The East Is Red (1965 film)

In 1960, the Senior General of the People’s Liberation Army General Staff Department (GSD) Luo Peiqing visited North Korea, along with air force commander Liu Yalou.  During their visit to DPRK, the Korean side performed a large-scaled song and dance called Three Thousand Miles of Mountains and Rivers, which the content of the performance was largely adapted from songs and dances during the war period. On their way back to China, Shenyang military area command also held a party and performed four revolutionary songs. After coming back to China, an idea of making a revolution-related artistic work by using the popular revolutionary songs among the public emerged in Liu Yalou’s mind.  Which he thought it could encourage the public during the difficult three-year period.  By the end of 1960,the Air Political and Cultural Troupe sent songwriters including Zhang Shixie, Zhu Jianyuan, Yao Xuecheng, Chen Jie, etc. to collect and integrate the revolutionary songs.    After the intense creation, the script named The Glorious History was made and given to Liu Yaluo. Later, suggested by Niu Chang, they renamed it as “Revolutionary History Songs Singing” and started to show it to the audiences.     After Zhou Enlai saw Revolutionary History Songs Singing and Growing Under the Banner of Mao in 1964, he made proposals to other Chinese Communist Party leaders about making a song-and-dance epic for the 15th anniversary of National Day. The proposal was approved, and the stage song-and-dance epic was originally called Under the Banner, but the party leaders thought the name was too long and they renamed it to The East Is Red. There were at least 3,000 people involved with the production, including a chorus of a thousand singers. The stage version of The East Is Red premiered on October 1, 1964, and audiences were amazed. Mao himself also attended the performance, but he took all of the credit of creating the play in the press, despite it being created by Zhou.[2]

The musical depicts the history of the Communist Party of China under Mao Zedong from its founding in July 1921 to the establishment of "New China" in 1949. Detailed in the musical are several key events in CPC history such as the Northern Expedition (taken up by the Kuomintang (KMT) National Revolutionary Army with Chinese Communist and Soviet support), the KMT-led Shanghai massacre of 1927, the Nanchang Uprising and formation of the People's Liberation Army, the Long March, guerrilla warfare of the PLA during the Second United Front (during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression), the subsequent overthrow of the National Government of the Republic of China on Mainland China by the PLA in the decisive phase of the Chinese Civil War, and the founding of the People's Republic on October 1, 1949.

Singers in the film include Wang Kun, Tseten Dolma, Hu Song Hua and Guo Lanying.

It was during the Great Chinese Famine when Liu Yalou decided to make this work. During 1959 to 1961, at least 15 million of the Chinese population died due to the starvation contributed by policies of the Great Leap Forward and People’s commune, as well as natural disasters.

The East is Red was previously a peasant love song, and soon became a call to arms in the Anti-Japanese War. This song was also a paean extolling Mao. It was written in the early 1930s as a folk song that was popular among the farmers of Shanxi, a village near the communist base of Yan'an. It originally went:

"Sesame oil, cabbage hearts, Wanna eat string beans, break off the tips, Get really lovesick if I don't see you for 3 days Hu-er-hai-yo, Oh dear, Third Brother mine."

In 1938, the song was reworded in order to provoke people in the fight against the Japanese invaders.

"Riding a white horse, carrying a rifle, Third brother is with the Eighth Route Army. Wanna go home to see my girl, Hu-er-hai-yo, But fighting the Japs I don't have the time."

After the rise of Mao as the leader of the Communist Party in the early 1940s, the song was reworked again by a teacher and became a key feature of Yan'an life.

"The East is red, the sun has risen. Mao Zedong has appeared in China. He is devoted to the peoples welfare, Hu-er-hai-yo, He is the people's great savior."

[See "Songs of the Cultural Revolution," by He Shu, China News Digest, Vol. 235, Oct. 18, 2000.]

Not long after its premiere, Zhou had the idea of turning the stage performance into a film adaptation. During his meeting with Jiang Qing and the vice minister of culture, Jiang disagreed with the film because the adaptation was made on political grounds. Despite this, he proceeded and three movie companies came together to film it. Wang Ping, co-director Li Enjie, and August First Film Studio. Principal cinematography finished on September 18, 1965, and at this moment he had not slept for 24 hours. The movie was released on National Day of 1965. The movie version of The East is Red is a film adaptation of the stage performance, which they were not entirely similar.  The six story’s main sections which depicted the history of the Communist Party remained while some of the scenes were cut.  The film version was launched on October 2, 1965.[3][4]

• Orchestra, ensemble and choirs - Overture: "The East is Red" (with dance)
• Orchestra, ensemble and choirs - "Northern October Winds"
• Orchestra, ensemble and choirs - "Over The Snowy Meadows"
• Orchestra, ensemble and choirs - "Workers, Peasants and Soldiers, Unite!"
• Orchestra, ensemble, choirs and lady duettists - "(For the Red Army) Wooden Hunan Shoes"
• Orchestra, ensemble, and male choir - "Three Rules and Eight Notices" (Adaptation of the military anthem of China)
• Orchestra, ensemble and choirs - "Looking at the North Star"
• Orchestra, ensemble and choirs - "Crossing the Dadu River" (with dance)
• Orchestra, ensemble and lady soloist - "Song of the Yi People"
• Orchestra, ensemble and male choir - "The Armies Have Reunited (Long Live the Red Army)"
• Orchestra, ensemble, choirs and male soloist - "The Long March"
• Orchestra, ensemble and soloists - "Along the Sungari River" (Ballad of the Northeasters)
• Orchestra and ensemble- "March of the Volunteers" (1st performance)
• Orchestra, ensemble and choir - "Song of the Military and Political University of Resistance Against Japan"
• Orchestra, ensemble and choir - "Song of Guerrillas"
• Orchestra, ensemble, ladies choir and soloist - "Nanniwan"
• Orchestra, ensemble and choirs - "Defend the Yellow River" from the Yellow River Cantata
• Orchestra, ensemble and choirs - "Unity is Strength"
• Orchestra, ensemble and male choir - Military Anthem of the People's Liberation Army
• Orchestra, ensemble, choirs and duettists- "The People's Liberation Army Captures Nanking City" (One of Chairman Mao's poems)
• Orchestra and ensemble - "March of the Volunteers" (2nd performance) (National Anthem of the People's Republic of China, played at the beginning of Act 6, in the Tiananmen Square scene)
• Orchestra, ensemble and choirs - "Without the Communist Party, There Would Be No New China"
• Orchestra, ensemble, and male soloist - Paean
• Orchestra, ensemble, ladies choir and soloists - "Song of Liberated Tibetan Serfs"
• Orchestra, ensemble and choirs - Finale: "Ode to the Motherland"
• Orchestra, ensemble and choirs - "The Internationale" (Words by Eugène Pottier, music by Pierre Degeyter, Chinese translation by Qu Qiubai) Only the first verse is sung at the finale scene.

In the film, these songs are accompanied and punctuated by exaggerated acing and dancing, resembling that of the displays of silent era films. Such acting incorporates acts of violence such as the whipping of laborers by suit wearing, blonde haired, Western capitalists and their Chinese friends. It is interesting that many scenes involve dancing girls pointing AK-47's. The songs and dances incorporated within the film convey raw revolutionary passion behind each song within the soundtrack.

Another important aspect of the sound in The East is Red is the voice over narration. Between each scene the narration describes the Chinese People's difficulties during each scene's time period, which helps uneducated spectators understand the film more easily.

The East is Red, performed by little egret folk dance troupe, Department of Chinese folk dance, Beijing Dance Academy, is a representative work of group dance. In the beginning, the actors connect points and points, points and lines, and points and surfaces, which increases the level sense of dance in space. From 42 seconds part of the dance began to transform into a triangle, the neat dance and background music perfectly combined to create a tense atmosphere. The part of 1:04 duet is to use the relationship between "point" and "face", to highlight the main body by arranging the position of the main body reasonably. From the perspective of plane space, the composition is a variety of figures formed by dancers. In order to reveal the theme and express abstract art, different "forms" have different functions. In 2 minutes and 40 seconds, different points (high, low, front, and back) are designed to form a line. The connection between the weak area and the strong area creates a new image that is emphasized. It presents a magnificent historical scene in the plane space so that the audience can enjoy different characters, which is unforgettable.[5]

The East is red is the first time for ethnic minorities and Han people to dance together on the same platform. It has formed a vivid, emotional and specific national image in the hearts of the people of all ethnic groups, and achieved the integration of marginal culture and central culture. In this musical and dance epic, we can see the emotional expression of many ethnic minorities and Han people, such as the meeting between Caidan Zhuoma, one of the leaders of ethnic minorities, and Zhou Enlai. In the whole music and dance epic, the image of ethnic minorities is: singing and dancing, full of joy and optimism. For more than 40 years since then, the image expression of ethnic minorities has basically been defined in this expression, without much change. The expression of the image of China's ethnic minorities is closely linked with the expression of the image of the country. Although the number of ethnic minorities is small, they are an important part of the Chinese nation. The unity and harmony of all ethnic groups become a basic point of the image of the country. [6]

"Oriental red" has applied more than 30 songs in just over two hours, and many songs have been adapted for folk songs, which reflects the unity of all ethnic groups, but it is not a simple retro. For example, "deep feelings" is adapted from the folk tune of the Yi nationality, the song of the Yueqin. After being adapted into "deep love", there are not only the singing styles of folk songs but also the lyrics and revolutionary history. The integration of ethnic minority culture, Han culture, and revolutionary red culture awaken people's expectation and yearning for a better life enriches people's spiritual life and makes up for the lack of material life. For example, the lyrics of "millions of serfs stand up" can reflect the ethnic minority's abhorrence of the backward and miserable days and yearning for a new life. In the prelude "sunflower to the sun" of "Oriental red", the sunflower is the people of all ethnic groups, and the sun is Mao Zedong. This overall tone has specific political implications. Almost all the lyrics and recitation words have the keywords of red and black, new and old, light and dark, forming a sharp contrast.[6]

The first "dawn of the East" starts with the long dance segment of "years of suffering". Through realism, it shows all kinds of sufferings experienced by the Chinese people since modern times. The actors have distinct personalities. They not only have the characters with distinctive personalities such as dockers, white-haired old people, and foreign invaders but also borrow the folk "river and river" on the soundtrack The tunes of the Chinese people are used to make up the atmosphere and fully express the miserable life of the Chinese people.

The second scene "a single fire starts a prairie fire" includes four parts. The first part is the performance of "the righteous song". Through the tragic and vigorous tone of the Western orchestral music and the leading vocals of the tenor, it has a stronger shock against the background of the chorus. It has become a prominent righteous song in the history of music. The music and dance techniques adopted have also become a paradigm. "Autumn Harvest Uprising" is the main part of the show. By increasing the number of torches on the stage, it symbolizes the continuous development of the revolutionary team. “Jinggangshan meeting” is a performance field composed of three songs, in which the duet of female voice "two pairs of straw sandals for the Red Army" adopts the technique of double voice polyphony to make the front section have the characteristics of Jiangxi folk songs, and the second half reflects the good atmosphere of military and civilian unity in the base area. "Fighting against the local tyrants and dividing the land" describes the people's dissatisfaction and complaints against their enemies.

The third performance of "thousands of rivers and mountains" shows that the Chinese Red Army of workers and peasants has passed the difficult journey of the long march through singing and dancing. The songs used in the song and dance programs, such as "Long March", "over snow mountain and grass", make the audience more impressed with the classic historical stories. The singing was carried out in a way that the tenor and the chorus matched each other, highlighting Chairman Mao's wisdom and the courage of the Red Army.

The fourth "the war of resistance against Japan" shows the heroic feat of the Chinese people's tenacious resistance to foreign aggression since the September 18th Incident, which consists of five parts. “on the Song Hua River” takes the fall of the northeast as the background of the whole scene, which indicates the opening of the Anti-Japanese War; guerrilla song uses rhythmic drums to run through the whole song, giving people a sense of tension. "Mass production" is a performance, which uses songs "Nanniwan", "coming in February" and "ten songs in the border area" created during the Yan'an mass production movement to show the gains brought by mass production to the army and the people.

The fifth "burying the Jiang family dynasty" is composed of four sections. It mainly talks about that after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Chiang Kai Shek launched a civil war with the support of American imperialism, which brought heavy disaster to the Chinese people. The Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintang fought fiercely. Among them, the songs "unity is power" and "not afraid to go to jail" show that the Communist Party of China has vowed to defend the people at the bottom of China. "March dance" and "a million heroes crossing the river" express the CPC's quick victory over the Kuomintang through dance. “The occupation of Nanjing by the Chinese people's Liberation Army” put a successful end to the fifth performance.

The sixth "the Chinese people stand up" is the last play and the sublimation of the whole scene. Through the singing of "ode" and "Chairman Mao, I wish you a long life" by Hu Songhua, a minority singer, and Caidan Zhuoma, who show the enthusiasm and love of the people of all ethnic groups and all walks of life for the great leader. After that, the "motherland in progress" and "the world in progress" fully affirmed the achievements of victory. The Chinese people, together with the oppressed people of the world, resisted the fascist colonial rule and the imperialist aggression and colonial activities. [7]

Photographer Zhao Shela made a project named The East was Red, which she got her inspiration from the film “The East is Red” and examined the power and prevalence of political messaging in photography from that time. Zhao collected old photos which were taken during when Mao was highly praised by the Chinese people. She replaced all the revolutionary or political related content with the color red—the color represents the party and that time period. According to Zhao, her aim was  “to focus one’s attention on the impact a political agenda can have on the everyday lives of a population and how much it altered the vernacular visual language of China’s history.”[8][9]

• The East is Red at IMDb
• The East Is Red is available for free download at the Internet Archive
• The East Is Red: A Song and Dance Epic (1965) on YouTube with English subtitles

• Cui, Shuqin (2003). Women Through the Lens: Gender and Nation in a Century of Chinese Cinema. ISBN 9780824825324.
• Wai-Tong, Lau (2008). "Songs Tied onto the Chariots: Revolutionary Songs of the Cultural Revolution of China (1966-1976)". Journal of Historical Research in Music Education. 29 (2): 98–107. doi:10.1177/153660060802900203. JSTOR 40215338. S2CID 150469192.