Just as one cannot speak of Soviet cinema without mentioning Lenin, or German cinema without mentioning Hitler, when it comes to Chinese cinema, Chen Ke is equally impossible to ignore. These three figures—branded as great dictators by the Western world—all, without exception, wielded film as a critical instrument for advancing their governing philosophies and imposing their political will. Yet compared to the brief and amateurish forays of Lenin and Hitler, Chen Ke—the Asian ruler whom the West considered the greatest threat since Genghis Khan—exerted a far greater and more enduring influence.

Someone once said: In the realm of ideas, Chen Ke is the synthesis of Einstein and Eisenstein.

Two "-steins"—the former a world-renowned scientist, the latter an artist remembered through the ages. The remark vividly captures Chen Ke's almost inconceivable creativity in both science and art.

Interestingly, Chen Ke was personally acquainted with both men. He discussed relativity and quantum physics with the former and, at one point, sought to harness his knowledge to build an atomic bomb. With the latter, he co-founded the earliest film theories, profoundly shaping the development of cinematic art for generations to come.

Chen Ke's talent in film and television first revealed itself during the Grand Military Review. The awe inspired by those sweeping panoramas was no less powerful than what Hitler later achieved with Triumph of the Will, and it became a documentary sensation worldwide. Many people's perception of China was transformed overnight. Because China's relations with the Western world were relatively cordial at the time, The Grand Review did not suffer the fate of Triumph of the Will, which was banned in numerous countries, including the United States. Instead, it conquered the Western film world and won the adoration of Western audiences. Chen Ke—in his prime and brimming with charisma—even became something of an idol. Among his admirers were lovesick American girls and fervent young men. People had different reasons for adoring him, but one of the more amusing was simply this: he didn't wear a pigtail.

Twenty years later, however, Chen Ke's image in the West underwent a dramatic reversal. In 1938, an American film designed to vilify the Chinese—Sherlock Holmes vs. Dr. Manchu—was released. Its arch-villain, Dr. Manchu, was modeled directly on Chen Ke. This character, originally conceived by the British novelist Sax Rohmer, bore the title of "the most evil Asian in history" and was unabashedly used by the Americans to caricature China's ruler. The film drew enthusiastic support and applause—a phenomenon that itself demonstrated the United States had already come to view China as a mortal threat and had begun mobilizing its propaganda apparatus to cultivate public hostility toward the Chinese.

There is a famous American saying: Our fathers taught us two things—to believe in God, and to hate the English. Now, they had added the Chinese to the list.

It is said that when Chen Ke learned of his treatment on the American screen, he burst into laughter. Then, before the bewildered gaze of his secretary, he bent over his desk and began to write. Two hours later, a draft screenplay for a film called The Maoshan Demon Slayer Chronicles had been created.

This account is clearly embellished. Reliable evidence shows that several of China's most prominent artists participated in the screenplay's creation. But there is no question that the outline and framework came from Chen Ke, and even most of the specific details were filled in by him personally. Chen Ke—the most inconceivable figure in the history of human thought—after decades of championing materialism, finally gave his imagination free rein with reckless abandon. Many of his ideas and concepts left the other participants gaping in astonishment, utterly at a loss as to how such a film could possibly be made.

When even the creators were this stunned, one can only imagine how audiences reacted when the film was released.

And so the number-one entry on the list of the 100 Greatest Films of the Twentieth Century was born.

The Maoshan Demon Slayer Chronicles—that is the film we shall be examining in this section.

In this film, Chen Ke completely abandoned the objective impartiality and cool self-restraint he had maintained his entire life. With vivid colors, exaggerated character designs, allegory-laden plotting, epic scope, astonishing visual effects, blood-soaked darkness, and merciless critique, he excoriated America to the point of total devastation. Gone was the balanced assessment of years past—from start to finish, the film was unrelenting denial, delivered with such force and ferocity that it left everyone speechless. The film cast four American presidents as its villains and an obscure, enigmatically born Maoshan practitioner as its hero, staging a grand battle between good and evil. Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt—the four presidents universally regarded as the greatest in American history, the spiritual symbols of America carved into Mount Rushmore—along with their celebrated deeds and words, were all reinterpreted in the film through a sinister lens. The cold dread of it was enough to make one's blood run cold. Anyone who has seen this film, we believe, cannot help but feel a sense of disillusionment with America.

Beneath the veneer of democracy: boundless bloodshed. Behind the mask of justice: the most extreme cruelty. The falseness and indifference of capitalism had already been described with piercing clarity in The Communist Manifesto, yet even that fell short of the film's vivid, visceral power. The Maoshan Demon Slayer Chronicles had an enormous impact on the world. Except in the United States, it was screened in nearly every country. Audiences were immediately captivated by the novel, suspenseful, and thrilling plot, and they were absolutely entranced by the visual effects. In terms of filmmaking technique alone, the movie was hailed as a work of genius. And the political allegory it conveyed was utterly irresistible.

Beginning in 1939, the film was shown worldwide for a full two years—until the outbreak of the Second World War in earnest—earning $400 million at the box office. Adjusted for inflation, that amounts to an astonishing $3.2 billion. Its juggernaut box-office record remains unbroken to this day.

This was also by far the most thorough implementation of Chen Ke's own film theory. If The Grand Review was Chen Ke merely testing the waters—a master craftsman amusing himself with a new toy—then this time he went all in. He not only single-handedly wrote the screenplay and served as the film's executive producer, he even made a cameo appearance, playing a boss-level minor role that was nothing short of jaw-dropping. It is called a minor role because the character appears for only thirty seconds, and Chen Ke finished filming his scenes in just two hours. It is called boss-level because this character is the hero's master—the Maoshan practitioner's own teacher! A figure on par with the great wizard Dumbledore in Harry Potter. The fifty-eight-year-old Chen Ke's look in the film is nothing less than iconic. Unlike the traditional Taoist practitioner with long hair, flowing beard, and horsehair whisk, the Chen Ke of the film retains his familiar appearance—clean-shaven, with close-cropped hair—merely donning rustic clothing with a touch of makeup. The most visible change is his whitened eyebrows. Yet the image of a transcendent sage—one who gazes down upon the world while harboring mountains and seas within—left every viewer awestruck. Especially those eyes beneath the white brows, blazing with otherworldly light, so dazzling that one could scarcely bear to look. He appears only in the Maoshan practitioner's flashback during the film's most oppressive passage: when the hero has reached his darkest moment, recalls his master's teachings, and finally regains the strength to overcome.

In the film, Chen Ke's master character is set at over a hundred years old—reportedly inspired by a famous Taoist Master Zhang from China's Ming Dynasty. Chen Ke's performance was a triumph, but it also produced troubling aftereffects. Many viewers—Asian audiences in particular—took it as ironclad proof that Chen Ke was a heavenly deity descended to earth. They fashioned images of his character from the film into devotional scrolls, a practice especially prevalent in Southeast Asia, and not uncommon in China itself. Chen Ke vigorously suppressed this during his lifetime. The moment he died, the portraits proliferated like wildfire. Today, if you visit China, you will see them at restaurant cashier counters, dangling from taxi drivers' rearview mirrors, and displayed prominently in friends' living rooms. He has, in the plainest possible terms, become a god—an exorcist of demons and slayer of evil, possessed of boundless power.

In later years, this film came to be seen as Chen Ke's ideological declaration of war against the Western world. At the time, however, most people regarded it simply as Chen Ke's devastating counterattack against America's insults—a counterattack so spectacularly successful that America could not even mount a response.

Preparation began in February 1938. Six months later, filming commenced—a remarkably efficient pace. The production employed thirty thousand actors, including two hundred Soviets, and utilized the most advanced special-effects technology available anywhere in the world. Chen Ke, as executive producer, personally visited the set frequently, offering guidance on every technique—particularly the scenes involving demonic transformations, where he invariably proposed brilliant suggestions that illuminated entirely new possibilities. To help the crew visualize exactly the effects he wanted, he even drew numerous scene sketches, some annotated with precise physical parameters. These were of immense help to the production staff, and the drawings themselves later became priceless treasures.

From the moment Chen Ke attained a measure of political power, he never relaxed his grip on cultural production. He placed particular emphasis on the role of cinema. Over the course of two decades, China became the fastest-developing film nation in the world. Under Chen Ke's direction, China produced the world's first sound film—which shocked the planet at the time and even drew fierce opposition and accusations from silent-film masters such as Chaplin. China subsequently introduced subtitle technology, which provided enormous assistance in the country's literacy campaigns. A few years later, again under Chen Ke's direction, China began developing color cinema, while simultaneously elevating special-effects technology to a national priority. Wire work, prop models, car chases, explosions, dry-ice effects, and even manual compositing techniques all emerged during this period. Chen Ke implemented the principle of democratic centralism within the film production departments: everyone could voice their opinions on filmmaking, and the development of new camera technologies and equipment was especially encouraged. Dolly tracks, reflector boards, mechanical crane arms—all were invented during this era, with an enormous impact on future filmmaking.

Two decades of development and accumulation gave China a commanding lead in film production. They had repeatedly made films featuring aerial combat and robots, and the model work and explosive set pieces captivated audiences worldwide. In one science-fiction film, Chen Ke even formulated the "Three Laws of Robotics," which for the next twenty years remained the inviolable commandment of science-fiction cinema—until they were broken by a film produced by Chen Ke's own son: The Terminator.

Even with all this experience and technology, the production of The Maoshan Demon Slayer Chronicles still proved to be a stretch. Chen Ke's standards were impossibly high. Even with every department cooperating at full capacity and benefiting from his direct suggestions, certain challenges remained intractable. By contrast, the massive crowd scenes—requiring colossal numbers of extras—were hardly a problem. In China's leanest and most resource-starved years, the one thing never in short supply was disciplined people.

The Maoshan practitioner in the film is a hero in the most universal sense. He is brave and fearless, compassionate toward all beings, yet also prone to doubt and confusion when struck by setbacks—even teetering on the verge of surrender. In his darkest moments, the fleeting image of his teacher in his mind's eye becomes his lifeline. Chen Ke's character serves, in a sense, as a kind of God—guiding the lost lamb back to the true path, bestowing faith and strength.

The Maoshan practitioner's experiences and observations are a reflection of China's disaster-riddled modern history, and simultaneously a projection of the struggles of all oppressed peoples worldwide. Every oppressed nation could find its own shadow in the story. This was the foundation of the film's worldwide frenzy—the overwhelming sense of immersion and identification made audiences fall hopelessly in love with it. They took the practitioner as their model, charging ahead to liberate their own peoples and compatriots. Had the film contained communist slogans and doctrines instead of being filled with demons and monsters, the bans it suffered would not have been limited to the United States alone.

The protagonist's personal arc, frankly, is unremarkable. It is the four villains who generate the most discussion. In the modern era, there has been no shortage of those who hate America, and every manner of curse and invective has been hurled at it. But to directly portray four presidents as evil demonic creatures—that is without precedent. The film is packed with clever allusions that have endlessly delighted audiences. To better appreciate the movie, many people even went and crammed on the biographies of those four American presidents. Comparing the historical facts with their on-screen incarnations, one could only feel an exhilarating rush. There is no denying it: when you abandon the pretense of objectivity and fairness and attack your enemy with wholesale negation and biting satire, it feels good—for both the creator and the audience.

For years, the Western world had attacked the policies of communist countries at every turn. Regarding China, they fixated on land reform measures, accusing the Chinese government and Chen Ke of violating the universal principles of human society. This kind of accusation had powerful inflammatory effects worldwide—people could not see the suffering of China's underclass, but they could sympathize with the wealthy who had lost everything in the revolutionary tide. China had attempted to reverse this perception. First, they engaged in theoretical debates with other nations. The results were unimpressive—dry revolutionary theory and economic-political measures made people's heads spin, and those who could understand such theories were overwhelmingly from the wealthy propertied classes, whose class position guaranteed they would never accept China's actions. In this battle of ideas, China failed to achieve its objectives.

Subsequently, under Chen Ke's direction, China abandoned tedious polemics—even set aside its combative posture—and instead began exporting film and television to the world. Chen Ke's first trump card: the mysterious China.

Even though the Western world's contempt for the yellow race ran to the bone, such attitudes were merely a product of the modern era. Ancient China, the mysterious Eastern kingdom, the brilliant civilization of the Chinese—these had always held a fatal attraction for Westerners. Chen Ke ordered the preservation and excavation of the Yin Ruins; Dunhuang was also brought under careful stewardship. China produced a series of period films touching on themes of reform, war, and suffering. With exquisite production values, advanced technology, and visionary artistic concepts, each was an exceptional work. These films showcased both the splendor of Chinese civilization and the suffering of its people. Western interest was aroused; audiences rushed to buy tickets. Chen Ke—the revolutionary who had started out in the pharmaceutical trade—put his shrewd commercial mind to full use, paying close attention to merchandise development. Audiences who were mesmerized by the worlds on screen were also enchanted by the stunning costumes and props, and more money flowed into peripheral products. Chinese film companies raked in gold. The abundant capital and healthy returns made China's film industry grow ever more robust. For the first time since the seventeenth century, a new wave of Sinophilia swept the world, and people were once again captivated by the allure of this ancient land.

Even during the Great Depression, audiences never lost their love for Chinese cinema. In the United States, Chinese film box-office revenue grew from $100 million in 1928 to $300 million in 1934, and by 1939 reached a staggering $500 million—nearly on par with domestic American films. China's cultural industries played an enormous role, generating vast wealth. Later commentators assessed this period thus: the Great Depression gave birth to the golden age of American cinema, and Hollywood and Hengdian were two colossal money-making machines.

Chen Ke's film export campaign was a resounding success, but it was not his ultimate objective. The West had come to appreciate ancient China, but what he truly wanted was a positive image for the modern China under his rule. Beginning in the Depression era, China exploited the West's enormous demand for its products, conducting brisk business while never missing an opportunity to showcase China's virtues to a world in crisis. Zhengzhou—the city that appeared most frequently in Chinese cinema—became increasingly familiar to Western audiences.

Beyond period and historical films, Chen Ke began packaging the everyday lives of Chinese people and releasing them as modern films for worldwide distribution. His second trump card: the advanced China.

When speaking of the twentieth-century women's rights movement, one film cannot be overlooked: the 1930 Chinese film The Story of Qiu Ju. Told from the perspective of an ordinary lower-class Chinese woman, the film depicted the sweeping transformations of Chinese society across marriage, education, economics, the judiciary, and more. Qiu Ju, an eighteen-year-old girl fighting for her right to choose her own husband, persevered through countless hardships until she finally broke through every obstacle to marry the man she loved. The struggle itself was a portrait of China's current state. Around the fate of one young woman, a colorful cast of characters emerged, and Qiu Ju skillfully wielded the legal rights granted to her to battle those who represented China's entrenched backward thinking. The film used these various characters' words and deeds to expose the irrationalities of old China, while using Qiu Ju's actions to showcase the progress of new China. The contrast was sharp and profound, and combined with numerous entertaining plot threads, the film achieved extraordinary acclaim.

When the film was released in America, it created an enormous stir. Many viewers' first reaction was: disbelief. They could not accept that in backward China, a woman of the lowest class already possessed educational rights, labor rights, and voting rights equal to those of men. These were things that not even advanced America had achieved. And yet they could not deny it—as one of China's most senior leaders, the very existence of You Gou was proof enough. Qiu Ju even mentions You Gou several times in the film.

Qiu Ju became a spiritual icon for American feminists. Her actress, Gong Li, also gained enormous popularity in the United States. This beautiful Chinese actress surpassed many predecessors to become the most beloved Chinese film star in America.

With The Story of Qiu Ju leading the charge, Chinese films of every genre launched a full-spectrum offensive, presenting Western audiences with a comprehensive view of the Chinese people's daily lives. If previously such images would have drawn Western sneers, by the 1930s the West was struggling and crying in the mire of the Great Depression, while a supposedly backward China was visibly on the rise. The Chinese may not have possessed Western notions of elegance and refinement, but neither was there social oppression or injustice. When conditions permitted, they could even enjoy a lifestyle with a hint of bourgeois charm. A 1936 film told the story of a Chinese college student who, apart from daily studies, spent leisure time strolling through parks, reading in libraries, going to the cinema, volunteering in the suburbs, and rowing boats on the lake with the girl he loved. One of the film's musical interludes became famous in its own right: "Let Us Row Our Oars"—also written and composed by Chen Ke, reportedly a gift originally intended for his daughter. The beautiful imagery, the lilting melody, the handsome young couple—many Western audiences fell in love with the film and could not help but develop a deep longing for China, thousands of miles away. The costumes and styling of the male and female leads even sparked a fashion craze. Previously, the clothing in Chinese films had always seemed somewhat provincial; this film brought a refreshing change, demonstrating that Chinese people, having met their basic needs for food and clothing, had begun to pursue aesthetics as well.

By 1938, the shadow of economic crisis still hovered over the Western world, and the clouds of war gathered once more, but in the distant East, the Chinese people's lives had improved even further—all of which was promptly reflected in their cinema. Straight, wide highways; speeding automobiles; handsome buildings; broad, orderly farmland; faces brimming with vitality—everything about China clashed dramatically with preconceived notions. As China continued to rise, its voice in the Pacific grew louder, and its conflicts of interest with the United States grew more acute. China now unsettled America in every dimension—economic, political, military, and cultural. An increasing number of Americans began attacking China, which directly gave rise to a wave of films designed to vilify the Chinese. Some claimed that the prosperous life portrayed in Chinese cinema was entirely fabricated—they could not comprehend how any country could develop so rapidly. Others seized upon the growing Chinese national power depicted on screen to trumpet the "China Threat Theory." It was in this climate that films like Sherlock Holmes vs. Dr. Manchu began to flourish.

Prior to this, films about the China threat had mostly emphasized China's formidable military power and aggressive tendencies. But in Dr. Manchu, the struggle was aimed directly at China's supreme ruler, Chen Ke. Using Chen Ke as the model and drawing on Sax Rohmer's novels, the filmmakers created an unprecedentedly powerful villain—a figure of vast learning, brilliant intellect, and every skill a scholar could possess. To borrow Holmes's words from the film: "Dr. Manchu is a phenomenon that can appear only after the passage of countless generations. He is a super genius; if he wished, he could single-handedly bring about a scientific revolution..." If one sets aside the derogatory slant of this statement, it is the highest praise one could bestow upon a human being. In China, there is a similar saying: "A person of Chen Ke's celestial intellect comes along once in several thousand years."

Dr. Manchu is so brilliantly intelligent that his only flaw is this: he possesses an evil heart. And so the greater his abilities, the greater the threat. Holmes is barely a match for him. If Dr. Manchu has any weakness, it is that his ambitions are too grand—he is forever fixated on loftier goals, growing careless with Holmes, and even when he holds an overwhelming advantage and could dispatch Holmes with a flick of the wrist, he cannot resist showing off his intelligence, indulging in endless monologuing—thereby giving Holmes the opening he needs to escape and laying the groundwork for the eventual triumph of good over evil.

That Holmes can serve as Dr. Manchu's adversary at all owes more to his steadfast willpower than to any intellectual superiority. Meanwhile, the cunning and meticulous Dr. Manchu invariably lets Holmes slip away at the critical moment through his own arrogance and underestimation of his opponent. This kind of plotting is admittedly hackneyed, yet it is an indispensable convention of commercial cinema—and so the brilliant and fearsome arch-villain always has those few seconds of inexplicable stupidity. Later filmmakers learned this trick down to the letter.

The emergence of Dr. Manchu was a reflection of American fear toward the Chinese, and a backlash against Chen Ke's years-long film cultural-export strategy. Conflict between the two nations had become unavoidable, and even the ever-pragmatic Chen Ke temporarily shelved his cultural-export strategy and began directly challenging and declaring war on America.

In this context, The Maoshan Demon Slayer Chronicles was produced at breakneck speed. Chen Ke's vision was executed superbly. Three months later, filming wrapped and post-production began. The following year—March 1939—it officially premiered.

The release of The Maoshan Demon Slayer Chronicles was a devastating blow to America in the realm of culture and ideology. It was so magnificent, so vivid, so unapologetically confrontational toward the Americans that, in the aftermath of their humiliated fury, they became ever more sensitive and volatile. An endless stream of films vilifying the Chinese poured forth; countless Americans gorged themselves on the vicarious thrill of defeating the Chinese on screen. At the same time, anti-Chinese and anti-communist forces within the United States grew more brazen. Anyone even tangentially associated with either was targeted—if they survived, they emerged stripped of everything. An individual named McCarthy seized the opportunity to amass political capital, running roughshod over the country, and for a time all of America was cowed into silence.

The most direct consequence of The Maoshan Demon Slayer Chronicles was the stillbirth of a film called Gone with the Wind. This was a production of extraordinary ambition—a collaboration between several major studios, three years in the making, having gone through three directors, starring the most famous leading man and woman, and employing thousands of actors. It was just on the verge of completion and ready to premiere when it was banned for containing substantial content sympathetic to the Southern slaveholders. An added catalyst was the behavior of the city of Atlanta itself. As everyone knows, Atlanta sided with the South during the Civil War and subsequently suffered merciless slaughter and burning at the hands of the Northern general Sherman, transforming it into a living hell that required decades to recover—a detail also reflected in The Maoshan Demon Slayer Chronicles, where Sherman appears as a key general under Lincoln the Vampire, bloodthirsty and cruel, willing to unleash rivers of blood for his own selfish desires, while Lincoln merely laughs upon hearing the report. Now, with the Southern-sympathizing Gone with the Wind about to premiere in Atlanta, the ecstatic state government declared a statewide holiday for opening day and set ticket prices at forty times the usual rate. The South's gloating was tantamount to silently endorsing The Maoshan Demon Slayer Chronicles—and it struck an even rawer nerve with the United States government. The result: a historical epic was shelved, to widespread regret.

For the history of world cinema, the impact of The Maoshan Demon Slayer Chronicles was immense. It definitively established Chinese cinema's dominant position. While Americans were still cheering for foreign films and finding fault with their own, the Chinese had already acknowledged their domestic film industry's achievements with overwhelming confidence. The Maoshan Demon Slayer Chronicles became a century-spanning classic—whenever it was re-released, it never failed to draw audiences back to theaters. And the countless European and American filmmakers who were left speechless by the film drew inexhaustible inspiration from it. In the years that followed, genre films derived from The Maoshan Demon Slayer Chronicles proliferated, enormously enriching and advancing the global film industry.

Sometimes, when chatting with friends about cinema and the topic of most memorable films comes up, I can never get away from The Maoshan Demon Slayer Chronicles. My friend laughs—"A bit old-fashioned, don't you think? A seventy-year-old work! And a foreign one at that." I ask which film has surpassed Maoshan. My friend smacks his head: "I'm still waiting too!"

—Ren Wu'ai Sinuo, March 13, 2014