Hacker Cinema
The Gate of Heavenly Peace
1995 · Film · documentary · 180 min
Directed by Richard Gordon, Carma Hinton
The Gate of Heavenly Peace is a feature-length documentary about the 1989 protest movement, reflecting the drama, tension, humor, absurdity, heroism, and many tragedies of the six weeks from April to June in 1989. The film reveals how the hard-liners within the government marginalized moderates among the protesters (including students, workers and intellectuals), while the actions of radical protesters undermined moderates in the government. Moderate voices were gradually cowed and then silenced by extremism and emotionalism on both sides.
6 positivefrom 6 commenters
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6 comments on Hacker News
I don't really want to enter this discussion, since it usually quickly devolves to less than stellar levels. However, on the topic of the 1989 protests, I feel like Westerners often have a very superficial understanding of what happened back then, and in turn cannot understand chinese civil society and government today.
There's one documentary on the topic that I can wholeheartedly recommend, the Gate of Heavenly Peace.[1] It is quite long, but goes into incredible detail and also interviews a lot of organizers and politicians first hand.
The Tiananmen Square massacre was a turning point in chinese politics, ending a decade of increased freedom and open calls for reform. In civil society, people kept their heads down and went to work. In politics, almost all the reformers and politicians sympathetic to the students were isolated, demoted or even imprisoned. Still the last 30 years have been the best China has had in hundreds of years, and it is always much harder to argue with success. A lot of chinese people know what happened back then, and a lot of those accept it as something shitty that happened, but ultimately the country and people were still able to progress. Chinese people, by and large are not against their own government, even if they don't always agree with everything that happens.
[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Gtt2JxmQtg
on a similar note the documentary "The Gate of Heavenly Peace," far the best history of the 1989 Tiananmen protests and mass carnage, is available in two parts on YouTube https://youtu.be/1Gtt2JxmQtg
people need to be reminded that China hasn't changed in the way they treat anyone critical of this regime. and there are far to many China apologists sitting in power in Silicon Valley (at YC Sam Altman is a prominent case)
The Gate of Heavenly Peace is a pretty great thorough documentary on the events of June 1989. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Gtt2JxmQtg
Got a lot of criticism for misrepresenting some people but it seemed surprisingly well balanced to me. Would love to hear some expanded critiques of it if anyone has one here.
When I was still an undergraduate student in China, the 4hr film The Gate of Heavenly Peace was available in our school's internal torrent network.(Tons of censored content was available there.) I and my buddies watched it together in our dorm, with high expectation. But we were quite disappointed, and wondered why the CCP censor it so firmly at all. The event is neither bloody nor aspiring.
The Gate of Heavenly Peace is a must watch if you want to fully comprehend how the whole ordeal went down. Highly recommend.
I'm in my mid 30s and remember seeing it on TV as a kid in Shanghai. The news were all reporting on how the PLA rolled in and were holding back and avoiding violence against harassment from the protesters. (And to be fair most were until the orders came down from up top).
Other interesting pieces of media:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gate_of_Heavenly_Peace I think does a pretty good job at covering a highly controversial event. Providing its own interpretation of what lead to the protests as well as what escalated and its aftermath. (And when both sides of a controversy complain about "bad coverage" of their side then I consider it worth watching/reading ;))
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMUjsbSAZv0 Cui Jian Live at Tiananmen Square in 1989, performing for the students on hunger strike. (Cui's a rock and roll pioneer in China, who was later banned for many years for his support of the student protests)
*Edit: What I find fascinating now is I will see American Idol type of singing shows where the young contestant walk on stage and cover "A piece of red cloth", which Cui sang during the protests to allude to the youth being blinded by the government's promises and became an anthem for the protest. But the contestant likely had no idea what happened at Tiananmen Square nor what the song was alluding to...