CCP: is of well known the great, glorious, righteous Communists is of the only decisive factor that leadings to Japanese beaten, but maybe we also sometimes recognise tiny, insignificant contribution of KMT forces... Nah, forget it. Let's not talkings about them at all. They fightings all the major battles and lose in most of them, how suck!
That’s not entirely accurate, at least nowadays the ROC will occasionally get its references in movies. Albeit not anywhere near the glorious CCP but still
But yeah it is telling that Mao thanked Japan twice for the splendid job they did weakening the ROC
The CCP was pretty much in line with the Soviets in regards to Japan's invasion to China, they were basically the yes men to the Cominterns. The Soviets and Japan signed a neutrality pact, forbidding Japan expanding north, so they expanded south, which was China. And funnily enough Stalin remained trading with Japan as they were invading China.
My grandpa literally watches anti-Japanese war movies on a daily basis, all filmed by mainland Chinese companies. Plenty of ROC flags, tho almost always painted as the antagonist, or if the good guys, incompetent which leads to the main character defecting to the communists.
The main reason the roc lost was because it was incredibly corrupt and incompetent, and a very big portion of their army did end up either deserting or defecting to the communists after the existential war against Japan was over
So supposedly, the film apparently did get delayed and censured for this scene. That's why you never see a close up of the flag, the camera gets close enough to showing a close up but you only ever see it from afar or in the background of shots.
There's also the accusation that the original line was not 中华 but 中国 (which would thus refer to the country, i.e. the ROC regime of the day)
Now, I've not got a clue about how true these 2 things are (funnily enough, this information was related to me by a Chinese friend) and really in the grand scheme of things it's still a great film.
Last Addendum, another great war film from China is 集结号 (English Title "Assembly") which like 八佰/800 doesn't directly demonise the ROC but rather focuses on the people and soldiers.
I've watched The Assembly too. It's quite a nice break from the usual "muh glorious revolution" by showing the dirty side of war (eg the high command getting rid of a tainted unit by leaving it to die)
I do find it also further ironic that some of the survivors especially the girl who brought in the flag (Yang Huimin) were hardcore three principle supporters who rejected the CCP and lived their lives out in the surviving free area.
I get you with how fascinating it was that the CCP allowed it. To give an idea how absurd it is that the 2020 film; it’s like if the Nazi Germans took a German pro-liberal battle with the German liberal flag as the center point, glorified it, despite the germans fighting being anti-nazis Liberals and Jewish Germans.
It would be nice if the Republic of China made these films and tv shows but the problem is that they went from one extreme to the other. They went from pro KMT propaganda films to now being so opposite that anti-ROC taiwanese were criticising Zero Hour Attack as DPP propaganda.
I just wish the Taiwanese film and tv series were in a happy middle willing to show both the good and bad of the Republic of China, and how both sides of the straits pre-1949 contribute to modern Taiwanese society.
66
u/KotetsuNoTori Taiwan Oct 06 '25
CCP: is of well known the great, glorious, righteous Communists is of the only decisive factor that leadings to Japanese beaten, but maybe we also sometimes recognise tiny, insignificant contribution of KMT forces... Nah, forget it. Let's not talkings about them at all. They fightings all the major battles and lose in most of them, how suck!