Directors Kaige Chen, Dante Lam & Hark Tsui
Starring Jing Wu, Jackson Yee & Duan Yihong
Rated MA
Score 5/6

1950, the People’s Volunteer Army (PVA) entered North Korea for a decisive battle in history. Under extreme freezing conditions, the troops on the Eastern Front, with fearless spirit and iron will fought the US army until the last man standing at Lake Changjin.

Deciding to watch The Battle at Lake Changjin certainly one of those ‘spur of the moment decisions’ also knowing that I would have had to wait around an hour before the next session of Venom. I went into this knowing nothing about the release of the movie considering I have not seen a trailer for this movie. The Battle at Lake Changjin is the most expensive film ever made in China to date, with a budget of $200 million. The film’s story is said to have been commissioned by the Publicity Department of the Chinese Communist Party and was announced as part of the 100th Anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party. It should also be noted that The Battle at Lake Changjin has been met with a certain amount of controversy globally with the word ‘propaganda’ being frequently used to describe the movie and perhaps justifiably so. However, what needs to be realised about the genre is that every single ‘War movie’ that has been made and every single ‘War movie’ that ever will be made can be considered to be a ‘Propaganda movie’ from a certain point of view. It is also important to watch these movies so we can better understand these points of view.




Now if you’re going to watch this one keep in mind that it’s a bit of a marathon effort to get through this one considering the runtime is close to 3 hours (it should be noted that The Battle at Lake Changjin was such an epic production that three directors have been credited on this movie. The three Directors Kaige Chen, Dante Lam & Hark Tsui are said to be filming a follow up movie to The Battle at Lake Changjin,  Water Gate Bridge) and I would suggest that you watch this with the subtitles instead of a dubbed version, because in the past I have found with other dubbed movies I have watched that the voice over actors struggle to capture the emotion of a scene and it can ruin the experience of watching a movie.
I was immediately struck by how beautifully the scenes where the movie was set in China with the use of colour the Chinese countryside looked to be very hype stylised and how that contrasted with how Korea was shot to look very grey and depressing. I also thought it was amusing that the filmmakers indulged in the similar goofy heroic moments within action sequences that are clearly meant to get a cheer from the audience like you would expect with a Hollywood war movie.
I enjoyed Hu Jun’s performance as Lei Suisheng the leader of Artillery Platoon of the 7th Company. I also enjoyed the character arch of Wu Wanli (portrayed by Jackson) the younger brother of the company commander.