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DVD: 
- Cert:
- Cat.no: MTD5376
- Running time: 119 minutes
- Year: 2007
- Pressing: 2008
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 12 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
- Languages: Mandarin
- Subtitles: English for the hearing impaired
- Widescreen: 2.35:1
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £17.99
- Extras: Trailer, Making Of
-
Director:
- Xiaogang Feng
(Assembly, The Banquet, Cell Phone, The Nobles, A World Without Thieves)
Producers:
- John Chong, Xiaogang Feng, Zhongjun Wang and Guan Yadi
Screenplay:
- Heng Liu
Cast :
- Captain Gu Zidi: Hanyu Zhang
Zhao Erdou: Chao Deng
Sun Guiqin: Yan Tang
Wang Jincun: Wenkang Yuan
Maocai Jiang: Baoqiang Wang
Colonel Liu: Jun Hu
Luo Guangtian: Hengu Fu
Jiao Dapeng: Fan Liao
Political Officer: Quan Ren
Starting in 1948, during one of the bloodiest battles in the Chinese Civil War,Captain Gu Zidi (Hanyu Zhang) gives the KMT Army, aka the National Revolutionary Army, a chance to surrender butyou know that’s not going to happen and so into battle they go.Things don’t go to plan and with his right-hand man, the Political Officer, dead he takes it out on one of the enemy whoby then have surrendered, thus going against the grain of how prisoners of war should be treated. After stealing theiruniforms following taking control of their base, the entire 9th Company from the 139th Regiment of the Central Plains FieldArmy are reprimanded by being sent to the front line, with Gu being locked up for three days in addition to this.
They’re sent to secure the mines in the South Bank of the Wen River, which doesn’t look like too bad a place as theystart off, but the first problem is that the 9th Company is now seriously depleted in number and the second is that theyseriously underestimate what is to come. The only blessing, for Gu at least, is that he now has a new Political Officer,a teacher called Wang Jincun (Wenkang Yuan) who’s forever writing letters home.
Prior to heading off for the mission, Gu confirms his orders to his superior, Colonel Liu, “Always listen for theassembly bugle call. Fall back whenever we hear it.”
Liu instructs, “If you don’t hear the bugle call, even if you’re the last man standing, you will keep fighting?”and Gu replies, “Yes, sir”.
Assembly is a film in two parts, with Gu’s life both during and after the war. It’s difficult to go into thecontent any further without spoiling a great deal of it, and I didn’t know much about the Chinese Civil War myself prior towatching it, but I agree from what I read that the first half is similar to Saving Private Ryan, with the captain and the right-hand manwho’s a newbie.When it comes to the acting and the writing in this movie, it’s faultless onboth counts and to all intents and purposes is a must-see. If you’re wonderingwhy I didn’t give it 10/10, well, I’m not familiar with the subject matterso it’s difficult to get a full handle on the politics involved throughout.
The film is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen and the picture is fantastic, recreating the scenes of battle withmany incredible scenes, including an explosive one as the camera circles around Gu and then showing us how he continueswith his life in the years to come. I’m going to use the word ‘incredible’ again but I can’t think of another word todescribe the Dolby Digital 5.1 sound as it’s not that it’ll just make you jump out of your seat, but the explosions ofmortar attacks and everything else will blow your longue apart and make your subwoofer reverberate for days!
The extras aren’t big in number, just a Theatrical Trailer (1:20), presented in around 2.00:1 anamorphic and which containsspoilers so don’t watch it before the main movie, plus an engaging 67-minute Making Of in 15 parts, featuring key castand crew such as Hanyu Zhang (Gu), writer Heng Liu and director Xiaogang Feng. This isn’t as easya watch as the main film because it’s easier to digest the language and subtitles in a continuing story rather thanas a series of one-off quotes about the making of the film.
The film contains a mere 12 chapters, which proves that zero thought has been put into that aspect of this DVD, sinceI always work on a rule of thumb of one every five minutes as a reasonable figure and a 2-hour film with so much going onneeds far more than 12. That said, it’s good that subtitles are made an option for a foreign-language film, rather thanburning them into the print as we’d have experienced on video all those years ago. The main menu has some subtle animationas as being scored with a looped piece of music from the film.Before the menu even appears, though, we see trailers for The Banquet, Days of Glory, Saints and Soldiers plusa promotion for the fact that Days of Glory plus Assembly are available in Blu-Ray, but, Momentum,we are long past the age of the rental video where this practice was commonplace. You now have somewhere these should go: theextras menu. Please don’t make them stick out like this.
FILM CONTENT Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2008.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL[Up to the top of this page] Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.
