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Film Review Of The Film 'The Opium War'

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Film Review: “The Opium War” The movie “The Opium War” was filmed in memory of the return of HongKong in 1997. It’s an attempt to rebuild historical cognition. It is about what happened between two empires (the Great Qing dynasty and the Great Britain) in the time that full of opportunities and chaos from 1838 to 1840. The emperor Daoguang decided to forbid opium, bringing back wealth and order to his land. The emperor appointed Lin Zexu as his imperial commissioner, ordering him to go to Guangzhou where the opium trade originates and deliver the emperor’s determination of forbidding opium. Thus, Lin Zexu ordered to close all opium houses and put opium dealers into prison. Moreover, he ordered to arrest corrupted imperial officials and blockade the British chamber of commerce. The very famous event “Destroying Opium at Humen Beach” happened right after these severe orders. Lin Zexu even expelled all British men and women after destroying opium stocks. The British merchants went back angrily and asked the British government to dispatch troops to China. They wanted to use military power to open up the gate of “free trade” in China. After an intensive debate between the war party and the peace group of parliamentarians, they decided to go to war. Unexpectedly from the perspective of the Qing emperor, he lost the war. The emperor Daoguang compromised and dismissed Lin Zexu. At the end, the Qing imperial government signed the famous “Treaty of Nanjing” and ceded the territory of
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