PWNYCNY Technically, this movie is excellent. It is well-acted, well filmed, and has a strong, compelling story. The problem is: the plot seems to be a rehash of countless Hollywood war movies, except that the actors are Chinese and the army is the Peoples' Liberation Army. This wholesale borrowing from the American war movie motif happens to work in this case. The protagonist, the Army captain, is a heroic figure who is worthy of respect. He keeps the faith with his men, and thus prevents them from being forgotten. His quest to preserve the truth is epic. He is the kind of soldier that every army wants. That the movie succeeds in virtually eliminating the polemical component intensifies the dramatic effective. The captain is not a so much a Red Army soldier but a soldier who happens to be in the Red Army. The opening battle sequence is used with great effect as a device to introduces the key characters. This is an excellent movie.

freemantle_uk Internationally there are many excellent war that have been made in recent years, such as Russia's The 9th Company, Israel's Lebanon and France's Days of Glory. The producers of the really brilliant Korean film Brotherhood have returned now with a powerful Chinese war film.In the middle of the Chinese Civil War Captain Gu Zidi (Hany Zhang) is a skilled officer in the Communist army but when he disgraces himself he is given a suicide mission to hold an old mine at the South Bank of the Wen River with only 47 men. After his men fight with incredible bravery Gu is only survivor: but the picture is complicated because when he recovers his regiment is chopped and changed and the bodies are hidden in a mine. With no one believing him Gu returns to the army whilst proving his claims his men died as heroes.Saving Private Ryan has been a major influence on war films ever since and it is clear that the filmmakers of Assembly were trying to make a Chinese version of that film. The battle scenes were very similar, using hand-held camera which runs after and follows the troops and , giving the audience an intense feeling about the brutality of battle. There is realistic violence with blood flying all over the place and soldiers being blown to pieces. The action was handled tremendously with some of the best war scenes put to scene in recent years. There are some references to Saving Private Ryan, with the cinematography Yue Lu using a similar colour pallet, the beginning battle scene in an urban setting like the final battle in Saving Private Ryan and the use of an improvised drum artillery was like the sticky bomb in Spielberg's film. There are also clear influences from Brotherhood and Joint Security Area when a soldiers on a landmine. Even though Assembly is influenced by other films Assembly can easily stand on it's own two feet, with a strong story about a soldier suffering from guilt because of his scene of honour and duty prove that his men be classified as heroes like they deserve. Assembly is a film about the brutality of war, the guilt someone can feel, personal and collective redemption and someone trying to do the right and honourable thing.Xiaogang Feng directs a powerful film about how Gu Zidi fights against the odds in more ways then one. As well as the incredible action scenes, Feng is able to handle with skill the emotional drama, showing how Gu suffers and does everything he can to give his men respect after death. Lu's cinematography adds to this showing the beauty but harshness of the Chinese countryside, particularly in the winter to the dark environment of the coal mine. The warfare, costumes and buildings were similar to what it was like in the late 40s and early 50s and film does try to be balance, not making out the Nationalist or Communist to be good or evil. The editing and pacing is just about right, with a fitting running time. The film goes through event quickly and has a good running time of two hours: these films are often more like two and half to three hours, so it is nice to see a film that does not overstay its welcome. But Feng does skip over a few things that we should have seen, like the final battle and how Gu got off a mine.Zhang gives an incredible performance throughout Assembly, showing a wide range, making Gu into a likable character. He was able to show emotion both his voice and his facial and physical expressions. Zhang was also ably supported by the rest of the cast, making Assembly a worthy war drama.Highly recommended.

honorhorror Besides all the positive reviews about its realistic visual style, the shaky camera and all the "Private Ryan" stuff, it really deserved compliments from Chinese people, while we can see the true differences between Chinese people and Western people in a cultural perspective.I've read some reviews criticizing the Assembly for it being too "western", and has significantly less character development in the entire movie, but to state in short Assembly is a movie purely shot from the angle of Captain Gu, who is the main man in the movie. It is very unusual to portray any war from an individual perspective for Chinese, even not in recent years. However, once someone wants to try it, it will come out with some side effects bound with Chinese culture. 1, Captain Gu's character is very "north-Chinese", which means he takes everything personally and with high dedication. Usually, he takes his men more than brothers. When brothers die, he cares about their bodies and believes they will be reincarnated. This is very typical Chinese man-man relationship in a near-modern china. Plus, the supporting characters are not memorable enough due to the magnitude of this Chinese civil war. China has the largest population in the world, which means one or two lives are not significant. And even the director strives to focus on individuals, such reality still rule the whole story.2, Captain Gu's has a significant pursuit over the comrades' honor they deserved. However if you were Chinese, you would feel the motivations behind this action are strongly related to Chinese beliefs. Gu has strong emotions on his men, but he never accepted the truth that they are all gone. He'd believe they wouldn't rest in peace because the earthly honor unattained. Besides, director Feng Xiaogang apparently deviated from the typical Chinese war movies' atheism tune and communism campaign injected by political needs. This is to note the fact that very few man purely completely accepted atheism, even in a Communism China.Well done. This is a Chinese war movie about the wide gray scale in the war and in China. 2, Captain Gu's

conradlee 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/.