This film starts with the 1911 xinhai revolution and quickly goes over the chaos of the early republic and its trouble with Yuan shi-kai. The May 4th movement is portrayed as the touchstone to the founding of the communist party (certainly a lot of the future leaders of the party started getting involved in politics at this time). This could have been a much longer film covering more in depth coverage of the personalities of this time and still have my interest because of my study of Chinese history. For a general audience this film may have too many characters they know nothing about and find confusing. Even more so if you are not Chinese or a student of this time in history. How many people know about the Japanese occupation of the Shandong peninsula and its impact on Chinese thinking about the west? If you do have some knowledge of the people and time in China during the years covered in this film you will enjoy this movie.
