I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

I have heard a lot of good things about this movie, so I decided to watch it.Well, it wasn't as good as I expected at all. Essentially, it is just another Chinese communist propaganda. No matter how big the mistake the Party made, in the end, the Chinese communist party always does the right thing for its people. That is basically what every mainland Chinese movie is all about. This is just another updated version with better picture quality and better sound effects.For mainland Chinese people, they got brainwashed by the Chinese communist party. Of course, they love this movie. It makes them feel so touched and "proud". There is nothing to be proud of, because the Chinese communist soldiers were killing the Chinese nationalist soldiers who were also Chinese. At that time, the Chinese communist soldiers would be labeled at anti-government terrorists according to today's standard. If the Chinese communist party didn't win the civil war, China might be a better country than it is today. And look at today's China, so many common people have so many things that they want to complain to the communist party, but some of them were even sent to the psychiatric hospitals.The first hour was way too long. It was a simple story, there is no need to show the audience one event for an entire hour. Some of the scenes remind of me "Saving private Ryan." Remember people, only good things about the Chinese communist party are allowed to be made movies. The bad things are not even allowed to be published anywhere inside of mainland China. Those oversea web sites are also blocked inside of mainland China. That is the reality.

"Saving Private Ryan" it is NOT, but certainly it is as equally worth viewing for any fans of military/warfare film. And for any "westerners" unaccustomed with China's history, it may give some insight to tiny part of her modern part some 50+ years ago events that led to fall of Chang Kai Shek and rise of communism under Mao Zhe Dong's.The story line is compelling, similarly to "SPR" we have some well drawn all-human characters and their war story laced with brutal, bloody and yet so mesmerizing scenes, an insight to mankind at its worst.The acting is excellent, even the supporting actors and extras performed all great or at least sufficiently enough to make us believe the scenes we are watching could have happened exactly as they are portrayed on the screen.Why then I gave it 9 instead of 10? Well. Firstly. The film, although officially not the production of "1st of August Film Studio" (official Chinese communist party's propaganda flicks maker), it still suffers a bit from their propagandist influence. The red comrades are nicer than their nationalist foes and - according to this film's tones and "between the lines" messages - they fought for their country (implying that the Chang Kai Shek's nationalists were traitors). Like the hundreds of millions Chinese murdered later by the China's Communist Party during the years that followed have never happened, hmm. But, of course, for the characters shown in the film, it is their future. They don't know it yet - OK, I can believe that. But why PLA's foes (the Nationalists) are basically the shadows in this film? For a "humane warfare film" (as this film is pretending to be about) it is very unhuman depiction of 'the other side' - and I didn't hear anything about Mr. Xiaogang Feng plans to make a sequel about them... (like Clint Eastwood did with "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Letters from Iwo Jima") Second. While the fighting scenes and visual FX are great, the sets weren't prepared as equally. And I really mean it. The hand-held camera actions, the gory, the over-all realism of the brutal warfare scenes are almost as great as the ones in "SPR". But unfortunately the set decorators more often than not were skimping on the realism of the set. So-obvious spray-painting black patches on the walls (to masquerade them as burnt-out or post-explosion marks) is so evident failure of completing the film's realism to me (and I'm not even mentioning those PLA soldiers wearing US helmets - after all it *may* have happened somehow). Yes, I understand that most of the film-viewers wouldn't even notice it, but since so much energy, so much attention to other details was paid during the production of this film, why oh why they couldn't close it complete in every detail?

I gotta say that in the first 40 minutes of the battle show, I did spot scenes from Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers and the Korean: Taegukgi hwinalrimyeo (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0386064/). Actually, I'm not surprised at all, I mean who (the directors) wouldn't do the same thing? Some directors might curse Steven Spielberg for not leaving them much room to shoot a different war movie after Saving Private Ryan, and indeed this movie has, in my opinion, in no way transcended the 1998 war masterpiece. Still, I'd like to give credit to this Chinese director for his guts to do such a Chinese war movie that well handles battle scenes with great details, tells the audiences the past without being necessarily affected by current Chinese politics, and touches a lot of people simply because most of the story feels just down to earth and so damned real. I won't go any further on these points, because there's one more significant thing about this movie, i.e., it's the first of this director's works that could be appreciated by all the audiences other than those from mainland China only. The director has been a big name in Chinese movie industry by the end of last century, bringing Chinese fresh outlooks about domestic movies. However, one could probably better understand the director and his previous movies only from a "Chinese" perspective. And when I say "Chinese", I mean you'd better be living in mainland China, excluding SARs like Hong Kong. But this time, as I said, it's quite different since anyone could understand and appreciate the story. It's a good shot to see how far Chinese movies can go internationally without the presence of Kongfu and male characters with long braid at the back of their heads, without the setting in a remote and underdeveloped Chinese countryside, and without bold and overused sexual scenes.I read about this movie on the internet for the last few days, and it was this piece of information from a Chinese blog that drove me to watch it, and I quote and translate this information as follows: "... at 23:00 when the movie Ji jie hao ended in a Beijing's big movie theatre tonight, with no presence of any of the directors and actors with the movie, the audiences were unwilling to leave their seats, and along with them was only their tears and standing applause." With no stars in this movie, it was reported that the box office hit 2,000 million Chinese dollars 2 weeks after the premiere in China. I will definitely encourage both Chinese and non-Chinese to watch this movie. And for those who might be interested in our ancient country, I recommend two other quality movies: Huozhe ("to be alive" 1994) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110081/; and Ba wang bie ji ("farewell, my concubine" 1993) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106332/.

Feng Xiaogang, China's hottest director today, got some international exposure with "Da Wan" (2001), "Big shot's funeral", starring Donald Sutherland. Further exploring his thus proved deftly touch with comedy, he made "Shou ji" (2003), "Cell phone", a roaring success in China but not generally known in the global market. "Tian xia wu zei" (2004), "A world without thieves", came next, an adventure-drama that was well received. Following the trendy thing for Chinese directors to do, i.e. making shallow, hollow Hollywood blockbusters look-alikes, he took a crack with "Ye yan" (2006), "The banquet", one of those so-called "historic epics", basing his story loosely on Hamlet. While many frown at this attempt, "Ye yan" is still far better than the rubbish that once respected directors such as Zhang Yimou has been turning out.With "Assembly", Feng has finally shown how good he is.Perhaps the first thing to say about "Assembly" is that it is the first ever war epic coming out of China that does not have the slightest trace of political propaganda. Not that propaganda is a problem - you see it in every other the-US-saves-the-world Hollywood war movie – but political propaganda in Chinese war movies have been so blatant. "Assembly" however is a "generic" war movie – it could have happened in any war, anywhere in the world. Most importantly, it is a deeply moving story.This 2-hour movie can be divided into two parts. A lot of discussion of "Assembly" has been focused on the technical achievement which many compared to "Saving Private Ryan". While the first part, which depicts the annihilation of the entire company of 47 under Captain Gu (Zhang Hanyu), is indeed technically impressive, it's the second part that is the soul of the movie. Taking upon himself the blame for the slaughter of his entire company, Gu sets on a quest to have the names of the 47 removed from the MIA list, to be recognized as war heroes.Gu's story is heart-wrenching. Illiterate and uncouth, Gu is at heart an attentive and considerate man. Unique among the 47 soldiers killed is a young man who had been well educated and cared very much about his physical appearance even in the battlefield. When this man's young widow asked Gu how her husband died, he picked up a small piece of rock the size of a large coin and told her that he was killed when a shard like that pierced his heart, with the rest of his body unblemished.Following Gu through his quest is not a joyous experience but a sobering and thought-provoking one. Zhang's superb performance makes it even more so.