Landmine Warfare
About Landmine Warfare
In 1942, in the Jiaodong anti-Japanese base, the village of Zhaojiazhuang and its neighbors face Japanese sweeps. Lei, a cadre, and the militia captain Zhao Hu answer with land mines. The mines are the weapon of the film. August First Film Studio shot the story in Haiyang, Shandong, where that kind of mine warfare had been used.
Cast & crew
More about Landmine Warfare
Tang Yingqi, Xu Da, and Wu Jianhai directed. Bai Dajun, Dong Yuanfu, Zhang Changrui, and Wu Jianhai lead the cast. Chinese Wikipedia times it at 97 minutes and says it was released in 1962 as a military education film. The Chinese title is Di lei zhan.
Themes
Background
The story is set in the Jiaodong base area during the war with Japan, and the mines are the local tactic the film was made to teach.
Making
The studio went to Haiyang, the county whose wartime mine fields the script uses, and shot the education film on that ground.
Preservation
A digital copy is on Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- The setting is 1942, not a later border war.
- Zhao Hu is the militia captain. Lei is the cadre who organizes the mines.
- Chinese Wikipedia says the 14th Vienna International Film Festival gave the film a memorial award in 1974.
- A 2015 China Youth Daily survey, cited on that page, found four in ten respondents naming it the classic anti-Japanese war film.
- A Commons file is titled 地雷战 1962.webm.
Awards
- Memorial award, 14th Vienna International Film Festival (1974)
Scenes
- Japanese troops sweep the villages on the edge of the base.
- Lei and Zhao Hu answer with mines planted for the next column.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (地雷战 1962.webm)