Lee Eisenberg China has been one of the primary driving forces in the world for almost two millennia. The incarnations known to recent generations are the People's Republic of China (the mainland) and the Republic of China (Taiwan). But these only emerged after two thousand years of monarchical rule. Jackie Chan's "Xinhài Gémìng" ("1911" in English) looks at the revolution that brought down the Qing dynasty. This topic briefly got touched on in "The Last Emperor", but here we get the full story of how Sun Yat-sen sought funds from the Chinese diaspora to counter the Western powers' support of the corrupt, dysfunctional royal family. Over the course of a year, the revolutionary movement waged repeated battles against the monarchy, eventually forcing Puyi's abdication in 1912.Chan plays Huang Xing, a Sun's second-in-command, with Winston Chao playing Sun. I should say that the movie's pace in some scenes is awkward, with words identifying the characters while they talk (making it hard to read the subtitles). But that's only a minor problem. The battle scenes, and the look at the 72 Martyrs make clear that the road from the Qing dynasty to republican China was no easy one. It's not a great movie, but I recommend it. A similar movie that I recommend is "The Soong Sisters".Also starring Jaycee Chan, Li Bingbing, Joan Chen and Hu Ge.

sddavis63 Considering this is only a little more than an hour and a half in length, "1911" does a pretty decent job of offering the viewer a look at the 1911 revolution in China that toppled the Qing dynasty and inaugurated the Chinese Republic. The movie is heavy on battle scenes as the republicans and monarchists battle - and some of them are pretty graphic. The movie also gives a substantial look at some of the internal politics of the republican movement, which was not exactly a unified movement, except in its overall goal of toppling the monarchy. There's a few reflections on the place of foreigners and on repeated foreign interference in Chinese affairs. Basically this is pretty well acted by everyone involved, and it plays it pretty straight, with only one scene that I can recall that descends into Chinese martial arts. The fact that it is so short means that while it offers the viewer a good taste of the revolution, it lacks any real depth. Obviously, the era was far more complicated than is portrayed here.One thing that detracted from my enjoyment of the movies was the subtitles. I understand the need for them, of course, but there were two problems with them - first, they sometimes flashed by so fast that it was difficult to read them, and, second, there were many times when there were two different sets of subtitles on the screen - one translating dialogue, and one translating historical information that was being offered on screen. It was difficult to follow both, and the latter especially were written in a very small font.The movie was produced in mainland China to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the 1911 revolution. Unsurprisingly, then, the movie pays homage in its closing captions to the Chinese Communist Party as the inheritors of the revolutionary tradition. Aside from that, though, this didn't come across to me as a particularly heavy propaganda piece, which I appreciated. (6/10)

tzer0 *****SPOILER ALERT!***** This movie is pre-spoiled. Oh, and the revolution succeeds. I gave it 2 stars because Jackie Chan did get one fighting scene in. That was worth one star. The other star is for... well, I'm not entirely sure what it's for. Effort maybe. Comically bad effects certainly.I guess this is Communist China's version on Patton. So instead of being epic and exciting it's epic and long windedly boring. Not that it's not entirely worth seeing. There are a few moments, but you have to add your own jokes, like an MST3K flick.Like the sound effects. They have the same cocking sound for every bolt action rifle, which wouldn't be too bad, except it sounds like a lever or pump action instead. That along with the sound of empty casings being dropped for fully loaded bullets, as well as spent casings, and a ricochet, that seems to be lifted directly from the Rainbow Six video game, used from everything from ricochets to cannons going off completely take you out of the film worse than every grenade in a Chuck Norris movie exploding with a big gas fireball.There are other things, like the "Go Pee" scene. Jackie Chan is leading one, of many, battles in the film and a Vicker's or Maxim type machine gun overheats and seizes up. He tells the soldier to pee on it. Not that this didn't happen, but he pees on the jacket of the water cooled gun, not in it. Not sure that would have worked for long and it would have been tough to keep a line of soldiers constantly urinating on it in the middle of a battle. And speaking of jackets, poor Jackie Chan has to lead a couple of battles without a uniform. And it seems like as soon as he gets one he gives it away to his politician friend before he even sets foot off the boat.That's another thing. Every ship in the film looks like a CG shot from Titanic. It's almost like this movie was made with a kit. Every sound and visual effect has a sameness to is. It's almost comical. Did I say almost? It IS comical. Almost as funny as the leader of the communist revolution begging the heads of the "Imperialist Bank" for money to help end Capitalism. Yep, that happens.So, if you want to see Jackie Chan direct and star in a War Epic sprinkled liberally with comically bad effects, that lots of speeches, and the most propaganda shots since the Battleship Potemkin, this is the movie for you. Otherwise it's a little like the Chinese film industry's attempt to make the Last Emperor from the other side. So despite lots of battle scenes, rather than being exciting, its a bit tedious. So while I feel I understand their attempt to escape oppression better, they seem to have only succeeded in trying to legitimize the new repression, and in making a epically long winded film that would rival and political speech.And speaking of speech. Jackie Chan has a very uncharacteristically gruff voice when speaking Chinese. Though it fits fine with the tough military officer character he plays in the movie, it makes it all the more surprising and funny when he speaks English and it's the same Jackie Chan from the V-8 commercials on TV.Goes good with The Last Emperor, 55 Days in Peking, The Sand Pebbles and or Reds.

kluseba "1911" is an epic Chinese historical drama that honours the centennial anniversary of the revolution against the Qing dynasty. The movie convinces with great special effects in the battle scenes, beautiful and authentic locations, bombastic costumes, many intellectual words and impressive images and a bunch of great and internationally recognized actors such as the very unusual and surprisingly convincing Jackie Chan, the once again very diversified Joan Chan or the charming shooting star Bingbing Li. This movies teaches us a lot about Chinese culture and history and captures the essential of a complex story in a short and intense running time. Even for someone who doesn't know a lot about China, the introduction and the subtitles reveal and explain enough to understand and get into a beautiful movie even though the ending could have been a little bit more expanded. I think the movie could have focused a little bit more on the situation and the authentic everyday life of the Chinese population instead of focusing only on the fate of the famous historic characters.Normally, this movie would have got one point more but I cut off one point because this feature has some elements that remind me of a propaganda cinema. Good and evil are too opposite and well defined and I'm sure that this movie is not always faithful towards the true history behind it. The good guys are wise, selfless and honest while the camp of the bad guys are one dimensional, egoistic and helpless. The movie tries to create a lot of sympathy for the main characters such as Sun Yat-Sen. In one scene, he convinces with his wise words only a bunch of ignorant, selfish and capitalist politics representing a very negative image of the Western civilization. That's a very romantic and epic scene but it's simply to pathetic to be true. This kind of falsification spoils the enjoyment of this otherwise technically perfect movie a lot. At least, after many American, Russian and German propaganda movies that I saw, this is a rather intriguing and also moderate movie with propagandistic tendencies from an Asian country.Apart of this little but though important flaw, this movie is a definite must see and yet another great history flick from China that easily beats the boring patriotic American war movies that have flooded the cinemas of the world a decade ago. It's time for a change and from a qualitative and cultural point of view, I happen to find these detailed, epic and entertaining Chinese history flicks very addicting.