Citizens across China are being corralled into cinemas to watch a propaganda film extolling the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), as an intensifying personality cult around the 64-year-old leader hits the big screen.
The mass viewings by staff from companies and government agencies have catapulted feature-length Amazing China (厲害了我的國), released on March 2, into the ranks of the country’s biggest box office earners, with state media saying that it was already the country’s highest-grossing “documentary” ever.
The feature, produced by state broadcaster China Central Television and a government film group, fawns over China’s achievements in science, technology, industry and poverty reduction since Xi took power in 2012, and the mobilization of moviegoers underlines his increasing dominance of public life.
“Most of us are from a state tobacco company. We all came together,” said a woman who was among hundreds of viewers at a Shanghai cinema that was, unusually for a weekday, sold out.
“It’s a very patriotic movie and contains much of our party’s doctrine, so it’s our duty to watch it,” she said cheerfully.
The timing of the release of the film, distributed by Alibaba Pictures, is no accident.
China’s National People’s Congress opened in Beijing on Monday last week and on Sunday it voted to abolish presidential term limits, paving the way for indefinite rule by Xi, who has rapidly become China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong (毛澤東).
The move, which has prompted fears of a budding dictatorship, is part of an accelerating drive by Xi to accumulate power as he pushes his long-term plans to propel China to superpower status, backed up by a relentless domestic propaganda campaign.
PROGRESS
Xinhua news agency said Amazing China was the most talked-about film at the congress, cited by various ministers as proof of the nation’s progress.
Breathlessly narrated segments praise China’s armed forces modernization, infrastructure achievements, space program and economic development in backward regions, such as Buddhist Tibet and predominantly Muslim Xinjiang.
Critics in those regions have complained of repression by Beijing and both have suffered bouts of violent anti-Chinese unrest in recent years.
None of this is mentioned in the film. Major problems, such as chronic air pollution and corruption, are also ignored.
Instead, Tibetans are portrayed as the appreciative recipients of CCP aid that has saved them from poverty.
“We are very grateful to the party. Long live the party!” an older Tibetan woman says in the documentary.
Every few minutes, Xi materializes to offer fresh wisdoms and drive home the message.
The viewer rating function on leading Chinese movie platform Douban.com has been disabled for Amazing China apparently to stifle criticism.
However, many Chinese Internet users complained of being pressured to see the movie at their own expense and to write an appraisal of it.
SCHOOL ESSAY
Some microblog users pleaded with others to share their essays.
“It’s like schoolchildren being taken to watch a movie and then given homework on it,” one user said, complaining that viewers were being treated like “big babies.”
At the packed Shanghai screening, audience members occasionally reacted with audible excitement at key moments, but some snoring could also be heard.
One man said his trading company’s CCP cell pushed employees to attend.
“It was mandatory, but I’m glad we came. Don’t you think it was great?” he asked.
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