China's winter warriors rout US Marines, UK's MI6 (new Chinese movie)

[Klaralven]

Chinese President Xi Jinping, besieged by crises from China Evergrande to power outages, may take some comfort in recent news: A human wave of enthusiastic citizens is storming his nation’s cinemas.

The historical blockbuster Chinese are watching in record numbers is state-funded Korean War epic Battle at Lake Changjin. Its popularity suggests that Beijing’s drive to inculcate patriotism and machismo is bearing fruit.

Making the story even sweeter for Beijing mandarins, it is based on the true story of a torrid Chinese victory over America’s premier troops.

The December 1950 struggle around the high-altitude Lake Changjin – known in the West as Chosin Reservoir – was fought in one of the harshest battlescapes imaginable. Amid rugged mountain terrain, in sub-zero temperatures, an under-equipped Chinese Army Group forced a division of top-tier US Marines to retreat from North Korea.

And it is not just the US Marine Corps that has fallen to the film’s sword. It has also taken out Britain’s secret intelligence service, MI6. Box office receipts for Battle at Lake Changjin outdid those for the massively anticipated but long-delayed new 007 film, No Time to Die.

In a sign of the surging size and importance of the Chinese cinemascape, the film is overrunning every film Hollywood can throw in its path. Trade publication Hollywood Reporter writes that it looks set to become the world’s top grossing film of 2021.

https://asiatimes.com/2021/10/blockbuster-heroes-wave-red-flag-for-china-patriots/

[Red Mountain]

2. Chosin wasn't a rout, anyway

It was a fighting withdrawal.

The Chinese had a 4 to 1 advantage.

[dalton99a]

3. China Defeats Evil Imperialists

[Tetrachloride]

4. DU members are probably familiar with the barebones of the Korean War

But if there are some military historians or retired military who could use something more , there are stories worth knowing

[Champp]

5. There's a fairly new book on the subject by Hampton Sides

A damn good writer...

[Tetrachloride]

7. ty. i will tell my family

[jrandom421]

12. the Last stand of Fox Company

During the Korean War, 234 heroic marines from Fox Company, First Division, held off a force of 10,000 Chinese soldiers in subzero weather to secure the Toktong Pass to allow the withdrawal of th First Marine Division.

Another good book about one of the defining battles by Marines in the 20th Century.

[DFW]

6. Are they calling their German version "Stolz der Nation?"

Just curious...........

[Captain_New_York]

8. Remember task force Faith

An Army regimental combat team died in place to protect the east side of The Chosin Reservoir enabling the marines an Avenue to retrograde to the coast for extraction. Because of the lack of surviving army officers to contradict the marine narrative of the failure of the army, for years I heard false tales of the army lack of bravery. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Task_Force_Faith

[jrandom421]

11. Colonel Don Faith

wes awareded ther Medal of Honor by Harry Truman June 21, 1951. He ws killed forcing hiS way through a roadblock.He was buried at Arlington, after being recovered and identified some 60 years later.

[Amishman]

9. Stirring up nationalism is a standard way of encouraging unity in times of hardship

They're economy is about to get the ass end of an ass kicking. Double whammy of an energy crisis and their property and construction bubbles popping.

Best way to keep the populace from looking too closely at things internally is to have them looking outwards.

[Russian Spook]

10. I often wonder how Korea would have turned out if Russia and the US hadn't decided

to split the country in two and if we even had a right to do so.

[Sabuca]

13. It's good their movie business is thriving

Nothing wrong with fiction

[denbot]

14. As a young man in the 80's I fished with a veteran of the "Frozen Chosin"

He had a bad ass Coast Guard 44' rollover rescue boat converted to a salmon-troller. He was definitely a hardass but fair. It was obvious he was very ill at the time, but was not letting it stop him.

When we exchanged military service info he was surprised I had even heard of it. During the Korean war my maternal grandfather was on a destroyer off shore, and my father's second oldest brother was in the army and went through his own hell. Yeah, I'd assured him, I'd heard of it. Years later I still remember listening to my uncle Rudy tell his brothers about being pinned down for days, hungry but no one could eat, their fox holes writhing with maggots, surrounded, running out of supplies dug in a mass grave. I know a little of what those men went through stopping the Chinese invasion cold. I pretty sure those assholes did not include that part in the movie version.