Reviewed by Cassam Looch
Stars Zhang Hanyu, Youan Wenkang, Deng Chao, Tang Yan, Liao Fan, Fu Heng,
Phil Jones, Li Naiwen, Ren Quan, Zhao Shaokang, Wang Baoqiang | Written by Liu Heng
UK certification 15 | UK RRP £17.99 | DVD Region 2 | Runtime 119 minutes | Directed by Feng Xiaogang
This film could have been a dangerous exercise in jingoistic flag waving and revisionist propaganda, coming as it does from China and concerning a bloody civil war. However, director Feng Xiaogang deftly crafts a more focused and introspective story out of a meaty subject matter and also manages to throw in a couple of stunning action sequences that are up there with the best Hollywood can offer.
It's 1948 and Captain Gu Zidi (Hanyu) finds himself fighting with 46 men of the Ninth Company against the Nationalist Army (KMT). As the People's Liberation Army (PLA) holds firm against a bloody assault, they wait for the assembly call to be sounded, which would enable them to retreat to safety. With Gu injured by a bomb blast and his men being picked off one by one, some of his company claim to hear the call, something which he cannot confirm. They hold firm and are overwhelmed by the oncoming Nationalist forces, whereupon all the men bar Gu are slaughtered. He is captured but, having lost his identity and with no records of his secret mission available to either side, he sets about restoring honour to his men and returns many years later to try and find the bodies of his company — and also find out if there was a bugle call that could have saved them.
Problematically the only side depicted is the one we follow from Gu’s point of view hence, when he puts down his weapons, the "enemy" disappears without any real sense of closure. This leaves us as lost as he is and, although in terms of symbolism for his journey this makes complete sense, for the casual viewer it is a little too disorientating. Some critics have also noted that the one female role in the film is underwritten in a miniscule supporting role although, to be fair, the last film that focused on a strong female character during war was Pearl Harbor; I rest my case.
The use of "Western" style visceral war scenes is very different to what we have seen from Far Eastern cinema in the past. It was a shift recently confirmed by the superb Korean war film Brotherhood, where grand scale battles were replaced by action-orientated skirmishes. Although there can be arguments made as to which is more favourable — or even which is the most cinematic — in reality, the epic battles look quaint within the confines of modern warfare. Sure, thousands of charging Romans or Samurai work in certain movies but, in the age of guns and tanks, it just doesn’t feel relevant. However, this film gets it right, opting to open with an excellent slice of urban warfare that grabs the attention much like Speilberg’s assault in Saving Private Ryan, only Feng maintains the momentum by having a much tighter script. He is certainly aided by the fact that this is based on a true story, but it’s the flair he brings that makes Assembly one to watch.
EXTRAS *** A decent collection of making-of featurettes, plus the theatrical trailer.