In the last couple of years, there have been an increasing number of TV dramas about China in the 1930s and 1940s broadcast, which have stirred up discussions, especially among younger people, over the historical role of the Kuomintang (KMT).
That part of history was filled with drama and witnessed complicated wrangles and rivalry among several major powers: the Japanese, the Soviets, other foreign forces, the KMT government, Chinese communists, local armed brigands, and spies shuttling among all of them.
Today many are criticizing that the image of the Japanese is stereotyped and sometimes extremely exaggerated in Chinese TV series. However, such issues are never "historical" alone, but mirror complex present-day political and social ties.
The view toward the Japanese, reflected in made-in-China historical TV dramas, does hint at the attitude toward Japanese today. Such logic is also applicable to the image of the KMT in the same TV dramas, but in an opposite way.
Imminent Crisis (Yichujifa) and Before Dawn (Limingzhiqian) are popular spy dramas set in the 1930s and 1940s. The leading role, in both plays, is a communist spy hiding in the KMT intelligence administration. Through their interactions with their peers and bosses, there are vivid depictions of several KMT officers' personality as well as their deliberation and calculation facing national crisis.
Such depictions are increasingly mature and objective. Those born in the 1980s may still remember the patriotic movies in their childhood. In those black-and-white shots, the KMT figures were almost as repugnant as the Japanese. They were invariably corrupt, negligent, and weak under pressure from the Japanese. They were automatically labeled as "enemies" in our minds.
In today's films and TV plays themed on that era, the image of KMT figures is much more personalized and detailed. In Imminent Crisis, the senior leader of the intelligence agency is the communist spy's training tutor and is deeply in fond of him. The direct female leader of the spy has her ambitions, but she is loyal to the government, and commits her mission of capturing communists in a canny, efficient way.
In Before Dawn, the image-shaping is even more representative. The head of the intelligence agency sees the spy as a brother. He is very good at taking advantage of rivalry among subordinates, and thus stably sits in his position. Out of his professional sense, he is forced to constantly doubt every person, but chooses to believe in the spy in the last minute.
The ending scene is very thought-provoking. Out of the "brothers," one chooses to go to Taiwan and the other stays in the mainland. The two, in separate cars, head toward opposite directions. A line appears on the screen, stating that the two never met each other again.
The draining of ideology in the portrayal of the KMT is in accordance with the wider trend in the cross-Straits relationship. In both serious academic books and bestsellers, the assessment of the KMT and its historical role has become more objective.
I remember the words of the author of a bestseller consisting of remembrances by soldiers who fought anti-Japanese war in western Yunnan Province, "Today there is debate over the historical contribution of the CPC and the KMT to anti-Japanese war, but if you visit old people in Yunnan and especially the veteran soldiers, you'll find they do not have the sense of division, they only remember the Chinese united together back then."
Such a sense of unification are increasingly stressed in TV plays too. The last scene of Before Dawn is symbolic in this sense. The two "brothers" were separated by political divisions, but their ties as brothers cannot be cut.
More than six decades after the KMT left the mainland and encamped in Taiwan, the situation across the Taiwan Straits is dramatically different. There are debates that some TV dramas now go to another extreme and excessively beautify the KMT. But the general trend toward more objectivity is still in progress.