Review | The Battle at Lake Changjin movie review: 2021’s biggest blockbuster paints Chinese as earnest heroes of the Korean war

Chinese movie depicts a pivotal Korean war battle as a fight between earnest Chinese soldiers and sadistic US troops – there’s not a Korean or UN troop in sight

Directed by Chen Kaige, Tsui Hark and Dante Lam and starring Wu Jing and Jackson Yee, it is technically accomplished but bombastic and lacks a human story

Reading Time:2 minutes

Jackson Yee (left) and Wu Jing in a still from The Battle at Lake Changjin.

Published: 5:23pm, 11 Nov 2021

2.5/5 stars

The most commercially successful film of 2021 thanks to its record-breaking 5.6 billion yuan (US$874 million) haul at the Chinese box office, war epic The Battle at Lake Changjin stars Wu Jing (Wolf Warrior 2) and Jackson Yee (Better Days) as soldiers in a pivotal skirmish between Chinese and American forces during the Korean war.

Directed by the heavyweight triumvirate of Chen Kaige, Tsui Hark and Dante Lam Chiu-yin, the film is a technical masterpiece, but lacks the directors’ personal flourish amid a relentless procession of breast-beating and bloodshed.

In the winter of 1950, US forces advance beyond the 38th Parallel and enter North Korea. As they close in on the Yalu River, Chinese leader Mao Zedong (Tang Guoqiang) fears they may not stop at the China-Korea border and orders a pre-emptive military strike.

What follows is a fierce 17-day stand-off in bitter, sub-zero temperatures at the lake of the film’s title, also known as Chosin Reservoir, between 120,000 ill-equipped and undernourished Chinese soldiers and around 30,000 heavily armed Americans.

While it was in fact the United Nations Command that was sent to support the forces of South Korea, The Battle at Lake Changjin refers to the enemy solely as Americans, and the Koreans themselves are nowhere to be seen in this sweeping 176-minute saga.