Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Console best movie i've ever seen.

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Jonah Abbott There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

gvis This movie was on my bucket list for a long time, and now I finally watched it.The movie starts off with a battle scene during the Chinese civil war.Gu Zidi is a young officer in (I guess) the Communist army. During the battle he witnessed his superior shot to pieces by artillery. He is transferred to defend a coal mine. The battle goes disastrous. At the same time, the soldiers await for a sign to retreat (the "assembly" tune played on a trumpet, hence the title). This sign never comes, and almost the entire group is whiped out.Gu Zidi survives, only to hear that his men went 'missing', even though he knows they died and their families should be appropriately compensated. Then his quest for justice and truth starts.The movie can be divided in two: one half of war footage. The battles have no shortage of pretty brutal scenes (like Saving Private Ryan) and moments of self sacrifice. Very moving indeed.The second half is his search for truth and justice for his fallen comrades. You see him trying to pick his life up while constanly battling his inner demons. The amazing soundtrack does the rest.This movie is actually a Chinese answer to Saving Private Ryan. If you like war movies, this is a must see.

PWNYCNY Technically, this movie is excellent. It is well-acted, well filmed, and has a strong, compelling story. The problem is: the plot seems to be a rehash of countless Hollywood war movies, except that the actors are Chinese and the army is the Peoples' Liberation Army. This wholesale borrowing from the American war movie motif happens to work in this case. The protagonist, the Army captain, is a heroic figure who is worthy of respect. He keeps the faith with his men, and thus prevents them from being forgotten. His quest to preserve the truth is epic. He is the kind of soldier that every army wants. That the movie succeeds in virtually eliminating the polemical component intensifies the dramatic effective. The captain is not a so much a Red Army soldier but a soldier who happens to be in the Red Army. The opening battle sequence is used with great effect as a device to introduces the key characters. This is an excellent movie.

ajs-10 Let me first say that this film is in Chinese with subtitles, so if you're not keen on subtitles it's probably best to stop reading now. I should also point out that the story is based on true events stretching from 1948 through to the late 1950's. Given what was going on in that part of the world at the time some people may find it hard to sympathise with the main characters depicted here. Again, if this is the case then it's probably best to stop reading now. So, now that's out of the way, for those that are left, here's a very brief summary (haters of summaries please erase the next paragraph from your memory).We begin in 1948 when China was being ravaged by a civil war. Gu Zidi is the Captain of the Ninth Company of the People's Liberation Army fighting the Nationalist Army. Having fought hard in many battles, severely depleted, they are ordered to defend a position against seemingly impossible odds. Gu is told that he must keep fighting until he hears the Assembly bugle call. They fight bravely but are ultimately overrun without Gu ever hearing the call. His last act is to make sure the bodies of his 47 comrades are hidden from the enemy. Miraculously he survives and goes on to fight in Korea, where he meets Zhao Erdou, a young Colonel who becomes his friend. He is injured and returns to the site of the battle where his command was lost to find his fallen comrades. This proves much harder than he ever imagined it would be. There is much more to tell, but I don't want to give out spoilers, so I'll end my summary here.The battle scenes are really well done; extremely graphic and as well choreographed as any I've seen. The entire film is beautifully shot with some epic scenes depicting the true horror of battle. Great performances all round, but particularly from Hanyu Zhang as Gu Zidi, he really put in a tremendous performance.Now, whether you agree with the politics or not, this film is about the camaraderie of soldiers and about coming to terms with the consequences of war. If you can get past the subtitles its well worth seeing, a truly epic film with some very touching moments. Yes, there are points where you think the politicians got their way, but I hope you can see through that. Over all… Highly recommended.My score: 8.3/10

conradlee I gotta say that in the first 40 minutes of the battle show, I did spot scenes from Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers and the Korean: Taegukgi hwinalrimyeo (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0386064/). Actually, I'm not surprised at all, I mean who (the directors) wouldn't do the same thing? Some directors might curse Steven Spielberg for not leaving them much room to shoot a different war movie after Saving Private Ryan, and indeed this movie has, in my opinion, in no way transcended the 1998 war masterpiece. Still, I'd like to give credit to this Chinese director for his guts to do such a Chinese war movie that well handles battle scenes with great details, tells the audiences the past without being necessarily affected by current Chinese politics, and touches a lot of people simply because most of the story feels just down to earth and so damned real. I won't go any further on these points, because there's one more significant thing about this movie, i.e., it's the first of this director's works that could be appreciated by all the audiences other than those from mainland China only. The director has been a big name in Chinese movie industry by the end of last century, bringing Chinese fresh outlooks about domestic movies. However, one could probably better understand the director and his previous movies only from a "Chinese" perspective. And when I say "Chinese", I mean you'd better be living in mainland China, excluding SARs like Hong Kong. But this time, as I said, it's quite different since anyone could understand and appreciate the story. It's a good shot to see how far Chinese movies can go internationally without the presence of Kongfu and male characters with long braid at the back of their heads, without the setting in a remote and underdeveloped Chinese countryside, and without bold and overused sexual scenes.I read about this movie on the internet for the last few days, and it was this piece of information from a Chinese blog that drove me to watch it, and I quote and translate this information as follows: "... at 23:00 when the movie Ji jie hao ended in a Beijing's big movie theatre tonight, with no presence of any of the directors and actors with the movie, the audiences were unwilling to leave their seats, and along with them was only their tears and standing applause." With no stars in this movie, it was reported that the box office hit 2,000 million Chinese dollars 2 weeks after the premiere in China. I will definitely encourage both Chinese and non-Chinese to watch this movie. And for those who might be interested in our ancient country, I recommend two other quality movies: Huozhe ("to be alive" 1994) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110081/; and Ba wang bie ji ("farewell, my concubine" 1993) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106332/.