Tunnel War

Tunnel War
Traditional	地道戰
Simplified	地道战
Mandarin	Dì dào zhàn
Directed by	Ren Xudong
Written by	Ren Xudong Pan Yunshan
Starring	Han Guodong Liu Jiang Liu Xiujie
Cinematography	Yang Guangyuan
Release date(s)	1965
Country	China
Language	Mandarin

Tunnel War (Chinese: 地道戰; pinyin: Dì dào zhàn), also known as Tunnel Warfare,^[1] is a 1965 Chinese film produced before the Cultural Revolution about a small town which defends itself from the Japanese by use of a network of tunnels during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The film was directed by Ren Xudong and produced by the August First Film Studio.^[1]

It is considered to be one of the first movies to discuss the use of tunnels in war.^{[citation needed]}

Reception and release

While the film was popular upon its release in 1965, its popularity would not peak until nearly a decade later, when it became of one of the "Three Old Fights" (Chinese: 老三戰; pinyin: Lǎo sān zhàn), a collection of three war films from pre-1966 that nevertheless were given wide circulation during the Cultural Revolution—the other two films were Mine Warfare (1962) and Fighting North and South (1952).^[2]

In contrast, some 600 other films made between 1952 and 1966 were banned by the Communist authorities during the social upheaval of the 1970s.^[3]

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b} Zhang & Xiao,^[who?] p. 343.^[where?]
2. ^ Clark,^[who?] p. 150.^[where?]
3. ^ Clark, p. 149.