1950 They Are Young is a documentary directed by Song Kunru and released in China on September 3, 2021. The filming lasted four years before and after, and the crew traveled all over the world. Through the mouths of 26 veterans of different arms and different periods of war, the film tells the unknown true stories of their own experiences on the battlefields of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea.
Seventy-one years ago, a group of young people crossed the Yalu River and rushed to the battlefield to resist the United States and aid Korea, of which 190,000 people were forever sleeping in a foreign country;
Seventy-one years later, those heroic warriors who came back alive from the battlefield are now more than eighty to ninety years old, and the young boys and girls who were once young men and women have become old people with silver hair, and they are now living in an era of peace and prosperity, but in their memories, there is always an indelible battlefield.
The Korean War refers to a military conflict that broke out on the Korean Peninsula in June 1950. The Korean War was originally a national civil war between the north and the south on the Korean Peninsula, but it became an international local war due to the involvement of the United States, China, the Soviet Union and other countries to varying degrees, and it was a large-scale local war that broke out in the early days of the end of World War II. The Korean War broke out on June 25, 1950.
On September 15, 1950, the United Nations army, mainly American troops, landed at Inchon, South Korea, and began a large-scale counteroffensive.
In October 1950, the Chinese Volunteer Army went to Korea at the request of Korea to fight alongside the Korean People's Army, and finally stabilized the front line along the 38th line after successive battles.
The Chinese troops participating in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea were the Chinese People's Volunteer Army. It was reorganized from the Northeast Border Defense Army of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, and a total of 2.4 million people have joined the Chinese Volunteer Army.
On October 19, 1950, under the leadership of Commander and Political Commissar Peng Dehuai, the Chinese Volunteer Army crossed the Yalu River and rushed to the Korean battlefield, and on the 25th, it opened the prelude to the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea.
The veterans in the film, talking about that experience seventy years ago, still tremble and sob.
It was a nightmare that I didn't want to remember.
Overcome weaknesses and sacrifice the ego.
The most typical representative is Huang Jiguang.
His deeds must have been heard by everyone from childhood to adulthood.
And this time, the veterans of the same company as him recalled what had happened.
The battlefield is so cruel that it can easily trample on human nature.
Fighting a war is not just a physical battle.
It is also a catastrophe at the spiritual level.
For our younger generation, the war may have been just a few lines of yellowed old photographs and books.
But for these veterans, the roar of the guns never really stopped.
No one is born brave.
Bravery is an option.
They choose to overcome human weaknesses, fragile instincts.
For the sake of higher ideals, for the sake of the peace of the people, burn all the light and heat of life.
That's what greatness really means.
Back to the end of the film.
It was a calm but powerful picture:
The veterans, in pairs of threes, supported each other as they walked through the martyrs' cemetery.
Behind them were rows of names we had never looked at seriously.
They were connected into pieces and became an indelible memory of a nation.
"Who is the Cutest Man" is a reportage written by writer Wei Wei after returning from the Korean battlefield, and was first published in the People's Daily on April 11, 1951. Later, he was selected as a middle school Chinese textbook, which influenced the Chinese generations. Since then, the Volunteer Army has been widely known as the "loveliest man".
Without their accounts, we probably would never have known the details of those battlefields.
It is a million times more shocking and cruel than in the history books.
It is the blood and tears of countless ancestors that have paved the peace today.
As the film says:
Because they believe in the future, we have the present.
"Where the years are quiet, it's because someone is carrying the weight for you." This sentence is the most common sentence during the epidemic, and this sentence is also very consistent with what is told in this movie.
The War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea was the most important battle to change the fate of New China, and the bravery and dedication of millions of volunteer soldiers bought peace in new China today.