The “Madness” Chinese Revolutionary

History can be analyzed in thousands of ways. Films bring the past alive in front of us as reality and undeniable evidence. China the Roots of Madness is produced in the cold war era. It is a documentary shows American view of modern Chinese revolutionary history. It carries a message of anti communism People’s Republic of China. The writer and narrator of the movie, Theodore White, believed that Chinese people are taught to hate westerns. He tries to reach the mind of Chinese people who “have madness and hate in their nature.”  By contrast Bodyguards and Assassins is a motion picture viewed from insider views of China. It’s a snapshot of Chinese revolutionary in a four days event. A group of normal Chinese people has different background, which sacrificed them to protect, Sun Wen. The film shows the motion beauty of martial art and emotional challenges to characters during the dangerous task. In the film Bodyguards and Assassins, The character, Chinese revolutionary, Sun Wen says, “Desire happiness of civilization, had been suffering in civilization, and that pain is called the revolution (Chen)!” No one can sum up a personality of a nation by one point of observation and without deeply understanding the insider social and cultural roots. China the Roots of Madness and Bodyguards and Assassins, take different way to approach the roots of Chinese culture. Comparing these two films, we can view Chinese revolution history from different point of view, and get a better understanding of the roots of Chinese culture.
The two films talk about the revolutionary approaching to modern China in the first half of the 20th century. These films take different ways to express the history.  “China the Roots of Madness” is a documentary in realistic style. It realistically shows history by using Historical film footages, and historical photographs. It analyzes history facts, and expresses political messages by interviewing historians and foreigners who lived in the disaster time of China. It also organizes the film by following realist historical time line to reviews the whole 50 years of Chinese revolution. In a word, The Roots of Madness tries to understand Chinese madness as though eyes were there (Stuart).”
By contrast, Bodyguards and Assassins is more like a tale. It brings audience extremely close to a history event, and allows audiences breathe in with characters’’ lives. Bodyguards and Assassins set in 1905, Hong Kong, when Sun Wen intends to come to Hong Kong to discuss his plans for revolution with fellow Tongmenghui members to overthrow the corrupt and crumbling Qing Dynasty. As Sun Wen’s arrival day draws near, trouble begins brewing in Hong Kong. The film start at four days before Sun Wen arrives, Yan Xiaoguo a general of Qing Dynasty leads a group of assassins to kill Sun. Revolutionary Chen Shaobai meet merchant Li Yutang who provides financial aid for the revolutionaries. After Chan is kidnapped, Li rallies a group of men, including rickshaw pullers, hawkers, and a beggar… to server as bodyguards for Sun Wen, when he arrives. Li’s only son, Li Chongguang, is chosen to act as a decoy for Sun went to divert the assassins away while Sun attends the meeting and leaves Hong Kong safely.
China the Roots of Madness was made in 1967, it is the time China was a great enemy with American. The writer of the film, Theodore White, came to China as an official of the United States Information Agency. He soon became Time’s Far East chief correspondent (White Theodore). Theodore White believes, the reason for China suffered 50 years of disaster in the first half of 20th century because Chinese have madness in their roots. He pointed out that China moves from terrorism to terrorism, from terrorism of Confucianism Empire to communism Mao. : It sounds mad, It how Chinese is (Stuart). His motive to make this film is to educate or alert American audience. There is a country called China; it had one quarter of world population, and the whole country hated westerns. Through Theodore White’s historical analyze, China the Roots of Madness, actually, gave reasons for American to hate Chinese people too.
To understand Chinese madness attitude to western in the first 50 years of 20th century, we have to face some “why” questions. Why did Chinese protest foreigners, and why did they begin to kill foreigners? In Bodyguards and Assassins. A bodyguard asks, “Who will we fight with? Westerns?” … “No, we fight with bad people (Chen).” Chinese people are not mad at westerns, they are mad at the colonialism. There is a scene in China the Roots of Madness, which Theodore White talks about how mad Chinese gangster killed foreigners in Opium War era. But he didn’t show how foreigners punished Chinese in their own land. They forces Chinese government to open trade ports; sold Opium all over the country, and ship thousands of treasures back home. China was western country’s colony “friend” back then, that’s why Chinese people were full of anger.
Western countries maintained a policy of laissez-faire towards China’s political situation; in fact they encouraged Chinese civil war and supported whoever was in power to be their puppet government. In Bodyguards and Assassins we can get a better view on how British colonial power reformed Chinese society. A businessman Li Yutang, he used to provide financial aid for the revolutionaries, only because revolutionary Chen Shaobai was his old friend. He was strongly influenced after 30 Chen Shaobai’s acquaintances were murdered and the assassins kidnapped Chen. Hong Kong was the land of British back then. British colony authorities keep “One eye open, and close another”. Instead of finding murders, they close the revolutionary newspaper agency. Li Yutang officially declared his support by joining the protest Chinese people. The scene he spoke out in front of the Chinese officer, who worked for British authorities was very powerful. He denounced to colonist, “We are not slaves of westerns.” He was on a mission to become a revolutionary leader rallied a group of bodyguards to protect Sun Wen.
Theodore White says in an interview in China the Roots of Madness, “They are looking for some kind of entrance to the modern world, and none of their ancestral culture can give them any guide for the turbulence they found. There is one question: For the fifty years of searching some new kind of government, and some new kind of order (Stuart). Why do both films show Sun Wen as an important revolution leader? Sun Wen was called as “a symbol of all protests and a dangerous dreamer“ by America media. However, Chinese people called him “The father of modern China”. Sun Wen created “San-Min-Zhu-Yi (three principles)-nationalism, democracy, socialism”(Sun Wen). After years of search and suffer in the bloody truth of revolution. Sun Wen realized that ides and guns must go together. China has to go its own way, and organize the national revolution to free China to the modern world. Sun Wen said that China is a slave of dragon empiricism (Sun Wen). Qing empiricism extending from Confucian ideology and legalist pragmatism… Punishing and restraining those perceived as a threat to the political and sociology moral orders, it enforces an omnipresent hierarchy (Norman). To free China goes to modern democracy world, revolutionary must take the first step, overthrow the corrupt and crumbling Qing Dynasty.
In Theodore White’s view, China is a land of changeless wonders. It’s a place, human are used as beast in the street as field. He even doubts that is China a real country or just a geographic place where full of madness people (Stuart). In fact, “Nationalism” (or Minzhuzhuyi in Chinese, literally, “ideology of the nation”) has becomes one of the central issues in the cultural and intellectual history of modern China. The question of nationhood never failed to engage the Chinese film circle (Zhang). Kong fu film is a typical Chinese way to express nationalism. Usually Kong fu story is configured in the alien space, with a changed vocabulary of culture, customs, and humanity. Kong fu film is a self-reflexivity of nationalism ideology. It creates a space empower people to understand the self.
Bodyguards and Assassins is a typical nationalism genre film, which interacts with roots searching. Harry H. Koushu said in his book Lightness of being in China that the configuration of the new masculinity is merged into an allegory of national fate: both masculinity and nationality call for empowerment and revival (Koushu 121). Bodyguards and Assassins displays dramatized characters and plots in revolutionary romance-film style. They voluntarily join a mission to protect revolutionary Sun wen. They are normal people from different classes of Chinese society. Every character has their unique emotional desires, but they can be nationalism heroes when the country needs them. One of the bodyguards, Shen Chongyang is a policeman who is addicted to gambling. He is eager to do anything for money. He helps Yan Xiaoguo to kill 30 revolutionaries. But he decides to join the bodyguards after his ex-wife persuades that he is a father. There is a long street fighting scene in the film, Shen Chongyang vicious fight with a highly-skilled enemy martial artist. He defeats his opponent eventually but is gravely wounded. To be able to finish his task, he sacrifices himself to disable Yan Xiaoguo's horse. Theodore White calls them mad Chinese revolutionaries in China the Roots of Madness. These Bodyguards look like mad revolutionary, but they are hero who passionate in love with their country and willing to sacrifice everything to serve the country.
Chinese films portray nationalism heroes as Kong fu master, who combine the physical and mental power to fight for the country. In traditional Chinese philosophy, the body was examined and treated both as an interrelated whole and as a feature of exterior and environmental conditions (Koushu 98). Swordsmanship (Kongfu or knight-errantry) in the early 20th is a fundamental concern with the fate of the nation as a whole (Zhang). For example, one of the Bodyguards, beggar-Liu Yubai, who used to come from a rich family, is highly skilled in martial arts and fights with an iron fan. The traditional family value makes him lost his lover and destroyed himself to be a beggar. He voluntarily takes the hardest part of the job, holding off the assassins alone at the residence of Sun Wen’s mother for fifteen minutes. The slow motion shots show he fights like dancing. .In the final fighting, Yan Xiaoguo and other assassins kill him in the silent environment. The emphasized killing sound draws the killing scene like extremely powerful poetry. From a dirty beggar, to a fine gentleman who fights for the nation, His death proves a Chinese root - rather to die with pride than to live with shame. This value is shared with most of the revolutionary heroes. Liu Yubai, is a symbol to show that Chinese people are awaked from their personal struggles, and reach out to fight together for the country.
The political and social backgrounds decide that China the Roots of Madness ‘s understanding to Chinese roots is limited. China the Roots of Madness is regretful that there is no interview with any Chinese people in the documentary. Are those news records of photograph and film images in China the Roots of Madness can provide enough sources to understand a nation’s ideology? Miss understanding creates disaster, and it sprays out become a hate to a whole nation as a group. For example, after the 911 attacking, some Americans hated Muslim population, because both those Muslim and the terrorists believe the same religion, even these Muslims are USA citizens and love this country as others. Communicate is the most important tool for people from different culture to understand each other. We may take off our judgment, which based on our cultural and experiences, and open mind to accept other’s uniqueness. The 20century in China did begin with mystery, as one American historian said. But he was wrong about the end: China doesn’t end in mystery. The Chinese people open to the entire world with brave, open heart.
Works Cited
Chan Teddy. Bodyguards and Assassins. Beijing Polybona Film Distribution Co. 2009. Fiction film.

Koushu, Harry H. Lightness of Being in China: Adaptation and Discursive Figuration in Cinema and theater. Peter Lang publishing, Inc. New York. 1999. Print.

Norman Vivien. Madness in Late Imperial China: From Illness to Deviance. London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990. Print.

Stuart Mel. China: the Roots of Madness. National Archives and Records Administration. Documentary.

“Sun Wen”. Wikipedia. Web. 16 July. 2010.
“Theodore White”. Wikipedia. Web. 14 July. 2010.
Zhang Yingjin. From “Minority Film” to “Minority Discourse”: Questions of Nationhood and Ethnicity in Chinese Cinema”. Cinema Journal, August. 1991. Web. 16 July. 2010.