Overall Evaluation

The Burning of the Yuanmingyuan has a strong sense of historical authenticity with its grandiose scenes, distinctive and prominent characters, and exquisite and realistic landscape design. It is one of the most representative and outstanding films created by Hong Kong and mainland Chinese filmmakers after the reform and opening up of China (NetEase Review). The film's colorful historical themes and subtle and profound character portrayals complement each other, making it a classic in the history of Chinese cinema (Sohu.com).

Visual Aesthetics

From the perspective of visual aesthetics, The Burning of the Yuanmingyuan is a success. The beautiful composition of the images, the meticulous craftsmanship of the props and sets, the epic visual style, the flamboyance of the camera and the scheduling of the characters, and the effort to build up a personalized "gilded" Chinese imagination are the perfect combination of formal styles for this grand historical narrative of the burning of the Yuanmingyuan. The film perfectly combines the grand historical narrative of "The Burning of the Yuanmingyuan" and maximizes the director's own interest and inner artistic pursuits to the utmost. The film not only retains the exquisite and complex interior scene creation, but also avoids the crude and petty style of the studio's exterior scenes when the iconic push-track camera moves smoothly to the exterior scenes. The restoration of the "Great Waterworks" in the Yuanmingyuan was also praised by the audience for its rigorous documentation and exquisite setup (NetEase).

Camera language

Li Hanxiang's use of camera language in this movie is particularly skillful. In several scenes, the film introduces the Imperial Palace and the Yuanmingyuan through shots of different lengths and distances, showing the architecture of the palace from all angles, sweeping the characters' gorgeous costumes and props with historical colors, thus strongly emphasizing the solemn historical images of the film. In addition, the film's well-designed silent passages also reflect the director's skills, Yi Guifei attracted the Xianfeng Emperor with a song of lingering ditties, almost entirely with the action, music, composition, editing, camera movement to account for the minimal use of dramatic dialogue; and the eight allied forces of the two wars were shot and edited passionately (NetEase review).

Narrative

The Burning of the Yuanmingyuan adopts a two-tiered structure. In addition to recounting the beastly acts of the British and French allied forces, the first half of the movie depicts the story of Cixi's rise to power at great length through a blend of history and anecdote, and the plot line of her mode of growth is also clear throughout. Such a story structure is not only conducive to portraying Cixi's character, but also adds twists and turns to the story as well as interesting details. In the middle part of the movie, like Zeng Greenqin angrily wrestled the British invasion officer Bashar, the Anglo-French allied forces burned down the Yuanmingyuan before the courageous resistance of civil volunteers and other plot passages, the drama of the fire is also grasped in the right place (International Online, NetEase comments).