Heroic Sons and Daughters

Heroic Sons and Daughters (1964)

英雄儿女

An army officer has a chance encounter with a young soldier, the son of an old comrade in arms. The soldier tells the officer he has a sister who is also in the army. When the young soldier is killed in action, the officer visits her to pay his respects, and recognizes her as his own child, given up for adoption 18 years earlier. This presents him with a dilemma, wanting to reconnect with the only child he ever had, yet reluctant to tell her the truth about her parentage ...

Date of release
1964-01-01
TMDB
6.0 / 10 (9)
Runtime
1h 49m
Genres
War, Drama
Director
Zhaodi Wu

Casting

Interesting facts

Heroic Sons and Daughters is a 1964 Chinese film about the Korean War, produced by Changchun Film Studio. It is based on a short story by Ba Jin.

Production

The film is adapted from the short story Reunion by Ba Jin. In early 1952, during the Korean War, the renowned Chinese writer Ba Jin—at the behest of Cao Yu and Ding Ling—joined a creative delegation organized by the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles to visit the Korean front. The short story was published in 1961; it depicts a father and daughter who are reunited on the battlefield.

The film's storyline regarding the sacrifice of the character Wang Cheng is based on the deeds of Yang Gensi, a soldier who charged into enemy positions with a satchel charge in hand to launch a frontal assault. The historical prototype for the character who—finding the enemy lines too close—issued the command "Fire at my position!" is attributed to several individuals, including Jiang Qingquan, Yu Shuchang, and Zhao Xianyou, among others.

There are three historical figures who served as the prototypes for the film's male protagonist, Wang Cheng. The first is Jiang Qingquan—a radio operator in the 201st Regiment, 67th Division, 23rd Army of the Chinese People's Volunteer Army—along with his comrades.

The historical prototype for the female protagonist, Wang Fang, is Xie Xiumei, a member of the Cultural Work Troupe attached to the Political Department of the 202nd Division, 68th Army of the Volunteer Army. She remains the only female recipient of a "First-Class Merit Citation" within the Chinese People's Volunteer Army.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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