Title: 1911
Director: Jackie Chan and Zhang Li
Cast: Jackie Chan, Bingbing Li, Winston Chao, Joan Chen and Jaycee Chan
In the grand tradition of epic films, with epic battles and significant meanings and turning points in history, “1911” is an exercise in how delicate the balance of success and failure when it comes to movies like these. For “1911,” it’s the latter in terms of execution, performance and pacing, which is embarrassing because the subject matter is too important to modern Chinese history to under shoot. It is a failure in terms of scope and managing to balance the information alone.
At the turn of the 20th century, China was in a very interesting position. As the world is becoming more Westernized with the emergence of the United States and Europe coming into play, with the Industrial Revolution, trade and commerce, China’s old way of a monarchy rule with the Qing Dynasty is quickly coming to an end. The people of China are starving, poor and jobless and a grand people’s revolution is about to spark to overthrow the old way and bring fourth something new in China, democracy. But the revolution lacks leadership and support from the West as the Chinese military hopes to bring the rebels down. Depicted very well, in Bernardo Bertolucci’s “The Last Emperor,” which gives the same events shown through the perspective of the oligarchs and the Forbidden City, “1911” tells the tale from the people’s point of view and struggle. The problem is filmmakers Jackie Chan and Zhang Li, over stuff the narrative with odd sub-narratives, a love story and far too many characters and title card scrolls to never engage and audience but bombard them with a Chinese history lesson.
Strangely, with a running time of 125 minutes, “1911” never finds its footing, is clumsy with structure and feels Jackie Chan’s self-importance than the people who fought and died in this revolution. Practically every scene in the movie begins with a long title scroll, telling the audience what’s going on in history, why is this important and the context for the battle, meeting or situation. How is this effective storytelling? How is this anything less than engaging and tedious? Taking cues from another Bertolucci film, “1900” (the titles and subject matter are somewhat related), which illustrates the struggle and revolution of working class Italians and the aristocracy of Italy, “1911” tells the narrative of two good friends, Huang Xing (Jackie Chan), the general of the people’s army of rebels and Sun Yat-Sen (Winston Chao), the first President of China. Going from their idealistic friendship to their ill-mannered relationship as the people of China gain more ground to defeat the Qing Dynasty. Nothing in this friendship is nearly as interesting or as compelling to unfold as a story surrounding the Chinese Revolution, it all seems too surface and too comical to take seriously or to grow any attachment to.
With a clunky narrative, confusing editing and pacing and just a complete lack of understanding of filmmaking, “1911” squanders the significance to these events and feels more like Kevin Costner’s “The Postman”, self-important and over-stuffed than what I feel it’s trying to get at, Bernardo Bertolucci’s “1900” or Sergio Leone’s “Once Upon A Time In America”. The language of cinema isn’t there to make this argument false, rather “1911” cheapens this language and the revolution and delivers something unbearable, a complete mess and just flat out bad.
Technical: D+
Acting: C+
Story: C+
Overall: D
by @Rudie_Obias
