), has since been forging a career in Mainland film and TV, but his playing is much less shaded than John A. Gardener’s in the earlier biopic Mao Zedong and E. Snow 毛泽东与斯诺 (2001, dirs. Song Jiangbo 宋江波, Wang Xuexin 王学新), as well as being saddled by scriptwriter Tang Xi 汤溪 with English lines like “extra-territoriality does begin to wear on the soul”. As such, there’s less of a believable bond between the two lead characters – and certainly much less edgy – than in the 2001 film, with Wang’s low-key playing of Mao dominating the stage. Among the supports, Guo Yiming 国依铭 is notable as a Foreign Affairs Ministry employee and Zhou Mi 周密 as an interpreter. As George Hatem, the American Lebanese doctor who stayed on in China (and deserves a film of his own sometime), France’s Roger Gadreau doesn’t get many opportunities to register in the shadow of Heppe’s bright-bulb performance.

Where the 2001 biopic also dealt with Mao and Snow’s later relationship, this one concentrates on their crucial first meeting, with much more detail about Snow’s secret journey to the Red territories. Once there, however, Tang’s script is pretty much a restaging of the famous moments already covered in the earlier film. Overall direction by longtime Emei Film Studio staffer Wang Jixing 王冀邢 is smooth. Visually, Secret is more strikingly shot in widescreen but lacks the 2001 movie’s dusty realism. However, the score by veteran composer Zhao Jiping 赵季平 score is superior, broad and lyrical but typically not over-cooked.

The strange English title is not paralleled by the Chinese one, which means “Red Star over China”. The film is also known on some posters as Red China.

CREDITS

Presented by Emei Film Group (CN), Greenland Holding Group (CN), Sichuan New Culture & Film (CN). Produced by CPC Sichuan Provincial Committee Publicity Department (CN), CPC Shanxi Provincial Committee Publicity Department (CN), Emei Film Group (CN), Greenland Holding Group (CN), Sichuan New Culture & Film (CN), Xi’an Landfair Film Studio (CN), Sichuan Star Sky Film, TV, Culture & Media (CN).

Script: Tang Xi. Photography: Luo Xun. Editing: Zheng Yongming. Music: Zhao Jiping. Art direction: Tan Xiaolin. Costume design: Lin Ailian, Yu Jia. Sound: Tu Liuqing, Tu Hao. Action: Zou Min. Visual effects: Liang Boyuan. Executive direction: Li Huailong.

Cast: Kenan Heppe (Edgar Snow), Wang Pengkai (Mao Zedong), Li Xuejian (Lu Xun), Jiang Wenli (Song Qingling), Li Youbin (Chen Youren, National Government’s foreign affairs minister), Guo Jinglin (Jiang Jieshi/Chiang Kai-shek), Xiaoshenyang (freight transport manager at Shanghai station), Sun Hao (Peng Dehuai, First Front Red Army commander), Liu Wei (Zhou Dabo), Zhu Yongteng (Washington Hu), Roger Gadreau (George Hatem, medical doctor), Hou Xiangling (Zhou Enlai, CPC Central Committee’s Revolutionary Military Commission’s vice-chairman), Xu Seng (Xu Haidong, 15th Red Army Corps commander), Li Jinrong (Liu Ding, KMT adjutant), Guo Yiming (Hu Jinkui, CPC Foreign Affairs Ministry employee), Wu Hong (Zhang Xueliang, a KMT vice-commander), Lao Hu [Vincent Matile] (John W. Powell, Edgar Snow’s editor), Huang Peng (Li Kenong), Cao Li (Shao Lizi, Shaanxi provincial governor), Tong Fan (Dong Jianwu/”Wang”, CPC secret intelligence officer), Jing Song (porter), Li Huailong (Bian, captain), Zhou Mi (Wu Liangping, interpreter), Lu Mianda (Wang Rumei).

Release: China, 8 Aug 2019.