The National Anthem (film)

The National Anthem or Guoge (Chinese: 国歌) is a 1999 Chinese historical drama centered on the composition of "The March of the Volunteers", the theme song to the 1935 drama Children of Troubled Times which was later adopted as the national anthem of the People's Republic of China. The lyrics were composed by poet and playwright Tian Han (played by He Zhengjun) and set to music by the composer Nie Er (played by Chen Kun in his first role). The film is noteworthy for being told from the point of view of Tian, who fell from favor during the Cultural Revolution before being posthumously rehabilitated in the late 1970s. The movie was released to coïncide with the 50th anniversary of the PRC's founding.[2]

The National Anthem
Directed byWu Ziniu
StarringHe Zhengjun
Chen Kun
Release date
  • October 7, 1999 (1999-10-07)
Running time
100 minutes
CountryChina
LanguageMandarin
Budget¥20,000,000[1]
The National Anthem
Traditional Chinese國歌
Simplified Chinese国歌

The timing and subject matter mirror the 1959 Nie Er, a highly fictionalized version of the same events which did not even include Tian.

The film was directed by Wu Ziniu on a budget of around 20 million RMB.[1] It was a flop, estimated to have lost 9.93 million RMB at the box office; the movie still managed to turn a profit for the Xiaoxiang Film Studio, however, owing to its 9.6 million RMB in subsidies and a million-RMB excellence-in-filmmaking prize at the Huabiao Awards.[3] It also won a special prize from the Golden Rooster Awards and best picture at the Hundred Flowers Awards.[3]

See also
  • List of Chinese movies of 1999
  • Nie Er, the 1959 film retelling the same story from Nie Er's point of view

References
  1. Rosen, Stanley. "The Wolf at the Door: Hollywood and the Film Market in China" in Southern California and the World, p. 71. Praeger Publishers (Westport), 2002.
  2. Chi, Robert. "'The March of the Volunteers': From Movie Theme Song to National Anthem" in Re-envisioning the Chinese Revolution: The Politics and Poetics of Collective Memories in Reform China, pp. 236 ff. Woodrow Wilson Center Press (Washington), 2007.
  3. Zhang Yingjin. Chinese Nationalist Cinema, p. 286. Routledge (New York), 2005.


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