There is a growing call in China’s social media to boycott the Hong Kong film “My War” which is scheduled to premiere on Thursday. The movie stars mainland actors Liu Ye and Wang Luodan, and Taiwanese actor Tony Yang.
What angered Chinese netizens is the teaser for the patriotic movie showed Chinese veterans of the Korean War, reported South China Morning Post. The teaser revived China’s role in the conflict 60 years ago.
Other netizens said the movie, directed by Hong Kong director Oxide Pang, had a poor treatment of historical facts of the war in which thousands of Chinese and Korean soldiers were killed.
In the two-minute trailer, a young Korean tour guide welcomes a group of elderly Chinese tourists on a bus in Seoul. The tourists were on their first trip to the South Korean capital. Some of the tourists told the guide they have been to Seoul 60 years ago and told her they held the Chinese flag in Seoul.
The guide was told by the tourists she would realize it if she sees “My War.” The teaser ends with the tourists chanting the slogan “Resist US aggression and aid Korea, protect our home and defend our country,” which is a slogan that is used in Communist propaganda to describe China’s role in coming to the assistance of North Korea in 1950 and caused the death of between 149,000 and 400,000 Chinese soldiers.
In pushing for a boycott of the film, Harbin Normal University history professor Lin Qi pointed out in a Weibo post that as more historical facts are revealed, more people become increasingly aware of how cruel war is, hurting people and nations involved.
But the movie’s director pointed out that the content of the promotion video has no relevance to the film. Pang stressed, “The film expresses the cruelty of war and people’s complex emotions from separation and reunion.”
However, in the comments section on YouTube, one commenter wrote that the film is not a propaganda but fact. It is because nations have different interpretations of history.