Eternity in Flames (1965)

Original title

烈火中永生

Directed by

Shui Hua

Genre

war, drama

Country

People's Republic of China

Runtime

2h 18m

Rating

9.0 of 10 from 2 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A woman takes over her husband's Communist guerilla unit after his death. She is captured and imprisoned by the Kuomintang, where she refuses to betray her comrades and is executed.

black-and-whiteseriousmelodramaticpatriotictensetragicstoicinspirational

What happens

Eternity in Flames (Chinese: 烈火中永生; pinyin: Lièhuǒ Zhōng Yǒngshēng), also known as Red Crag, is a black-and-white 1965 Chinese-language film directed by Shui Hua. Starring Yu Lan and Zhao Dan, it tells the story of a young woman who leads a band of Communist guerillas after the death of her husband. After being betrayed, she is imprisoned with other Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members by the Kuomintang (KMT). Unwilling to betray her cause, she is executed shortly before a mass escape. Based on Red Crag (1961), Eternity in Flames drew from the novel and interviews to tell its story. Initially focused on male revolutionaries, a rewrite by Xia Yan resulted in a focus on a female protagonist. The film, approved for release in 1964, was pulled from circulation during the Cultural Revolution. Since its reintroduction, it has become part of school curricula and used for political education. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

• The Grand Substitution (1965)
• The East Is Red (1965)
• After Armistice (1962)
• Song of Youth (1959)
• Ashima (1965)
• Tunnel War (1965)
• Mei li de qiu tu (1986)
• A Revolutionary Family (1961)