55 Days at Peking

A big Hollywood waste. The actors, the music, the successful battle scenes (the conquest of the wall with the help of Betsy!) and probably also the staggering amount of money the filmmakers spent to build (or how it all came about) the great looking historical Beijing. The screenplay, however, is a long-winded bore (especially in the second half of the film), which, moreover, shows the Chinese too one-sidedly, treats the languages of the foreigners strangely (they all speak English, only here and there we get to hear German, Russian, Italian or Chinese for effect) and doesn't impress with many bland plot lines (especially the little girl). (06/03/2012)