1921
1921
China, 2021, colour/b&w, 2.35:1, 135 mins.
Director: Huang Jianxin 黄建新.
Associate director: Zheng Dasheng 郑大圣.
Rating: 5/10.
Celebration of the centenary of the CPC’s founding is a sleek, good-looking product but with a fragmented script and too many characters to engage the viewer.
STORY
China, 1919. Following the decision at the post-WW2 Paris Peace Conference to transfer German possessions in China to Japan, a huge student demonstration is held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, on 4 May to protest. The effect is to supercharge leftist political activity and Chinese nationalism. Chen Duxiu (Chen Kun), a leading activist in the 4 May protests, is later imprisoned for distributing inflammatory material; he is visited by Li Dazhao (Li Chen), leader of a Marxist study group at Beijing University (where he is head librarian), and they swear solidarity. In Sep 1919 Chen Duxiu is released; Li Dazhao tells him to go south to Shanghai, while he will remain in Beijing. In May 1920 Mao Zedong (Wang Renjun), aged 27, visits Shanghai from his native Hunan province and meets Chen Duxiu, editor of New Youth magazine. Chen Duxiu says he’s sure the struggle against the warlord government in Beijing will succeed by next year. In spring 1921 Dutch politician Henk Sneevliet, aka Maring (Eric Dane), arrives by boat in Shanghai, officially sent by Lenin to represent the Comintern and help to establish the Communist Party of China. He’s met by Sam Nikolsky (Josh Waterhouse), a Russian Comintern representative. The Japanese government also sends an agent, Okawa Kun (Ikematsu Sosuke), to find out who will be representing Japan there. As Maring meets local communists, the authorities continue to hunt them down, as well as small communist cells like one led by Li Da (Huang Xuan), who runs a private school with his wife Wang Huiwu (Ni Ni) in the French Concession. In this atmosphere of repression and suspicion, preparations for holding the First National Congress of the CPC continue. In Hunan province Mao Zedong watches as the police burn leftist books in public. The congress is set for 30 Jun, with delegates staying at Bowen Girls School which is closed during the summer. Li Da believes the CPC should go its own path rather than follow one dictated by Moscow; but he needs the funds that the Comintern can provide. Mao Zedong arrives in Shanghai, as the Hunan delegate along with veteran He Shuheng (Zhang Songwen); many other delegates also arrive, and swap stories as they lodge together. During the summer, around 1,000 workers at the British American Tobacco Company go on strike for better conditions. Meanwhile, Okawa Kun continues to follow around Kondo Eizo (Shiraishi Shunya), whom he suspects of being a communist agent come to collect Comintern funding from Maring. Finally, on 23 Jul the First National Congress of the CPC is held round a table in a small room in a house in the French Concession, with 15 people present. (Both Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao, seen as the CPC’s co-founders, were not present; the former was in Guangzhou and the latter in Beijing.) Maring and Sam Nikolsky attend the opening, with the former making an official speech as the special envoy of Comintern. In the days that follow, there is much animated discussion of what the CPC’s objectives and strategy should be. But on the evening of 30 Jul the location is discovered by the secret police and everyone is forced to flee. The first congress ends on a rented boat in South Lake, Jiaxing, southwest of Shanghai, when Chen Duxiu is voted in absentia as CPC General Secretary.
REVIEW
Celebrating the centenary of the CPC’s official founding in Shanghai, 1921 1921 comes loaded with big names popping up in cameos, historical figures captioned on-screen, and a script that compresses events in a very free way. All this is par for the course in Mainland event pictures, though with its fragmented narrative and large number of characters 1921 is more difficult than most to become engaged with, even on a simple emotional level, and doesn’t progress the genre. Where it does stand out, however, is in its production values, with veteran writer-director Huang Jianxin 黄建新, 70, turning in a sleek, beautiful-looking product that’s way above average. Released on the same day as the less flashy but slightly more innovative The Pioneer 革命者 – a biopic of CPC’s co-founder Li Dazhao (who appears briefly in 1921) – it took a sturdy RMB504 million compared with the other’s polite RMB135 million.
Like his onetime Fifth Generation colleague Chen Kaige 陈凯歌, Huang has become more identified in recent years with big-budget event pictures. In Huang’s case the career swerve has been much more noticeable as, for the first 20 years of his career, from The Black Cannon Incident 黑砲事件 (1985) through Stand Up, Don’t Bend Over 站直啰 别趴下 (1993) to Gimme Kudos 求求你 表扬我 (2005), he made a series of ironic comedies on Mainland society as it went through major changes. All that changed when he co-directed the event picture The Founding of a Republic 建国大业 (2009), followed by Beginning of the Great Revival 建党伟业 (2011), Mao Zedong 1949 决胜时刻 (2019) and multiple duties on Korean War blockbuster The Battle at Lake Changjin 长津湖 (2021). There are some obvious overlaps between 1921 and the end of Beginning of the Great Revival (made to celebrate the 90th anni of the CPC’s founding) but, as with The Pioneer, they are small.
Despite his career switch, Huang has always been a reliable pair of hands on the technical side, and 1921 is always a delight to watch, with rich design by art director Wu Jiakui 吴嘉葵, costume designer Yu Yi 庾薏 and stylists Chen Tongxun 陈同勋 and Ji Lei 姬磊, slick editing by Yu Boyang 于柏杨, and a constantly tracking and gliding camera by top d.p. Cao Yu 曹郁, often underscored by the music of Japan’s Umebayashi Shigeru 梅林茂, an experienced hand who rarely lapses into bombast.
However, the problem is that, exciting as this can often be as sheer cinema, it’s rarely involving: with its immaculate costumes the whole thing has a sanitised, studio feel with no period authenticity or atmosphere; characters come and go before the viewer can truly engage with them; and the script – by Yu Xi 余曦 (Burning Stars 孤星计划, 2024), Huang (under his writing pseudonym Huang Xin 黄欣) and Zhao Ningyu 赵宁宇 (The Founding of an Army 建军大业, 2017; Towards the River Glorious 打过长江去, 2019) – doesn’t develop any kind of shape, or even a main character to identify with, until an hour in. More intimate sequences like the one around the 90-minute mark, where an older revolutionary (nicely played by Zhang Songwen 张颂文) reminisces to his younger colleagues one night in their dormitory, are few and far between. Starting with a condensed history of China from the mid-19th century, and finishing with a literally explosive run-up to the present day, there’s simply too much information swirling around on screen for the audience to take in. Captioning characters as they appear on screen is a regular practice in historical/political movies, but in 1921 even the age of the character is included, presumably to show how young most of the revolutionaries were.
Celebrity cameos are often no more than a single scene (actress Yuan Quan 袁泉 in a hairdresser’s) or brief appearances (veteran actor Ni Dahong 倪大红 as a detective/gangster). Among the main performances, top-billed Huang Xuan 黄轩 is typically understated but focused as Shanghai revolutionary Li Da, Ni Ni 倪妮 is wasted in an undeveloped role as his wife, and Wang Renjun 王仁君 is especially good as a young Mao Zedong, in a smiley performance that cleverly balances naivety and ambition. Though no longer a major name, Chen Kun 陈坤 is also good as Chen Duxiu, the Party’s first General Secretary, though he’s mostly around only at the start. It should also be noted that, apart from Wang as Mao Zedong, none of the actors or actresses look anything like the real-life characters they’re playing, including the two prominent westerners.
On a production level, 1921 rates 7/10, on a script level 4/10; overall, it’s a generally watchable 5/10. The film shot in and around Shanghai for four months, starting in early Jul 2020. Associate director Zheng Dasheng 郑大圣, the son of director Huang Shuqin 黄蜀芹 (1939-2022), is an experienced hand in his mid-50s across all types of film (commercial and indie), TV and theatre, including the movies Bangzi Melody 村戏 (2017) and Beyond the Clouds 我本是高山 (2023).
CREDITS
Presented by Tencent Pictures Culture Media (CN), Shanghai Film Group (CN), Shanghai Dimension Films (CN), China Film (CN), Huaxia Film Distribution (CN), CCPS Dayou Media Production Centre (CN). Produced by Shanghai Dimension Films (CN).
Script: Yu Xi, Huang Xin [Huang Jianxin], Zhao Ningyu. Photography: Cao Yu. Editing: Yu Boyang. Music: Umebayashi Shigeru, Liu Ye. Art direction: Wu Jiakui. Costume design: Yu Yi. Styling: Chen Tongxun, Ji Lei. Sound: Hu Yue, Yang Jingyi. Action: Wang Cheng. Car stunts: Du Zichao. Visual effects: Jiang Chao, Huang Canzhou.
Cast: Huan Xuan (Li Da), Ni Ni (Wang Huiwu, Li Da’s wife), Wang Renjun (Mao Runzhi/Mao Zedong), Yuan Wenkang (Li Hanjun), Han Dongjun (Zhang Guotao, Beijing delegate), Liu Haoran (Liu Renjing, Beijing delegate), Zhang Songwen (He Shuheng, Hunan delegate), Zu Feng (Dong Biwu, Wuhan delegate), Dou Xiao (Chen Tanqiu, Wuhan delegate), Wang Junkai (Deng Enming, Shandong delegate), Liu Jiayi (Wang Jinmei, Shandong delegate), Zhang Chao (Chen Gongbo, Guangzhou delegate), Zhang Yunlong (Zhou Fohai, delegate for Chinese students in Japan), Hu Xianxu (Bao Huiseng), Eric Dane (Henk Sneevliet/Maring, Comintern special envoy), Josh Whitehouse (Sam Nikolsky), Chen Kun (Chen Duxiu), Li Chen (Li Dazhao), Ni Dahong (Huang Jinrong), Tian Yu (Cheng Ziqing), Song Jia (Gao Junman, Chen Duxiu’s wife), Ou Hao (Li Qihan), Zhu Yilong (Zhou Enlai), Wang Yuan (Deng Xiaoping), Ikematsu Sosuke (Okawa Kun, Japanese government spy), Shiraishi Shunya (Kondo Eizo, Japanese communist), Bai Yu (Cao Hesen), Feng Shaofeng (Sun Zhongshan [Sun Yat-sen]), Lei Jiayin (Hu Ankang), Ma Tianyu (Li Xian’gen), Liu Peiqi (Ke Shaomin), Zhang Ruoyun (Liu Shaoqi), Liu Shishi (Song Qingling, Sun Zhongshan’s wife), Wei Daxun (Jiang Jieshi [Chiang Kai-shek]), Zhou You (Kuang Husheng), Gu Jiacheng (Luo Zhanglong), Yuan Quan (Huang Shaolan, Bowen Girls School headmistress), Yin Tao (Wen Suqin), Zhong Chuxi (Li Lizhuang, Chen Gongbo’s wife), Song Yi (Yang Shuhui, Wang Huiwu’s friend), Zhou Ye (Yang Kaihui, Mao Zedong’s wife in Hunan).
Premiere: Shanghai Film Festival (Opening Film), 11 Jun 2021.
Release: China, 1 Jul 2021.