User Reviews

This is just an expensive imitation of the great war movies like Save Private Ryan. The problem is, unlike in Save Private Ryan, the Chinese directors and actors did not show the war as human tragedies, where countless young lives were lost. They presented the battles as glorious, heroic and patriotic acts. This just show the mindset of the Chinese elites nowadays.

The movie did not demonise the US troops. That's an improvement. However the US officers and soldiers characters are just like movie props, with little personalities or emotions. I don't know if this is because they can't get good US actors, or because they don't want US soldiers look more humane than the Chinese.

The movie showed the huge loss to the Chinese army only in numbers, when casualties were reported by the soldiers. But the fighting scene predominately shows US soldiers got blown up into the sky, with very few scenes showing Chinese soldiers getting killed. This is the same old practices of the Chinese war movies, showing how brave and effective killing machine the Chinese army is.

For the westerners who generally do not know what happened in Korean War, and what kind of soldiers were sent over to fight. Here is a fact to ponder: a large portion of Chinese POWs refused to go back to China and were sent to Taiwan.

For a war movie, it is not bad, at least have some plots. The sad truth is that there is no winner in this war, that's why it's dragged for three years and no one can claim to be the winner. But since it's a movie, not a documentary, I don't think we need to discuss the truth or fiction here. However, many reviews are anti-China, I highly doubt those people ever watched the actual movie.

Not really had any war movies in the cinema this year, and to get this, and from a Chinese perspective, is good, and a change.

Make no mistake, this was shot in IMAX, and looks brilliant, plenty of giant FX houses come up at the end credits, and you can see why. The action is spectacular and the war violence is all there, very gory. The acting is all solid as is the story and direction, if a bit overlong so I think some trimming would be nice, that's my real only problem.

I'm quite sure there are some problems, history wise, as I studied only WW1 and WW2, so I can't comment on this. As entertainment, it's fine, just try and see it in IMAX / Super screen, if you really want the best from this film. Lots of good stuff from China these past two years, more to come.

So this movie is a huge box success, approaching over $1B in revenue. It depicts a pivotal battle in the Korean war; a war between the United nations and communist China and North-Korea. A war that North-Korea started and if it had lost it North-Korea would've have been no more and you'd have a united western Korea.

Now this context matters to me when I watch this movie. North-Korea is a failed state and a terrible place to live. How can I root for the Chinese forces when the end-result of their victory is so bad? They didn't just die for nothing, their death was actively bad for the world.

Now cinematically this movie isn't too great either. The story telling is predictable with a cartoonishly portrayed evil enemy. The CGI is really underwhelming, especially considering the budget. It's just modern day propaganda, I just wish China had picked something else to be proud of.

Commissioned by the Chinese Communist Party to commemorate their 100th anniversary, The Battle at Lake Changjin pours an entire nation's jingoistic fervour, anti-US sentiments, blatant propaganda & more into a 3-hour long war film that's no different from majority of Hollywood war films in its fact distortion & history revision but it's a tad too simplistic & predictable to deliver on the storytelling front.

Directed by Chen Kaige, Tsui Hark & Dante Lam, the story is a fictionalised retelling of the battle that unfolded between Chinese soldiers & American troops during the Korean War and is crafted in a manner that's meant to provoke nationalistic pride in its intended audience. While the first hour is uneventful, things do get better once the battle is on and the film does well to make sure the interest isn't entirely lost from thereon.

The mass battle sequences do deliver the goods but only when it's being waged in close-proximity. Still, for a $200 million production, the CGI is an absolute cringe and prevents several scenes from making their desired impact. Further weakening the ride is the narrative approach, awful dialogues, cardboard characters, excessive runtime, repetitive action, weak performances & overdone sentimentality. It is a state-sponsored picture and it shows.

Overall, The Battle at Lake Changjin has moments of spectacle and the swift pans & camera manoeuvres add the necessary cinematic touches to its action sequences but there is a lot in here that could've been further improved. The caricature depiction of US forces isn't really a complaint since most American war films do the same. However, the extreme flag-waving on display is so forceful & overpowering that it often kills the film's unabashedly entertaining aspects.

There are too many distinct inferior positions for chinese to respond the war,but if they make a concession,the war would have to be undertaken by their children.

The storyline was very bland, and felt very heavy handed at painting what I personally felt was an over-sympathetic attempt at trying to convince the audience of the Chinese reasons for participating in the Korean war.

Letters of Iwo Jima played an even handed and fair portrayal of the Japanese troops during the Battle of Iwo Jima by showing the humanity behind the war, but Changjin tried to do the reverse by an attempt to make a political statement using the emotional trump card through the characters of this movie. Thats they reason why the American actors have very simplified dialogs, and very bland acting. Even the battle scenes showing the Americans didn't feel very natural.

Despite the high budget afforded to this movie, the CGI was also very poorly done and felt almost cartoonish at times.

I looked through some of the comments of other people, including some who claimed to be history students. The history he studied may be just a profile.

First of all, it is really not a propaganda tool. I am sorry to say that the resistance of many Westerners to this movie. In real time, this is basically the real Chinese understanding of that period of history. Perhaps this reflects a huge difference in cognition.

Whether who won or lose, for the Chinese, that war is iconic. Before China was involved in the war, the Chinese government did repeatedly (15 times in my impression) not to cross the 38-degree line. However, no one listened to China's warnings. That's the in real history, and China have to engaged in the war which they did not want.

In the historical memory of the Chinese people, the general trend of the war is consistent with the movie. The mainstream view in China does not believe that China won the entire Korean War, but that China in that barren era achieved its strategic goals by virtue of its tenacious will.

And whether these characters are completely equivalent to the plot of the movie, we don't have to take it seriously. But for the Chinese, that war gave birth to many heroic deeds. These heroes and veterans will certainly magnify some facts in their memories, but they do represent the will of that era. But to a large extent, we can understand these plots as the Chinese collective memory of this period of history.

Friends who study history, if you really go to Afghanistan to see what happened there, you will find that they have their own historical memory. I think that in fact, no matter whether a country wins or loses, there are heroes. These countries and people should be given a chance to write their own heroes. In fact, many heroes may be just small people. Maybe they have gone through a certain period behind the flashlight. They are just the epitome of the times. If there were no movies and literary works, they might have been forgotten long ago.

What needs to be emphasized is that if you really understand China, China is very disgusted with war. China has experienced too many history and feelings that Westerners are not familiar with. On the contrary, China has great sympathy and empathy for countries and individuals who are in war or suffering.

Aside from this, the movie itself has a basic performance in addition to the mentally handicapped special effects, whether it is individual or as a whole.

Regarding the issue of actors, in fact, most people in China do not understand the meaning behind the expressions of foreigners, so they cannot judge the acting skills of Westerners, just like the Chinese faces in countless movies do not hinder Western judgments.

Maybe to you, the story of this movie is meaningless. But the story here does express others' understanding of the same period of history.

To begin with, North Korea did attack the south counterparty first but both south and north were actually working hard to prepare for the war. Either of them was taking peace as seriouolsly. Either of them could be the starter. Merely the north was a few steps ahead.

The so-called UN troops were simply American troops plus someof her reluctant allies' negligible soldiers. Did Korea has any issue with Turkey, Poland or Thailnd? Absolutely no.

America did not cross the China-korea border but that's not the key point. On one hand, America did promise to protect the regime of Chiang Kai-Shek in Taiwan island and America actually sent a fleet in the summer of 1950 to the Taiwan strait to obstruct PLA's operation to reclaim Taiwan. It's an absolutely challenge, or should I say, threat to China. On the other hand, China had warned American troops a thousand times that American troops should not cross the 38th parallel since the invasion of Inchon. General MacArthur simply kept ignoring it. To keep foreign forces outside the 38th parallel is a bottom line form China's perspective. Imagine what will America do if Russia had military activity in America's neighbour,for example, Mexico? Actually Russia did try to deploy missiles in Cuba and the US-Russia relationship instantly free fell to the bottom, and the world was pushed to the edge of war.

This is the true context of the movie. It's ok if you don't understand because we don't share a similar background.

All those 1-star review bombs are exposing the current climate of McCarthyist sinophobic hysteria in the west pretty accurately.

For anyone not suffering from McCarthyist hysteria, this is a decent movie with well-crafted, tense, and dramatic action scenes. It also does it's job of illustrating the theme of ordinary people being capable of extraordinary heroics feats and self-sacrifice when under existential threat.

Also, a good choice to feature Mao Anying's participation and death in the narrative. It showcases that the social class he was born in as Mao Zedong's son mattered nothing, because death is equal to all when fighting a war.

Less well done were the scenes of the American side. The directors and script writers did provide at least a couple of scenes of American soldiers talking about home life, and I thought this was a good choice to provide the American side with some humanity. But the actors were really chewing the scenery here, especially in their line delivery, which was unfortunate. I think, however, that this can mainly be attributed to the fact that these actors are far from being A-listers. Unfortunately, China still has not build up a decent pool of ethnically non-Asian quality actors, so I foresee more of this happening in the future.

Now a bit of historical context here on China's motives for partaking in this war: A few decades before the Korean War, China had been brutally invaded by imperial Japan through the Korean peninsula, which started off the theater of WW2 in the Far East. Given that this history was still fresh in the minds of the Chinese at the time, China was very sensitive to any happenings on the Korean peninsula. For that reason, they warned the American side multiple times not to cross the 38th parallel or they would force China's hand. The Americans thought the Chinese were bluffing and crossed that line anyway. This (and the American fleets that had gone to the Taiwan Straits in the summer of 1950) convinced the Chinese that the USA would try to invade and colonize China after taking control of the Korean peninsula. To preemptively stop this threat, China decided to set up the People's Volunteer Army to defend against the existential threat.

I'm from China and not a bot, I have to say everyone in China who got sanity, definitely treat this as a piece of garbage.

But however, from the 700m box office of this piece of garbage, you can see that there're tons of insane people in China, they are totally brainwashed and they just want war.

So what I can say? All I can say is that if Germany got 1.4b people before WWII, then they may triple the box office if they got a similar anti US or anti world movie like this. And maybe it's not 700m then, it would be 2b or even 3b box office earned.

From this I got a conclusion: Humans can be easily brainwashed by something, especially something that brainwash you everyday. Another conclusion is that human are mostly stupid, that's how they can be easily brainwashed!

Let's be honest, these people that give this film a 10 stars are no critical thinkers and not very educated, they have been brainwash by their own government. The truth is China have been making film and tv series fabricating their own history for decades and they have been very popular, you can still see a lot of them on tv, Chinese killing off Japanese, killing off Western folks, their story, acting and directing are appalling but they get high praise, why? Because it makes the Chinese feel proud of themselves in their own make believe world. Sadly, many of them can't think for themselves and believe what they see is true without doing their own homework, can't blame them, just feel sad for them.

It's 1950. American forces have landed at Incheon and driving north towards the Chinese border. The politically ambitious warmongering American military leader Douglas MacArthur insists on bombing Chinese border locations to cut off supplies and retreat for the North Koreans. Chinese leader Mao decides to answer the provocation and sends in the PLA. They would confront the Americans at Lake Changjin. The Americans would call it, the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir.

I'm not going to argue for accuracy. There is a definite deliberate slant to its views but it's not overtly wrong. A perfect example happens quite early. Somebody gets CGI happy and puts in a sky full of American fighter planes. There is more chance of them flying into each other than bombing the right targets. It's insane how many planes are in the sky on their bombing run. It's like a WWII mass bombing raid except it's utter chaos. Something similar happens to the American characters with one exception. There is one heroic competent war leader. Otherwise, the Americans are mostly arrogant, fat, and throwing up his breakfast. It's a political slant to sell to the Chinese public. I would compare this to Pearl Harbor without the romance. It's not a good thing. The CGI is a micro-step down from that. The story is over-the-top melodrama. The film is using a lot of slow-motion action. The best war scene happens quite early with the soldiers faking dead on the dry river bed. If it stayed semi-realistic, this could have been good.

Although it must be disappointing from a US perspective seeing its own troops portrayed as the enemy, and getting routed by a supposedly much weaker force, it accurately depicts the battle from Chinese eyes. Each side views history from their own perspectives. The US is clearly not used to seeing itself as the villain!

As a cinematic action movie point of view, this was superbly done. The action sequences were compelling and gritty. And the historic view on both the chinese side aswell as the american side were pretty fair and accurate for that time and period. Some battle scenes and recreation of the sets were even top notch. This War was not a case of good and evil, as americans always like to depict, but it was a case of sovereign dignity.

On a political point of view, people might consider this as a propaganda movie, but the fact is the chinese PLA soldiers did stalemate the Korean War, this is an undeniable fact, that even western history books admits. So how can it be propaganda when written history acknowledge the facts depicted in this movie. It was no secret at that time the Americans made it a mission to eradicate communism. They were preparing for it, and that led North Korea struck at South Korea first. However this act of War from North Korea was provoked by the United States. China at that time allowed United States to defend South Korea, but warned them not to cross the 38th parallel. But United States didn't listen and went straight to occupy North Koreas capitol city Pyongyang. If China have let American forces to take over North Korea, that means a direct threat to China aswell. Put yourself in their shoes, what would you have done? What would any country have done if foreign forces were right at your borders.?You fight and defend. So thats what China did.

This movie might be melodramatic about it, but these chinese people have every right to make a movie to commend their fallen soldiers who basically fended off foreign aggression and for the next coming decades, created peace and stability in China for them to become the second largest economy of today, lifting millions out of poverty.

I am a Chinese and I have to say, I didn't watch this time-wasting movie, and won't watch it forever.

To be honest, Consuming patriotism really sucks.

Chinese movies suck now.

Not a bad movie, a bit long but overall good.

PS: ignore the other reviews that give it a 1. I have seen so many 1 and 10 for a movie before. Bega me to think the 1 reviews are not objective about the movie, but personal feels.

For most of the west, this movie seems like a propaganda. I wanted to check it for myself, the ending is indeed a propaganda against the west. But I believe that any victims of the west will feel the same as the Chinese if they can win a battle against the Americans. And this will hurt the pride of any Americans, even more pronounced if you support the right wing party(ies). Anyway, just don't watch the last 3-5 minutes and this movie is actually good.

First, the movie is super violent. If you cannot watch people being stabbed and body parts being exposed, this is not a movie for you. In addition, the battles are super long. I like movies about wars to learn history but the battles in this movie are dragging it.

Second, in no way this movie has shown that the Americans were barbaric or monsters. So don't get offended. It actually shows in some scenes that the soldiers just want to go home for the holidays and be with their families.

Finally, the movie is depicting soldiers as heroes, but from my point of view, there are only victims. The sons taken from the loved ones just to amuse a bunch of politicians who want to show off who has a bigger d*ck. It even says in the movie that MacArthur by winning the war he would be in advantage to be the next president. So in some parts, the movie really show us what wars are about.

I believe the movie are missing some parts, it explains very little of the reason of the war which was Korea. If you can get over your patriotism for the USA, then the movie is a good watch. I don't believe it also tells a good story but anyone can learn that this battle had happened and who were the actors.

The movie is basically a propaganda with made up and a lot of historical inaccuracies.

The real battle was a meat grinder for chinese soldiers, due to bad planning, strategy and intelligence and it is weird the CCP want to portrait this as heroic. That's ridiculous and historical rewriting of the korean war. No surprise the korean themselves hated the movie.

Also it goes without mention that the movie is too long, becomes boring as it progresses. And don't believe chinese numbers, they were rounding up people to inflate cinema numbers.

This is not gonna take place in one of the best war movies for sure ... but this is not that bad to have rating bellow 6.

If you are a typical westerner and used to enjoy American heroism or believer "all super hero's are born in America" this movie is not for you. Moreover, they VFX is not Hollywood level. But remember this is the second highest revenue making movie in 2021 after spider-man One things that really bother me is that this movie is considerably long that makes someone bored ... Overall, good to enjoy war from different angle.

Too much obsessed watching victory of Americans in every Hollywood war movies although they lost at many battle. Here's some excitement watching them lose.

Those who under rated this movie " Bro .. Come out from your box. America wont win all the time. Forget about propaganda , politics. Enjoy movie.

As a Chinese, I don't like this movie at all. This movie is kind of typical of Hollywood.

It's not a good movie to tell the history of the battle of Lake Changjin or the history of the war to resist U. S. aggression in Korea.

The movie didn't tell clearly that before Chinese army attended the war, the U. S. Navy's seventh Fleet had sailed into the Taiwan Strait on the orders of President Harry Truman. At that time, both Chinese government and Chinese people didn't want to attend a war again. But we have no choice.

The movie seems to blame MacArthur for all these faults. But at that time, the U. S. government itself also supported attacking NORTH Korea and even China. China warned the US not to cross the 38th parallel, but the government's leader Truman ignored it and thought China wouldn't send troops. These weren't made clear in the movie.

How the Chinese generals direct their soldiers to fight were not shown clearly in the movie. How the Chinese solders used wisdom and courage to defensed the tanks were not shown clearly in the movie either. They even let the main character use another tank to defense. That cannot be true.

Even at the end, the director arranged for American officers to salute the dead Bodies of Chinese soldiers. I'm not sure wether an ordinary soldier would do it, but I'm quite sure those who led the armies to attack Chinese People's Volunteers would not. It's really ridiculous.

The story about Lei was really great. He knew how to lead the soldiers to defense with wisdom, he knew to take advantage of the terrain, he also knew a soldier's sacrifice needs to be worth it. I cried when he died, especially when I heard the song of Yimeng. The Chinese sacrificed a lot in the war of liberation but now they need to fight again, to fight against the US army.

Who started the war first? Who amplified the war first? Who is invading? OF COURSE, not China.

Some people may think, the film is a propaganda tool for the Chinese government. This is ridiculous. This movie didn't even tell the history of the battle of Lake Changjin in a good way. Can it be propaganda? It wasn't nearly as much propaganda as Transformers, which showed off the U. S. military.

Do not assume every Chinese film as a propaganda tool, to be honest, the Chinese directors weren't good at propagating politics as American directors.

The dude is holding the Sten by the magazine which is shown in a lot of war movies, but it is wrong because the recoil can make magazine shift and the ammunition might jam.

Also i'm not sure if it is accurate that the Chinese used western weapons. I would assume they would have used Soviet weapons (since they are both communist and this is before the sino-soviet split) such as the AK-47 (That's the only AK at the time because it's still 1951 during the Battle of Chosin Reservoir so the AK Modernized (AKM) hasn't come out yet) for their assault rifle, maybe a papasha (PPSH-41, fires the 7.62x25 mm Tokarev round) or PPS-43(fires 7.62*25mm) for their SMG, a DP-27 (called the DP-28 in the west, fires the 7.62×54mmR round) for their LMG, and a Mosin-Nagant (3-line rifle M1891, known in Russia as Mosin's rifle) as their bolt action sniper rifle. Also the officers are equipped with C96 Mausers (German).

Also sure there were American planes that still had propellers, but I wanted to see some jet battles in MIG alley between the Sabers and the MIGS.

Also the movie taught me some Chinese.

Just by looking at the cast one should know it's a loud, noisy, embarrassing and time-wasting.