Review: From “God’s Not Dead” to “The Lies of Communism”
April 24, 2018
By Cheng Qi, Japan
“The believers in God and the unbelievers are two kinds of people, walking two different paths, and one side isn’t able to change the other side. As for the CCP’s Marxism-Leninism and Communism, little do the communists believe them. Nevertheless with them we convert the believers in God. This is absolutely impossible!” These are the lines of the director of the brainwashing course in the Christian film “The Lies of Communism,” a film which was widely shared online last month. These words are brilliantly insightful and incisively attack the social situation.
The film’s title “The Manifesto of Communism,” flashes onto the screen, and soon changes into “The lies of Communism”. Though there is only one word different between them, their meanings are quite out of line with each other. It reminds me of the title design of a religious film “God’s not dead,” one of the hit films in 2014. At the beginning, the film’s title is “God’s dead,” which represents most people’s opinion; whereas then the word “not” is added, aiming to tell the audience the truth. Similarly, “The Lies of Communism” also tells us the fact that the communism proclaimed by the CCP in itself is a lie, and that any word of the CCP must absolutely not be believed, and that lies, even though repeated 10,000 times, cannot become the truth.
The reason why I mention “God’s not dead” is that the two films are both religious films. Though there are some differences in style and artistic approach, their identity lies in the intense confrontation between theism and atheism, finally theism prevailing against atheism. In “God’s not dead,” Josh is a freshman at university. In a philosophy class, the Professor Kevin demands all the students to write down the declaration that God is dead, otherwise they will get no credit. Josh, a believer in God, certainly refuses to, and thus he has to take up the challenge to prove God’s existence. In the class, Josh has several debates with Professor Kalvin. In the end, he testifies to God’s existence with science and logic, winning the victory in belief, gaining others’ respect. Moreover, that film stimulates a revival of belief afterward. By contrast, in “The Lies of Communism,” Zhang Mingdao and other Christians are not as lucky as Josh. After being taken to the “Mental Reform Course for the Christians,” they are compelled to be brainwashed and to receive atheism. Though they rely on God to debate with the brainwashing experts again and again and successfully refute the atheism and other absurd ideas, Zhang Mingdao and other believers are still sent to prison by the CCP at last. Maybe it is just the sharp difference between Christian Nations and non-Christian Nations in their attitudes toward faith in God! Obviously, “God’s not dead” is more like a feature film, and apart from Josh’s story, there are many subplots which intersect with the main storyline. Besides, the rock music in it also draws different kinds of audiences. Whereas “The Lies of Communism” is a documentary film, and reveals the least-known fact that the CCP has been conducting forced brainwashing of the Christians in recent years. In this film, the plots are simple, and the scenes are shot mainly in the brainwashing course; most of the shooting with natural light instead of high lighting ratio intensifies the documentary feel; not only is the protagonist Zhang Mingdao characterized successfully, but also the other positive characters and the negative characters have their respective characteristics; the debates between the pros and the cons are the highlights of this film. If you have seen enough western religious features and want to make a change, the documentary film “The Lies of Communism” is a good choice.
Interesting to mention, in accordance with the explanation of Wiki entry, the word “brainwash” didn’t originate from other countries but from China, dating back to the Korean War in the 1950s. The CCP forcedly exercised mental reform on the American prisoners of war with communism, so that they were in support of the CCP after being released. Afterward, Edward Hunter, an American reporter, depicted this action with the word “brainwash.” Maybe some people wonder: Why does the CCP brainwash the Christians in modern international community in which democracy and human rights are attached ever more attention to? How does the CCP brainwash the Christians? At the ceremony of starting the course, what He Hongchang, the director of brainwashing course, says gives us pause, and shows obviously the CCP’s evil goal of starting “Mental Reform Course for the Christians.” It aims at banning all religions and setting up a region without God.
A War Without Gun Smoke
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If “God’s not dead” is the exploring on and an appeal to common weakness in belief of the West now, “The Lies of Communism” is the merciless revelation and criticism of the CCP, the atheism regime, persecuting religious faith. The topic is much sharper and the retorts are even profounder. The numerous debates are all directed to many people’s general viewpoints on and bias toward faith in their real life such as “religious faith and superstition,” “whether God exists or not,” “science and truth,” “How to differentiate between good religions and cults,” “retorts to the CCP’s lies and fallacies.” The Christians, with Zhang Mingdao as their representative, employ God’s words to refute the brainwashing experts headed by He Hongchang, leaving them speechless. From this, we see good prevails over evil, and God is victorious forever. But there is one point that we should understand: People all have their own weakness, so how do the Christians stand testimony to be after God’s will when faced with the opposing voice to God? What Zhang Mingdao and other Christians face is an atheism regime with a strong state machinery behind it. The status differential between an individual citizen and the state power is unfair, so the Christians take a risk to make every retort. Unlike the student who is threatened to write the declaration of God’s death with credits by his philosophy professor, in brainwashing course, the Christians may be sent to prison at any time, and even risk their lives. The history bears amazing resemblance to actual situation: In the Bible, there are many records of the historical facts that Peter, Paul and other apostles risked their lives to bear witness to the Lord Jesus’s salvation before the Pharisees and the Roman regime. The Lord Jesus once said, “He that finds his life shall lose it: and he that loses his life for my sake shall find it” (Matthew 10:39). Although we all have human weakness, we can depend on the words of God to stand firm. God’s words are the truth, and are beneficial to human’s life regardless of how many years elapse. Josh gets a lot of guts to say “No” to the professor, and the courage of Zhang Mingdao and other Christians is even more worthy of admiring. Just as Revelation says, “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives to the death” (Revelation 12:11).
Now, how do the other side of the warfare, He Hongchang and other communists, describe “brainwash”? They say, “It is a war without gun smoke, and is also an arduous political task.” In the course, He Hongchang and other people constantly say that the Christians are allowed to express their viewpoints freely; however, whenever Zhang Mingdao and other Christians want to stand up to retort, they are obstructed by the training partners by their side, are ordered not to say “Amen,” or are not allowed any freedom of speech, much less be allowed to testify to God’s words. Hua Weiguo, in police uniform, repeatedly emphasizes, “This is education training class set up by the CCP, the front of Marxism-Leninism and Atheism.” This precisely shows the CCP’s might policy of “Submit to me or perish,” which is to keep people in ignorance. The frequent words said by He Hongchang and other negative characters, such as “brainwash,” “mental reform,” “Godized people,” the well-known saying of Mao Zhedong praised highly by He Hongchang, “To battle with God is great fun! To battle with Earth is great fun! To battle with people is great fun,” possess a strong class-struggle characteristic, and exactly reflect the philosophy of “battle” within the CCP’s bones. The freedom of religion belief, as one of fundamental human rights, has been accepted and protected by ever-increasing western democracies for a long time, but in China, a political campaign against religious belief is on show, from which we have to say that it is putting the clock back! It is a fault to categorize religious belief as the political field, and it goes against world-wide viewpoints of value. What’s worse, the CCP takes the positive things as the negative ones to attack and persecute, which is even more despising and trampling human rights.
“Since I Was Here, I’ve Never Thought of Getting out Alive. … ”
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The film mounts to a climax in the last over ten minutes. Only when giving up faith in God and signing three letters (Statement about denying God and betraying God), can Zhang Mingdao and other Christians leave the brainwashing course, or they will be sent to prison. Confronted with the hard choice, will they compromise or persevere?
The scene of the papers flying around allow the audiences to feel Hua Weiguo and other negative people’s anger at and dissatisfaction with the failure of brainwashing. When Zhang Mingdao refuses to sign the three letters and says firmly, “Since I was here, I’ve never thought of getting out alive,” the indignation spills forth from Hua Weiguo’s heart instantly, and subsequently, he gives Zhang Mingdao such a hard swift kick that Zhang retreats several steps. This just reveals the CCP’s true nature––purely despicable and evil! Though the CCP is not reconciled to failure and attempts to make the Christians sign the three letters with means of force, cheat, affection temptation and so on, the CCP ends in failure.
At the end of the film, the directors, through the chiaroscuro and many scenes of characters, fully show the Christians’ confidence in standing witness and the negative characters’ frustration. In the aisle, Zhang Mingdao strides past He Hongchang in the opposite direction. And the close-up of their eye contact reminds me of the slow motion in “Infernal Affairs”––Liang Chaowei and Liu Dehua gaze at each other, full of tension of contest. Zhang Mingdao and other Christians walk with vigorous steps in the hall on the first floor, with firm eyes, like warriors in battlefield, whereas He Hongchang and other negative people stand and gaze on the second floor, with dim eyes, like beaten dogs. The subject matter is elevated by such strong visual effects.
When He Hongchang and other people walk toward the depth of the aisle, their sound fades away and their figures become more and more blurred. … It implies that the atheism and fallacies, with which the CCP fools the people, will be abortive forever.
The captions at the end are in line with that at the beginning of the film, which again elevates the subject matter. Through the captions, it tells the audiences that though the film is over, the CCP’s persecution of the Christians is proceeding. …
Source The Internet
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