The movie version of The East is Red is a filmed adaptation of a stage performance, although the two versions aren’t entirely similar. Some scenes from the stage were cut, but all six of the story’s main sections do appear, each of them depicting the history of the Communist Party. In the opening scene, Chinese workers rebel against a European-looking man with a whip, symbolizing opposition to Western imperialism. The founding of the CCP leads to a dramatization of the Guomindang’s massacre of Shanghai Communists, then the Communists’ reprisal in the Nanchang Uprising. The other key events are just as what you’d expect, with the Long March, the Second Sino-Japanese War, and the end of the Chinese Civil War making appearances.

…For all the one-dimensionality of its message, the film adaptation of The East is Red is an aesthetic and technical marvel. Zhou Enlai and his vast crowd of collaborators created a piece of propaganda with a surprising amount of artistic merit, and the amounts of care, energy, and skill put into it clearly shine.

The East Is Red (excerpt)