# The Big Parade (大阅兵) (1986 film)
**The Big Parade** (大阅兵; pinyin: *Da yue bing*) is a 1986 Chinese drama film directed by Chen Kaige (陈凯歌) about soldiers of the [People's Liberation Army](https://www.edgepedia.org/peoples-liberation-army) training for the military parade held on 1 October 1984 to mark the 35th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China[1](https://www.dianying.com/en/title/dyb1986) • [2](https://eiga.com/movie/18931/). It was the second collaboration between Chen Kaige as director and [Zhang Yimou](https://www.edgepedia.org/zhang-yimou) (张艺谋) as cinematographer, after *Yellow Earth* (1984), and their last[3](https://www.jiemian.com/article/2451607.html). The film was produced by Guangxi Film Studio, written by Gao Lili (高力力), and starred Wang Xueqi, Sun Chun, and Wu Ruofu[1](https://www.dianying.com/en/title/dyb1986). Its original title was *Guohun* (国魂, "National Soul")[4](https://bkso.baidu.com/item/%E5%A4%A7%E9%98%85%E5%85%B5/3674485?fromModule=lemma_inlink).
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director / cinematographer | Chen Kaige; Zhang Yimou, in their second and final collaboration[1](https://www.dianying.com/en/title/dyb1986) • [3](https://www.jiemian.com/article/2451607.html) |
| Production | Guangxi Film Studio; screenplay Gao Lili; music Qu Xiaosong and Zhao Jiping[1](https://www.dianying.com/en/title/dyb1986) • [5](https://baike.so.com/doc/6246707-7031885.html) |
| Subject | Eight months of training by 400 soldiers for the 1984 National Day parade, focused on six of them[6](https://www.acmi.net.au/works/80098--big-military-parade-da-yue-bing/) |
| Central image | Months of marching so that each man can take 96 precise steps across Tiananmen Square[2](https://eiga.com/movie/18931/) |
| Training distance | About 9,993 km marched per soldier in training, likened in the film to a round trip from China's northernmost to southernmost point[7](https://www.aisixiang.com/data/78461.html) |
| Release history | Approved for public release in 1986 after censorship, revision, and partial reshooting; screened at Rotterdam in 1988 from a heavily cut version[7](https://www.aisixiang.com/data/78461.html) • [8](https://ica.art/films/celluloid-sunday-festival-the-big-parade-on-35mm) |
| Award | Special Jury Prize at the Montreal World Film Festival[9](https://movie.jorudan.co.jp/film/11910/) |
## Spoilers
### Story and characters
The film follows an airborne unit preparing for the National Day parade of 1 October 1984. Six soldiers, each with his own motives and private concerns, join the parade training: Li Weicheng (王学圻, Wang Xueqi), Sun Fang (孙淳, Sun Chun), Lü Chun (吴若甫, Wu Ruofu), Liu Guoqiang (关强, Guan Qiang), Hao Xiaoyuan (康华, Kang Hua), and Jiang Junbiao (鹿镭, Lu Lei)[5](https://baike.so.com/doc/6246707-7031885.html) • [9](https://movie.jorudan.co.jp/film/11910/).
Li Weicheng is the squad leader, the oldest man in the formation, nearly 35 with few prospects of promotion, for whom the parade is his last chance at advancement; he ultimately chooses to withdraw for the sake of the collective[5](https://baike.so.com/doc/6246707-7031885.html). Lü Chun is a city youth who gave up urban life to join the army in search of personal meaning; he questions the necessity of the training while waiting for an admission notice from a military academy[5](https://baike.so.com/doc/6246707-7031885.html). The Japanese source material describes the men as members of an airborne unit whose months of daily marching, undertaken for a 96-step march before [Tiananmen](https://www.edgepedia.org/tiananmen) that lasts less than a minute, are marked by individual worries and a sense of emptiness[2](https://eiga.com/movie/18931/).
The numbers the film attaches to the training are precise. In dialogue spoken by Li Weicheng, each soldier marches 9,993 kilometers in [goose step](https://www.edgepedia.org/goose-step) during the training period, roughly the distance of a round trip between China's northernmost and southernmost points, all for 96 steps across [Tiananmen Square](https://www.edgepedia.org/tiananmen-square); Li compares the training to the [Long March](https://www.edgepedia.org/long-march)[7](https://www.aisixiang.com/data/78461.html). A Japanese-language synopsis puts the summer marching drill at nearly 10,000 kilometers[9](https://movie.jorudan.co.jp/film/11910/).
## Production and censorship
Chen Kaige had previously worked with PLA airborne troops on a television film about the air force, and he used real soldiers in the production[7](https://www.aisixiang.com/data/78461.html). The film recreates, in documentary fashion, a training process that had taken place only a year earlier, and inserts footage of the actual 1984 parade shot by Zhang Yimou[7](https://www.aisixiang.com/data/78461.html).
The path to release was difficult. According to the film scholar Jason McGrath's account, the release was delayed partly because Guangxi Film Studio, the military, and the Ministry of Culture Film Bureau insisted that the film end with the titular parade on National Day, whereas Chen had planned to end it with footage of an empty parade ground[10](https://manifold.umn.edu/read/chinese-film/section/f7abcc4f-240e-42f5-93ab-f6e674f53916/resource/1cd14f56-34ef-49f1-8bd7-1a5bd0ea1f1a). The Institute of Contemporary Arts in London states that the film was criticized both by anti-military youth, who saw in it a glorification of the martial spirit, and by the Chinese authorities, which banned it after completion; it was presented at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 1988 from a heavily cut and censored version[8](https://ica.art/films/celluloid-sunday-festival-the-big-parade-on-35mm). A Chinese-language account records that after censorship, revision, and partial reshooting, the film was approved for public release in 1986[7](https://www.aisixiang.com/data/78461.html).
Chen Kaige himself judged the result harshly. In a quoted statement he called it "basically a failed work," saying that what he wanted to express came out incomplete, that he had underestimated the difficulty of filming such a subject in China, and that several different forces can be felt contending within the finished film[7](https://www.aisixiang.com/data/78461.html).
## Style and interpretation
The film is associated with the Fifth Generation of Chinese filmmakers, the group that emerged from the Beijing Film Academy in the 1980s, though it lacks the highly symbolic cultural imagery of *Yellow Earth* and other Fifth Generation classics; it deals instead with a current event[7](https://www.aisixiang.com/data/78461.html). A *People's Daily* review of 1987 praised its use of modern film language, noting the high and low camera angles that give the training grounds and dormitories a sense of depth, the pursuit of single primary colors, and the long disorienting shots of the standing drill, and argued that the film explores the relationship between the individual and the collective through the soldiers' pain, hesitation, and struggle[11](https://cn.govopendata.com/renminribao/1987/07/27/5/).
The scholar Chen Xiaoyun reads the film through [Michel Foucault](https://www.edgepedia.org/michel-foucault)'s concept of bodily discipline: beneath an apparently mainstream-patriotic surface, it examines how the body is disciplined by power, with drill requirements that are technical and numerical, such as lifting the leg 30 centimeters, turning the head 45 degrees, keeping 1.2-meter intervals, and marching 116 steps per minute, so that the parade's visual beauty rests on this discipline[12](https://www.aisixiang.com/data/22857.html). The film scholar Song Mingwei argues that the film confronts the relationship between state and individual more sharply than any other Fifth Generation work, and that its achievement in narrative and audiovisual form has been long overlooked because it is often omitted from lists of Fifth Generation representative works[7](https://www.aisixiang.com/data/78461.html). The Japanese critic Tadao Sato described it as a sharp work that questions the irrationality of military training, in which people move like machines on command, and said it covertly reveals the unstable thoughts of soldiers who doubt the training[4](https://bkso.baidu.com/item/%E5%A4%A7%E9%98%85%E5%85%B5/3674485?fromModule=lemma_inlink).
## Release and reception
The film was released in mainland China in 1986[4](https://bkso.baidu.com/item/%E5%A4%A7%E9%98%85%E5%85%B5/3674485?fromModule=lemma_inlink). Listed runtimes differ across databases: 102 minutes in the Chinese Movie Database[1](https://www.dianying.com/en/title/dyb1986), 103 minutes in the ICA, MovieMeter, and bnAsie listings[8](https://ica.art/films/celluloid-sunday-festival-the-big-parade-on-35mm) • [13](https://www.moviemeter.com/movies/drama/da-yue-bing) • [14](https://www.bnasie.eu/bn/films?ID=138), and 99 minutes in the Japanese eiga.com entry[2](https://eiga.com/movie/18931/). It screened at the Turin International Youth Film Festival in October 1987, at the New Directors/New Films festival in New York on 15 March 1988, and in the Netherlands on 15 June 1990[4](https://bkso.baidu.com/item/%E5%A4%A7%E9%98%85%E5%85%B5/3674485?fromModule=lemma_inlink). It received the Special Jury Prize at the Montreal World Film Festival[9](https://movie.jorudan.co.jp/film/11910/). The ICA notes that the film remains rarely seen on the big screen[8](https://ica.art/films/celluloid-sunday-festival-the-big-parade-on-35mm).
## References
1. [The Big Parade (1986), Chinese Movie Database](https://www.dianying.com/en/title/dyb1986)
2. [大閲兵：作品情報・キャスト・あらすじ, 映画.com](https://eiga.com/movie/18931/)
3. [碟中谍的中国往事, 界面新闻](https://www.jiemian.com/article/2451607.html)
4. [大阅兵（1986年陈凯歌执导的电影）, 百度百科](https://bkso.baidu.com/item/%E5%A4%A7%E9%98%85%E5%85%B5/3674485?fromModule=lemma_inlink)
5. [大阅兵(1986年陈凯歌执导电影), 360百科](https://baike.so.com/doc/6246707-7031885.html)
6. [Big military parade = Da yue bing, ACMI collection](https://www.acmi.net.au/works/80098--big-military-parade-da-yue-bing/)
7. [宋明炜：《大阅兵》中的国家与个人, 爱思想](https://www.aisixiang.com/data/78461.html)
8. [The Big Parade on 35mm, Institute of Contemporary Arts](https://ica.art/films/celluloid-sunday-festival-the-big-parade-on-35mm)
9. [大閲兵の上映スケジュール・映画情報, 映画の時間（Jorudan）](https://movie.jorudan.co.jp/film/11910/)
10. [Chinese Film, chapter 6: A Long Take on Post–Socialist Realism, University of Minnesota Press](https://manifold.umn.edu/read/chinese-film/section/f7abcc4f-240e-42f5-93ab-f6e674f53916/resource/1cd14f56-34ef-49f1-8bd7-1a5bd0ea1f1a)
11. [人民日报 1987年7月27日 影评版](https://cn.govopendata.com/renminribao/1987/07/27/5/)
12. [陈晓云：身体：规训的力量, 爱思想](https://www.aisixiang.com/data/22857.html)
13. [Da Yue Bing (1986), MovieMeter](https://www.moviemeter.com/movies/drama/da-yue-bing)
14. [大阅兵 - The big parade - Da yue bing, bnAsie](https://www.bnasie.eu/bn/films?ID=138)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 1980s › Released 1986 to 1989*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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