General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

The Opium War (鸦片战争)

The Opium War (鸦片战争; English title: The Opium War) is a 1997 Chinese historical drama film directed by Xie Jin (谢晋) that depicts the First Opium War of 1840 to 1842, from Lin Zexu's suppression of the opium trade in Guangdong to the Treaty of Nanjing and the cession of Hong Kong Island¹^•². Produced by Emei Film Studio and Xie Jin–Hengtong Film and Television Co., it was made as a tribute picture for the 1997 handover of Hong Kong and was, at about 100 million RMB, the most expensive Chinese film produced up to that time³^•⁴.

Key fact	Detail
Director / screenwriters	Xie Jin; screenplay by Zhu Sujin, Ni Zhen, Zong Fuxian, and Mai Tianshu³
Principal cast	Bao Guo'an as Lin Zexu, Lin Liankun as Qishan, Su Min as the Daoguang Emperor, Lang Xiong, and Bob Peck as the British merchant Dent³^•²
Production scale	About 100 million RMB invested, a record for a Chinese film; 50,000 extras and more than 3,000 foreign actor appearances³^•¹
Shooting	May 8 to December 4, 1996, six months and 26 days, in Humen, Beijing, Dongyang, Zhoushan, and London⁵
Release	Premiered in Beijing on June 9, 1997; later released in Germany (February 1998), Spain (January 1999), and Portugal (1999)³^•⁶
Mainland box office	70 million RMB, a domestic box-office record for a Chinese film in 1997⁷
Major awards	Golden Rooster Best Picture, Best Photography (Hou Yong), Best Sound, Best Props, and Best Supporting Actor (Lin Liankun); Hundred Flowers Best Picture (1998); Huabiao Outstanding Feature Film; Montreal World Film Festival Special Grand Prize of the Americas⁴

Spoilers

Story

The film is set during the Daoguang reign of the Qing dynasty, when the British opium trade had become a severe threat to the empire. In 1839 the Daoguang Emperor appoints Lin Zexu, Governor-General of Huguang, as imperial commissioner and sends him to Guangdong to suppress the opium trade⁶^•².

In Guangdong, Lin executes opium dealers, imprisons collaborators, and demands that foreign merchants surrender their opium. The British Superintendent of Trade Charles Elliot orders the surrender of more than 20,000 chests, which are destroyed at Humen on imperial order, but this surrender is part of a strategy to force Britain into war². After British naval forces attack and take Dinghai, the emperor dismisses Lin and sends Qishan as his replacement, who yields to British pressure and is presented with demands for opium compensation and the cession of Hong Kong. The film ends with the defense of the Humen forts under Admiral Guan Tianpei, the dismissal and exile of Lin Zexu, and the signing of the Treaty of Nanjing in 1842, after which Hong Kong remained a British colony until 1997².

Origin and financing

The project began with a 1994 letter from the screenwriter Liang Xin, who wrote that with the 1997 handover approaching, Chinese cinema could not remain silent about the event¹. Xie Jin, who had retired from the Shanghai Film Studio in 1992 and founded his own company, Xie Jin–Hengtong Film and Television Co., announced the project at a Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference session in March 1995 under the title "A Great Art Project to Welcome Hong Kong's Return"⁴. In January 1995 he had convened a consultation meeting in Shanghai with scholars and writers including Wang Yuanhua, Yu Qiuyu, Ann Hui, Zhu Sujin, Zong Fuxian, and Mai Tianshu⁴.

A new financing model. No state studio could fund a film of this scale; in 1995 the average production budget at the Beijing Film Studio was about 2 million RMB per picture⁴. With the Chengdu Huitong City Cooperative Bank, Xie Jin set up a joint-stock project company, Sichuan The Opium War Film Production Co., Ltd., incorporated in Chengdu on April 23, 1996, with four shareholders each contributing 6 million RMB and the bank arranging the remainder⁴. Xie Jin mortgaged his Shanghai home during the fundraising⁸. The company was the first in Chinese film history organized as a market-based single-film project company, and in 1997 it became the first recipient of a single-film distribution license when the film authorities opened distribution to private companies⁴^•⁷. Two years later, in 1998, the state formally introduced the single-film permit system for feature films⁴.

Production

Shooting began at Humen, Guangdong, on May 8, 1996, and wrapped at Hengdian, Dongyang, on December 4, a span of six months and 26 days⁵. The production used more than 50,000 extras and over 3,000 foreign actor appearances, built more than 200 sets, refitted 47 ships, and made over 20,000 costumes and 20,000 props⁵. To recreate the Guangzhou streetscape of the 1840s, the production designer Shao Ruigang made four trips to Guangdong and consulted more than 1,000 volumes of historical material, designing over 150 locations including the Canton customs house, the Thirteen Factories, opium dens, and taverns¹. The Dinghai city scenes were built on the beach at Bogumen on Taohua Island in Zhoushan³.

The crew of about 150 came from 15 studios and from Hong Kong and Taiwan⁸. British actors in the cast initially hesitated after an unfavorable interview Xie Jin gave to The Times, in which he argued that Britain's seizure of Hong Kong was a stain on its own history; after his explanation they stayed and performed, in his account, notably well⁸.

Release and box office

The film premiered in Beijing on June 9, 1997, ahead of the July 1 handover³. Before shooting began, Tokuma of Japan bought the Japanese distribution rights for 65 million yen, and before the film was finished, distributors in Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand had signed minimum-guarantee or revenue-sharing contracts; Xie Jin presented the film at Cannes to open European and American sales⁵. It was released in Germany in February 1998 and in Spain and Portugal in 1999⁶.

Mainland box office reached 70 million RMB, a record for a domestic film in a year dominated by imported Hollywood pictures⁷. The film nonetheless lost money for its investors: after distribution, promotion, and box-office splits, the losses were reported at well over 30 million RMB, and Xie Jin attributed part of the shortfall to cinemas underreporting ticket sales by no less than 10 million RMB⁷. A retrospective account adds that the film still trailed Jurassic Park in its release window and that the Asian financial crisis blocked recovery of overseas receipts⁹.

Reception and significance

The film won Best Picture, Best Photography (Hou Yong), Best Sound (Lai Qizhen and Wang Xueyi), Best Props, and Best Supporting Actor (Lin Liankun) at the 17th Golden Rooster Awards, and Best Picture at the 21st Hundred Flowers Awards in 1998; it also received the Huabiao Award for Outstanding Feature Film and the Special Grand Prize of the Americas at the Montreal World Film Festival⁴^•³. Contemporary Chinese commentary praised it for avoiding the flat, stereotyped characterization of earlier domestic historical films and for portraying figures such as Lin Zexu and Qishan with individual character³. Critics outside the official press took a different view; the writer Dai Qing argued that the film put foresighted anti-imperialist rhetoric into Lin Zexu's mouth that no Qing official of 1838 held, and framed the war as a national-resistance epic rather than examining the Qing state's own decay¹⁰.

In film-industry history the production is remembered less for its awards than for its institutional role: it was the first Chinese film financed through a market-based single-film joint-stock company, the first to hold a single-film distribution license, and the production that led to the building of the Hengdian studio sets, later expanded into the large film-production base known as Hengdian World Studios⁴^•⁹.

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › War and historical films (individual works) › Historical dramas and epics › Titles M to Z › Titles M to Sa

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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