Film Review | Power Unleashed Through Restraint — Xiao Zhan’s Performance in Gezhi Town and the Dual Resonance of Its Theme Song

By Richard Ren / Critic
December 18, 2025

At the invitation of the North American distributor of Gezhi Town, CMC Pictures, I attended the film’s North American premiere on the evening of December 17 at the AMC Theatre in Monterey Park, Los Angeles.

Set against the historical backdrop of the Battle of Shipai during the Western Hubei Campaign (1940–1943), Gezhi Town deliberately avoids the grand spectacle and heroic mythmaking typical of Hollywood war films. Director Kong Sheng and screenwriter Lan Xiaolong instead tighten the lens, focusing on a remote mountain town called “Gezhi,” and reframing a war of national survival as a series of life-and-death choices faced by ordinary civilians deciding whether to defend their home. For Western audiences accustomed to films such as Saving Private Ryan or Dunkirk, this narrative restraint may feel unfamiliar—but it is precisely this restraint that gives the film its penetrating emotional power.

Rather than foregrounding abstract binaries such as “invasion versus resistance” or “war versus anti-war,” the film allows these grand themes to recede into the background, letting the weight of history emerge organically through the concrete actions of small, ordinary individuals. This approach aligns with recent international trends in war cinema that privilege personal experience over spectacle, while remaining firmly grounded in a distinctly Chinese historical context.

Xiao Zhan’s performance is a crucial anchor of the film’s realist texture. In Gezhi Town, he almost completely sheds the star persona familiar to the public, portraying the wartime craftsman Mo Dexian through an approach that is nearly “de-performative.” Rather than relying on overt emotional release or emphatic dialogue, he compresses fear, hesitation, and awakening into bodily and neurological responses, allowing emotion to seep naturally through subtle details.

Particularly noteworthy is his precise control of physiological reactions. When Mo Dexian is confronted with sudden violence and death, Xiao presents an authentic and restrained stress response: brief speechlessness, wandering eyes, an involuntary swallow, and slight trembling of the hands. These are not stylized acting techniques, but instinctive human reactions under extreme pressure, preventing the character from slipping into the common heroic distortions often seen in war films.

In the scene where Mo Dexian first encounters the Japanese soldier portrayed by Yin Zheng, Xiao conveys the character’s psychological turbulence through delicate shifts in his gaze. Later, upon returning home and seeing his child, the transition from confusion to resolve is completed through the steadiness and containment of his eyes—subtle, precise, and powerful—making it one of the film’s most convincing performance moments.

As the story unfolds, Xiao continues to build the character’s psychological progression through finely calibrated layers: from instinctive survival, to the realization that there is “no retreat,” and finally to active resistance through his skills as a craftsman. Rather than marking growth with dramatic emotional climaxes, he charts this arc through decisiveness of movement, changes in breathing rhythm, and focused gazes. This transformation—from fear to determination—follows the psychological logic of an ordinary person, rendering Mo Dexian a deeply credible figure of wartime experience.

It can be said that Gezhi Town marks an important genre transition for Xiao Zhan. No longer reliant on star charisma or typecasting, he fully embeds himself within the realist framework constructed by Kong Sheng and Lan Xiaolong. His performance aligns seamlessly with the film’s “absurd realism”—never sensationalized or elevated, yet producing a lingering emotional resonance through the magnifying power of the screen.

From a career perspective, Gezhi Town is far from a “safe zone” designed to showcase an actor. It is a demanding ensemble war film that requires restraint, precision, and endurance. Xiao’s ability to firmly hold his place within such a text demonstrates his readiness for serious cinematic creation. This work may well become a defining entry in his theatrical film career.

Unexpectedly, as the film reaches its conclusion and the narrative has seemingly settled, the emotional experience does not fade with the final images. Instead, it deepens when the theme song begins. From lyrics to performance, the film’s eponymous theme song Gezhi Town, sung by Xiao Zhan, provides a second, more inward yet equally powerful emotional extension.

Written by Qing Yan and Wu Yan, composed by Lin Zhuo, the song continues the film’s focus on “small individuals.” Rather than pursuing grand narratives, the lyrics remain fixed on dignity, resentment, and perseverance under extreme circumstances, crystallizing a moral core of “the weak resisting the strong” and “seeking rightful justice.” Xiao does not sing as a detached vocalist, but clearly inhabits Mo Dexian’s subjective emotional space, making the song feel like an internal monologue after the smoke of battle has cleared—deeply resonant with the characters’ fates and the collective memory of civilians defending their homeland.

The line “When the earth shakes and mountains tremble, don’t be afraid” reads as both a soft reassurance to family and an act of self-consolation amid terror, capturing the coexistence of tenderness and courage. Meanwhile, “Let me claim what is just and fair” emerges not as a slogan, but as a resolution born naturally from layered emotion—a crystallization of ordinary people’s willingness to sacrifice everything when their home is destroyed and retreat is no longer possible.

Importantly, the theme song avoids descending into slogan-driven emotional release. Through restrained melodic progression and controlled vocal delivery, it gradually gathers resentment, attachment, and responsibility into a quiet but sustained force. It does not seek an immediate emotional peak, yet subtly prolongs the film’s aftershock.

The inclusion of the theme song further reinforces the overall tone of Gezhi Town—a form of moral courage and responsibility rooted in ordinary people: unshowy, yet unwavering. It allows the film’s emotional resonance to continue beyond the screen.

Ultimately, Gezhi Town is a war film defined by extreme restraint in expression and sustained emotional force. Xiao Zhan’s complete realization of both the character Mo Dexian and the theme song performance aligns seamlessly with the film’s realist ethos, adding a durable and substantial emotional weight.

This is not a film that seeks victory through immediate emotional spectacle, but one that continues to echo long after the viewing has ended.