My Take | A war film that says much about China and the US
- ‘Forgotten’ in America but remembered too much in China, the portrayal of the Korean war such as that in the blockbuster The Battle at Lake Changjin is not only a litmus test on the state of their relations but also a reflection of their respective domestic cultural and political fault lines
In America, it’s been called “the forgotten war”. In China, it has been an integral part of the Chinese communists’ nation-founding mythology. The two countries’ cultural attitudes and popular awareness about the Korean war offer deep clues about their fundamental differences.
One of the most influential books in English on the war is titled The Forgotten War: America in Korea 1950-1953, by American journalist Clay Blair. By contrast, it’s hardly surprising that a year after the 70th anniversary of China’s entry into the Korean war, there have been not one but two big-budget Chinese films about the conflict.
First it was The Sacrifice, then The Battle at Lake Changjin. The latter has smashed box office records with an intake of more than 3.4 billion yuan (HK$4.1 billion) so far. This year also marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party.
Chinese are fascinated by the war; Americans have been much more preoccupied with the one in Vietnam. The narrative for the Chinese communists is simple. The new China, founded barely a year before, had American aggression brought to its doors. The nation, then backward and still war-torn, stood up to Western imperialism and prevailed.
This nationalist story is a fixture in China’s ideological toolbox. It was downplayed at the 20th anniversary of the war in 1970 because Beijing and Washington had secretly started negotiating a rapprochement. Today, it is revived as the countries are again locked in bitter rivalry.