55 Days at Peking
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DVD Cover Information
DVD: Region Code 0Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Import, NTSC
Running Time: 153 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-12-30
Studio: Garry's Trading Co. [A HK-Based Distributor]
Movie Reviews of 55 Days at Peking
Movie Review: A neglected part of history
Summary: 5 Stars
Reviewers should quit nit-picking political correctness (see reviews of the VHS version). The motion picture is about an actual event, i.e., the defense of the foreign quarter (the embassies and such) during the Boxer Rebellion in China. Sure, there is literary license, and some events are shown differently than they actually occurred, but isn't that true of most motion pictures about historical events ("Braveheart," for example, drastically warped some points of history creating impossible relationships).
This film is spectacular, and has its moments, but all is not fun and games. The young son of the British ambassador is killed by a Chinese sniper, the German ambassador is killed (OK, so in reality he was shot, but allow the producer a little latitude), the countess is killed, and an American marine is killed leaving an orphan daughter.
Keep in mind when watching the motion picture that it was produced to make money. Dry historical accounts generally are not successful in that regard. The film may depart a little from actual history, but maybe not that much. The Boxers were an anti-foreign movement in China, and they did murder missionaries who were trying to spread western religions in China. If they would have left it at that, they might have survived, but attacking embassies was a diplomatic no-no. The western powers (Germany, Japan, Russia, England, the United States, etc.) used that as an excuse for armed intervention and demanding concessions.
Keep in mind that foreign traders were making money selling opium to Chinese, and you can understand some of the animosity. It would be like Columbian drug cartels using force of arms to demand their right to sell cocaine in the U.S. But putting the political correctness aside, it is a very good film about an event that happened. You might also watch "Khartoum" about the battle between Muslim religious fanatics and British colonialism.
Colonists are never popular, and we are still experiencing the ill effects of James I of England planting protestant colonies of Scots in Ulster.
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