The Story of Zhou Enlai
The Story of Zhou Enlai () is a 2013 Chinese Historical period drama film written by Tian Yunzhang and Jiang Yue and directed by Chen Li. Based on the life of Premier Zhou Enlai between May 3 and May 7, 1961, when he investigated extensively and scientifically the rural situation in Huaxi of Guiyang and the old revolutionary base Boyan Township of Hebei, it stars Sun Weimin as Zhou Enlai and Hao Yan as Zhou's wife Deng Yingchao, with He Wei, Bai Qing, Chu Zhibo, and Niu Ben. The film premiered in China on 16 July 2013.
Zhou Enlai
However, recent academic criticism of Zhou has focused on his late relationship with Mao, and his political activities during the Cultural Revolution, arguing that the relationship between Zhou and Mao may have been more complex than is commonly portrayed. Zhou has been depicted as unconditionally submissive and extremely loyal to Mao and his allies, going out of his way to support or permit the persecution of friends and relatives in order to avoid facing political condemnation himself. After the founding of the PRC, Zhou was unable or unwilling to protect the former spies that he had employed in the Chinese Civil War and the Second World War, who were persecuted for their wartime contacts with the enemies of the CCP. Early in the Cultural Revolution, he told Jiang Qing "From now on you make all the decisions, and I'll make sure they're carried out," and publicly declared that his old comrade, Liu Shaoqi, "deserved to die" for opposing Mao. In the effort to avoid being persecuted for opposing Mao, Zhou passively accepted the political persecution of many others, including his own brother.