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Director(s):
GARCIAS (JULIETTE)
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Producer(s):
FILMS D'ICI (LES), ARTE FRANCE
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Territories:
Worldwide.
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Production year:
2020
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Language(s):
German, English, French
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Rights:
TV, DVD, NON-THEATRICAL, INTERNET, VOD
The capture and looting of Emperor Qing Xianfeng's two summer palaces was the culmination of the Second Opium War; pitting the colonial powers of France and the United Kingdom against China. Yet it was also a double-edged sword.
It constitutes both an unprecedented act of Western violence, openly practicing vandalism as the basis of a policy of submission; and a sign of the immense Chinese empire's commercial resistance to the global capitalism under construction. Irremediably weakened, China's continental power will remain a world impenetrable to European colonization and influence.