Since the release of the movie "Chosin Lake", in addition to the box office numbers, the public's enthusiasm for that period of history has been constantly rising.
Books such as "Blood Battle of Chosin Lake", "Decisive Battle of Korea", "Coldest Winter: The Korean War in the Eyes of Americans" and other books that chronicle the Battle of Chosin Lake from different perspectives at home and abroad have re-entered the reader's field of vision, and many of the comments on the reading platform have been written after the release of the movie;
On the self-media, public accounts and video and audio platforms that can best represent the hot topic vane, Chosin Lake has become a hot word, and the number of hits on many related articles has quickly reached 100,000+, and a short video of the Battle of Chosin Lake interspersed with sharp knife company commanders telling about the battlefield experience, the number of likes alone exceeded 100,000;
Websites such as "Zhihu" that encourage netizens to "ask if you don't understand" quickly became a rallying point for various issues related to Chosin Lake after the release of the film. There are some questions that focus on the grand historical context: How tragic was the real Battle of Chosin Lake? Is there a prototype for "Interspersed Seven"? More questions arise from the unspoken parts of the film and the flashes of time: Why are there no North Korean soldiers and civilians in "Chosin Lake"? Why did the volunteers leave without waiting for the cotton coats to be ready?
The public's enthusiasm for examination first comes from the strangeness and freshness of the film's subject matter. The Battle of Chosin Lake can be called the inflection point of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, its importance goes without saying, its tragic degree is beyond the imagination of the participants on both sides, and the contest of weapons and technology eventually evolved into a desperate struggle of willpower on both sides, becoming a classic example of "less steel and more gas over more steel and less gas". However, due to various reasons, this battle was rarely performed in film and television works in the past, so compared with the Battle of Shangganling, which was deeply rooted in the hearts of the people because of a "Shangganling", the people's understanding of the Battle of Changjin Lake was far from being fixed, so that many people knew the famous Yang Gensi, but did not know that he was sacrificed at the Battle of Changjin Lake.
It can be seen from this that history needs continuous return visits, but this kind of return visit will not occur automatically, but it needs a certain degree of stimulation, and good film and television works provide an important opportunity for the public to recognize history. Since the release of "Chosin Lake", it has been able to continuously refresh the box office record, which is largely due to the fact that the creators have used the means that are in line with the aesthetic trends of contemporary audiences to the greatest extent possible in narrative strategy, industrial standards and image presentation, and have played the function of popular literature and art close to the public, which has stimulated the universal emotional resonance of the public and triggered the general intellectual thirst of the public.
It was in the process of a large number of spontaneous evidence that more and more details about the Battle of Chosin Lake were excavated. For example, although the Shanghai veteran Mei Sheng in the film is fictional, it is true that a unit with deep ties to Shanghai in the Battle of Chosin Lake is true; although the historical authenticity of the US military salute to the ice sculpture company in the film is doubtful, the ice sculpture company is real. There is a plot in the film: Smith travels through the battlefield in a helicopter, but finds nothing. Netizens found in the book "Decisive Battle of Korea" that there is exactly one passage that echoes this: Smith is wrong, and 100,000 soldiers from The Water Villages of Jiangnan, China, endure inhuman suffering, rely on a few frozen potatoes every day to fill their hunger, step on a thin layer of rubber-soled shoes, and wear an empty cotton jacket - many even wear summer single clothes. These battle-hardened soldiers relied on their strong faith and incomparable will to lie in the snow field of minus forty-five degrees Celsius, and their hands as white as snow clenched the steel guns in their hands, ready to give Smith and Barr a fatal blow!
Of course, not all inquiries into historical details can be answered definitively and widely agreed upon. For example, the machine guns that appear in the film hit the plane, the volunteer army deceived the U.S. army in English, and the tank could be blown up by throwing a grenade, etc., many people questioned the authenticity of these plots, but some people also found historical materials to prove it. For such a phenomenon, Wang Yihan, an associate researcher at the China Academy of Arts and one of the screenwriters of the TV series "Across the Yalu River", believes that although no one can convince anyone for the time being, examination and debate can expand the appreciation dimension of film and television works, and also let the relevant history be paid more attention to.
With the help of a widely disseminated and influential film such as "Chosin Lake", the historical details that have been almost obliterated by time have been re-salvaged and re-shined in the search for nationality. In particular, it is worth mentioning that looking back at that period of history after more than half a century, people not only still relish how this miracle happened, but also burst into tears because they were inspired by the great spirit of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea. In this way, history has once again become a memory engraved in the hearts of hundreds of millions of people, and transformed into a spiritual force indispensable for national identity and national development.
It is in this sense that we say that every generation needs its own war movie.
Author: LingXi
Editor: Guo Chaohao
Editor-in-Charge: Li Ting
*Wenhui exclusive manuscript, please indicate the source when reprinting.