Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Cristal The movie really just wants to entertain people.

adonis98-743-186503 A historical drama based on the founding of the Republic of China when nationalist forces led by Sun Yat-sen overthrew the Qing Dynasty. I was expecting a little bit more to be honest from '1911: The Revolution' plus Jackie Chan? He was hardly even in this movie so that poster? Was made only for to get his fans to see this movie and it's pretty much a hoax. I was expecting alot to see some kind of war sequences as well? They never came and although it's a beautiful looking movie? It's not a good movie to say the least i'm afraid or even a memorable one.

Pallo-Panchino I usually never write reviews but this time I felt it was my obligation to warn people who want to watch it to learn about the revolution.I had to study for an exam on Chinese history and to take a break I decided to watch this movie to help me link the chronology of events together, and it was a bad idea... It actually confused me more.I found the movie OK (nothing mind-blowing but not a waste of my time either, the battle scenes were very well shot and the dialogue engaging) but it seemed like all the events I had learned about were scattered among the movie. For example by watching this movie one would think that empress Cixi (played magnificently by Joan Chen) was alive during the time of the revolution, while she actually died in 1908.Then again I wasn't able to translate entirely the big texts in Chinese that linked one scene to the other so maybe I missed out on something there I don't know.I don't think the movie is biased, in my opinion it's actually one of the few history movies that (even if confusingly) depicts the events for what they were. Shikai was incredibly corrupt (in the future would even declare himself the new emperor); Cixi kinda cared for the destiny of China; the Western world DID see China as a cake to split, saying otherwise would be ignoring the history of the time; and not in any particular order but that's how Yatsen led the revolution...simple as that.

kendavies I'm afraid I have to disagree with the other reviewers. I just spent $4.99 renting this film from Time Warner Cable and it was not money well spent. Having been excited by the splendid and creative resurgence of Chinese cinema in the reform period, especially in the 1980s when it burst on the international scene with classics like Yellow Earth (Huang Tudi), it was surprising to see such a throwback to the 1950s and 1960s. This is very much like The Opium War, though the battleship in this film is clearly not a model. In those days (the 1960s), western actors were not available, since China was closed to the outside world, so they had to use some of the few expatriate English language teachers. It looks like they have done the same this time, though surely Jackie Chan could have got anyone he wanted from Hollywood. The characterisation is one- dimensional. The dialogue sounds like it is from the history books, with the film merely providing visual illustration. There are lots of close- ups of Sun Yat-sen taken from below or with him standing in a presidential position, exactly like the shots of Mao Zedong in earlier films about the Communist revolution. This is understandable -- Sun has always been considered the "father of the nation" (guo fu) by both the Communists and the Guomindang, who warred for decades -- but Sun is too interesting a character to be treated to the standard Stalinist "cult of personality" adulation. He was not, after all, a Kim Jong-Il. He was a real politician. He wrote a development plan for China. He planned, but did not live to lead, a Northern Expedition to reunite China under a republican government. The style of the movie seems to be heavily influenced by pre-war Soviet films (not, though, those of the brilliant Eisenstein and Pudovkin). It is surprising that Jackie Chan co-directed it. Surely he could have injected much more of his own cheeky humour? this film is so old-fashioned. I agree it would not have been centenary- reverential to have had fast cuts and rap music, but the slow-motion sentimental flashbacks are so hackneyed. Politically, the film doesn't say anything interesting and blithely ignores the unconscious irony of Sun saying that the Chinese people can now choose their own leaders after two hundred years of monarchy. One hundred years later, they still can't.

kluseba "1911" is an epic Chinese historical drama that honours the centennial anniversary of the revolution against the Qing dynasty. The movie convinces with great special effects in the battle scenes, beautiful and authentic locations, bombastic costumes, many intellectual words and impressive images and a bunch of great and internationally recognized actors such as the very unusual and surprisingly convincing Jackie Chan, the once again very diversified Joan Chan or the charming shooting star Bingbing Li. This movies teaches us a lot about Chinese culture and history and captures the essential of a complex story in a short and intense running time. Even for someone who doesn't know a lot about China, the introduction and the subtitles reveal and explain enough to understand and get into a beautiful movie even though the ending could have been a little bit more expanded. I think the movie could have focused a little bit more on the situation and the authentic everyday life of the Chinese population instead of focusing only on the fate of the famous historic characters.Normally, this movie would have got one point more but I cut off one point because this feature has some elements that remind me of a propaganda cinema. Good and evil are too opposite and well defined and I'm sure that this movie is not always faithful towards the true history behind it. The good guys are wise, selfless and honest while the camp of the bad guys are one dimensional, egoistic and helpless. The movie tries to create a lot of sympathy for the main characters such as Sun Yat-Sen. In one scene, he convinces with his wise words only a bunch of ignorant, selfish and capitalist politics representing a very negative image of the Western civilization. That's a very romantic and epic scene but it's simply to pathetic to be true. This kind of falsification spoils the enjoyment of this otherwise technically perfect movie a lot. At least, after many American, Russian and German propaganda movies that I saw, this is a rather intriguing and also moderate movie with propagandistic tendencies from an Asian country.Apart of this little but though important flaw, this movie is a definite must see and yet another great history flick from China that easily beats the boring patriotic American war movies that have flooded the cinemas of the world a decade ago. It's time for a change and from a qualitative and cultural point of view, I happen to find these detailed, epic and entertaining Chinese history flicks very addicting.