Monday, January 30, 2012

CHINA - FIFTEEN HOURS TO HONG KONG - IF YOU HAVE TIME, WATCH ANOTHER MOVIE

After watching two documentaries and having a meal then a snack and all the water i can drink. Actually, it is really important to keep yourself well hydrated so I drank water every time it was offered to me.

With too many hours left before we landed in Hong Kong I decided to watch another film. This time I picked a movie. The movie was called 1911. It was in the year 1911 that nationalist Chinese forces replace the Qing dynasty . Doctor, Sun Yat Sen, who led the revolution was named the republic's first president.



The movie was largely about the battles and uprisings that led to the fall of the Qing dynasty. I would not say that the movie was without bias. I could sense a definite leaning towards the modern Chinese socialist point of view. New the end of the movie the rhetoric was pretty thick but it could easily be tuned out.

Sun Yat Sen was played by Winston Chao, a Taiwanese actor who I had seen in previous movies, The Wedding Banquet and Eat, Drink, Man, Woman. Both were excellent movies.



Jackie Chan played Huang Xing, Sun Yat Sen's second in command and the the leader of the forces for the uprising. The movie left something to be desired but it was entertaining. A lot of the finer points of Chinese politics and the dynamics of dynastic power struggles were glossed over. Still, for Westerners, who are not that familiar with Chinese history this film would be an introduction to an important period of Chinese history.









After watching 1911 there was only a few hours left in the flight. We had a meal which resembled breakfast although it was around noon in Hong Kong. Nevertheless, it filled the time and by the time the meal was done and everything was put away, well it was time to land in Hong Kong.

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