Zhiqu wei hushan

Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy. CN 1970. PC: Beijing Film Studio. D: Xie Tieli. 125'. A vintage print, reddening, with English subtitles. Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 22 Feb 2008. Introduced by Prof. Chris Berry. I viewed the first reel and the final sequence only. This film belongs to one of the maddest genres, the filmed Revolutionary Model Opera of the Chinese Cultural Revolution era. Theoretically, an example of dead-end non-cinema, yet surprisingly electric and hyperactive, never giving a break. The opera performers are brilliant, and their virtuosity carries the film. To be compared with the cinema of Stalin's final years, when Soviet film production almost stopped. The years of human terror coincided with an age of cinema dearth.