The supreme sacrifice, the ultimate journey

Our story, set against the epic background of China’s Long March in 1934, focuses on a young Chinese woman from peasant stock, Yin Lian, who has a remarkable, true story to tell of her participation in those epic events that were to herald the birth of modern China.

The film opens with a graphically shocking and particularly traumatic incident leading up to the Long March, which implicates Lian in a cold-blooded execution of a party traitor and invokes questions of her own loyalty. 

Only her friendship with the wives of the leaders can protect her, and catapult her into the heart of the struggle.

We are drawn to Lian’s heroic account of how she has to tolerate the unspeakable hardships of the Long March, which as a member of the Medical Corps of the Red Army, she is destined to suffer.  Her determination to survive and her belief that a better future is in sight drive her, ever onward.  Along the March she forges deep and lasting relationships and friendships. She finds love in the arms of a young soldier, Tong, and she has her own fulfilling experiences which develop her courage and persona.  The dramatic highpoint is reached when Lian undergoes the heart-rending loss of her child, who is born during the March and survives against all odds for so long, before dying in a freak accident.

Lian and her four male comrades participate in vicious battles, trudge across unforgiving terrain, face merciless weather and bear starvation as they press on towards their objective.  The best and worst of people’s character are brought out as the living conditions became marginalised and at times, brutalised.  But outstanding heroism and unwavering determination win the day; Lian and her remaining companions eventually reach their goal.

The political and historical background of the March is not ignored. The great leaders of the March, including Mao Zedong and the German, Otto Braun feature in the story.  This element is cleverly woven into the account as another thread.  It is told not directly, but though the eyes of Lian and her companions who are privileged enough to be present and able to observe the key events in which the leaders take part and make history.  We follow the fascinating sequence of events that enabled Mao to emerge as leader and we see how he inspires his ragged band of comrades – the Red Army – to continue in the face of ridiculous overwhelming odds.  We track the bickering and arguments within the leadership and we observe the efforts to overthrow Mao, including an attempted assassination.  And some of the great leader’s personal life is also revealed when he makes the supreme sacrifice of being forced to abandon his own, newly born son.

Every incident and every element in Lian’s story is based on actual recorded events of ordinary marchers.  Her story is a compilation of incidents which happened to these valiant women and men.  The legendary conference at Zunyi, the taking of the Luding Bridge and the battle with the Ma cavalry are all included as set-piece episodes.

Of the 100,000 people who embarked on the 386-day March only 7,000 reached their final destination in Shanxi. During this time the Red Army was constantly under aerial surveillance, machine-gunning and bombing. They were pursued, obstructed and intercepted, attacked and encircled by one million Nationalist troops. In addition they had to fight the armies of ten warlords in twelve different provinces. This ill equipped, inadequately clothed and ill-fed column was often strung out over several miles.  In total they walked a distance of 7,500 miles through some of the most formidable natural barriers. They crossed eighteen mountain ranges, twenty-four rivers, several desserts, swamplands and six territories inhabited by wild and hostile ethnic tribes-people. They fought more than 200 battles, and hardly a day passed without a skirmish.  This is the backdrop against which the film is set.

As the 21^st century unfolds and China rises to a take a predominant role in world affaires we will come to realize that the Long March was probably the most significant event of the 20^th century.  It is where China staked its claim and set out on the path to attaining the status of the super-power it promises to become.  We in the West are just now coming to realize that the Long March was much longer and more epic than we thought. 

Besides bringing this significant piece of history to the attention of a Western audience for the first time on the big screen, the film echoes this fact and reveals much about the character of modern China and her people.

Tim Purcell, October 2008