The Pioneer

革命者

China, 2021, colour/b&w, 16:9/2.35:1, 120 mins.

Director: Xu Zhanxiong 徐展雄.

Rating: 5/10.

Biopic of CPC co-founder Li Dazhao is way above the genre’s routine level but not as mould-breaking as some.

STORY

Beijing, 3 Apr 1983. (After 50 years the three sons of Li Dazhao [Zhang Songwen], co-founder of the CPC, excavate their father’s tombstone, buried deep in Wan’an cemetery to escape the White Terror, and restore it.) On 6 Apr 1927 Li Dazhao, along with his wife Zhao Renlan (Tong Liya), 16-year-old eldest daughter Li Xinghua (Zhang Ruonan) and 19 other revolutionaries, is imprisoned in Beijing by warlord Zhang Zuolin (Cheng Taishen) on charges of sedition and leading the CPC in the north. A week later, in southern China, Nationalist leader Jiang Jieshi [Chiang Kai-shek] (Han Geng) initiates a counter-revolutionary coup, killing and imprisoning Communists. The so-called Great Revolution seems to have failed, as the alliance between the CPC and KMT to bring stability to China is ended by the KMT outlawing the CPC. (In 1916 Li Dazhao had returned from Japan, bringing the seeds of Communism to China as he made public speeches. In Oct 1922, at Kailuan coal mine in Hebei province, he had incited a strike at the British-owned concern that had been put down by force, with loss of life.) On 27 Apr 1927, 26 hours before Li Dazhao’s execution by hanging, Zhang Zuolin is told by his son, Zhang Xueliang (Peng Yuchang), that the city’s universities are in turmoil; but Zhang Zuolin insists that the sentence should be carried out. (In 1917, when he was 16, Zhang Xueliang had sneaked off to Shanghai’s Foreign Concession, without his father’s knowledge, to enjoy himself. The news of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia was everywhere. But he had been shocked when he saw a Russian drunk shoot dead a newspaper boy [Sun Xilun]. Li Dazhao, who was in the city, knew the boy personally and organised a general strike for three hours to force the municipal council to hand over the Russian to the police. Seeing this, Zhang Xueliang was amazed by Li Dazhao.) A petition for Li Dazhao’s release has been sent to Zhang Zuolin, and an attempt is made to rescue Li Dazhao by a young man in disguise, Qingzi (Li Jiuxiao), whom he knows. (On Chinese New Year’s Eve, in 1916, Li Dazhao had come home after resigning as editor-in-chief of Morning Bell 晨钟 to devote himself in other ways to solve China’s ills.) While watching a Chinese opera performance in Nanjing, Jiang Jieshi, who remembers how he had always disliked Li Dazhao from the first time they met, is made aware of the petition but stresses that the sentence must go ahead “or we’ll all regret it”. On the morning of 28 Apr 1927 scaffolding is erected at the place of execution. (Li Dazhao remembers how, from 1922-26, he and his students at Beijing University had co-ordinated many campaigns and events, up to the incident on 18 Mar 1926 when they had protested against demands by foreign powers and were shot down in the street by police on the orders of Duan Qirui, with over 200 dying. Li Dazhao also remembers first coming to Beijing and being appointed head of the university’s library. He had formed a strong bond with fellow professor Chen Duxiu [Qin Hao] and in 1920 had sent him to Shanghai to set up a Party group in the south. That year, groups had sprung up all over the country but the CPC still had no national organisation.) Wu Yuwei (Yu Qian), deputy director of Peking’s police, arrives at the prison to officially read Li Dazhao his death sentence. (Li Dazhao remembers first meeting Mao Zedong [Li Yifeng], a young student at Beijing University, in 1918. Three years later the CPC’s first national congress had been held.) Li Dazhao and the other prisoners are driven to the place of execution and got ready. At 15:00 on 28 Apr 1927, Li Dazhao, aged 38, is the first to be hung.

REVIEW

One of two big films released in the Mainland on 1 July to mark the centenary of the CPC’s founding, The Pioneer 革命者 was largely eclipsed at the box office by the splashier 1921 1921, taking a polite RMB135 million compared with the latter’s sturdy RMB502 million. But despite an over-gushy final section and a fairly routine script, this slickly mounted drama centred on Li Dazhao, a co-founder of the CPC, is way above the level of routine hagiographies, and in its desire to at least try something new shows the benign influence of Guan Hu 管虎 (The Eight Hundred 八佰, 2020; The Sacrifice 金刚川, 2020) who, along with his actress wife Liang Jing 梁静, produced via their own company. Guan was previously artistic supervisor on the first feature of director Xu Zhanxiong 徐展雄, the ambitious but flawed drama Wild Grass 荞麦疯长 (2020).

After an opening in b&w and 16:9, showing Li Dazhao’s three sons in 1983 restoring their father’s gravestone after 50 years hidden in the ground, The Pioneer switches to colour and widescreen for the story proper – set in Apr 1927 and centred on his final days in prison, with flashbacks to earlier events in his life. That’s hardly a new format for this kind of fare but it’s helped here by making each of the flashbacks into a mini-drama of its own, with something substantial for the audience to become involved in, rather than letting the movie become just another rapid series of vignettes laden with datelines and captions (the scourge of Chinese political biopics). The Pioneer doesn’t completely escape this criticism but at least it tries.

The flashbacks aren’t in any particular order – despite starting with Li Dazhao’s return from Japan in 1916 and his involvement in a coal-mine strike in 1922 – and aren’t all triggered by his own memories – one, set in 1917 Shanghai, is more the memory of Zhang Xueliang, son of the northern warlord who arrested him and at the time a teenage admirer of Li Dazhao. There is, however, a pecking order to the flashbacks: the final two are reserved for Li Dazhao’s memories of Chen Duxiu, a fellow Beijing University professor and CPC co-founder, and finally Mao Zedong, a young student at the university in 1918. Lou Ye 娄烨 regular Qin Hao 秦昊 (Blind Massage 推拿, 2014; The Shadow Play 风中有朵雨做的云, 2018) gives a typically strong performance as Chen Duxiu, sketching the two men’s combative but politically aligned relationship, while the younger Peng Yuchang 彭昱畅, 26, more often seen in youth movies (most recently, The Day We Lit up the Sky 燃野少年的天空, 2021) makes a mark as the conflicted son of warlord Zhang Zuolin (silkily portrayed by veteran Cheng Taishen 成泰燊, most recently seen in the biopic Liu Qing 柳青, 2021).

Both Mao Zedong and Jiang Jieshi [Chiang Kai-shek] get fresh portrayals from actors Li Yifeng 李易峰 and Han Geng 韩庚; unfortunately, actress Tong Liya 佟丽娅 gets little chance to etch any character into the role of Li Dazhao’s wife, as their relationship and his whole family life is virtually ignored by the writers. As a result, the title character is still pretty much of a saintly enigma by the end, with little development throughout the film and not helped by a professional but unnuanced performance by Zhang Songwen 张颂文, 45, equipped with the character’s trademark large moustache but not much personality to go with it. For all of the film’s attempts to break the political biopic mould, the script by Guan and his three co-writers (two of whom, Zhang Ke 张珂 and Jing Yu 京榆, also worked with him on Korean War drama The Sacrifice) is still basically old school, unlike The Eight Hundred and The Sacrifice.

The shortage of emotional insight into the main character makes the film’s final 20 minutes, as he’s taken to the scaffold, much less involving than they should be, especially given the way in which the whole process of execution is minutely detailed. Final documentary footage of the PRC’s founding and choirs singing The Internationale are also over-cooked compared with the restrained tone of the preceding action. Nevertheless, as in Xu’s Wild Grass, there’s much to enjoy in most of the performances. And the overall packaging is terrific, led by the light-play images of d.p. Gao Weizhe 高伟喆 (Guan’s episode in My People, My Country 我和我的祖国, 2019; The Sacrifice) with cool but saturated colours, and some fancy non-linear editing between the flashbacks and present time by the experienced Yang Hongyu 杨红雨. The copious scoring by Dou Peng 窦鹏 and Feng Jin 冯金 moves between the long-limbed and melancholy to often subtle variations on The Internationale.

The film’s Chinese title means “The Revolutionary”. The English-subtitled print contains several mistakes in translating dates and times. The film shouldn’t be confused with The Pioneer 先驱者 (2011), directed by Huang Deji 黄德吉 and Nie Chunshen 聂春申, that was about the 90th anniversary of the CPC’s founding.

CREDITS

Presented by Beijing Enlight Pictures (CN), The Seventh Art Pictures (Haikou) (CN), Hebei Film Studio (CN), Huaxia Film Distribution (CN). Produced by The Seventh Art Pictures (Haikou) (CN).

Script: Guan Hu, Wu Bing, Zhang Ke, Jing Yu. Historical advice: Hou Qie’an, Yang Hu. Photography: Gao Weizhe. Editing: Yang Hongyu. Music: Dou Peng, Feng Jin. Music supervision: Dou Peng. Art direction: Huo Tingxiao. Costumes: Zhao Zhibin. Styling: Yang Dan. Sound: Fu Kang. Action: Gao Ruigang. Action advice: Sang Lin. Visual effects: Zhang Kecheng. Scene direction: Li Jinglan. Executive direction: Ma Lei [Ma Tianyi].

Cast: Zhang Songwen (Li Dazhao/Shouchang), Li Yifeng (Mao Zedong/Runzhi), Tong Liya (Zhao Renlan, Li Dazhao’s wife), Cheng Taishen (Zhang Zuolin, warlord), Peng Yuchang (Zhang Xueliang), Li Jiuxiao (Qingzi), Han Geng (Jiang Jieshi/Chiang Kai-shek), Liang Jing (Song Qingling), Ma Shaohua (Sun Zhongshan/Sun Yat-sen), Qin Hao (Chen Duxiu/Zhongfu), Bai Ke (Xu San), Yu Qian (Wu Yuwen, Beijing police deputy director), Sun Xilun (Li A’chen, newspaper boy), Zhang Ruonan (Li Xinghua, Li Dazhao’s eldest daughter), Xin Yunlai (Deng Zhongxia, revolutionary), Zhu Ziyu (Gao Junyu, revolutionary), Zhang Cheng (Luo Zhanglong, revolutionary), Zhou Yangyang (progressive female student), Zhang Yunlong (Zhang Zuolin’s lieutenant), Lu Nuo (Gu Shouzhu, Zhang Xueliang’s Shanghai driver), Qin Junjie (Xiaodou), Sha Baoliang (Master Zhang), Song Qian (Chen Xiujuan, female textile workers’ representative), Jing Gangshan (Fang, industry association president), Yu Haoming (man in qipao), Xiao’ai (Song Jiaoren), Hai Yitian (police officer at Sichuan restaurant), Liang Chao, Dai Yueyue (parents of family at Sichuan restaurant), Kan Qingzi (Zhang Lili), Gao Zhiting (Xiaozhou), Shi Xiaolong (Lu Ming), Wei Qing (old lady with loose teeth), Han Haolin (young Li Dazhao).

Release: China, 1 Jul 2021.