{"id":52517,"date":"2026-05-15T12:15:37","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T04:15:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=52517"},"modified":"2026-05-15T12:15:37","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T04:15:37","slug":"how-hollywoods-55-days-at-peking-turned-chinas-boxer-rebellion-into-a-racist-western","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=52517","title":{"rendered":"How Hollywood\u2019s 55 Days at Peking turned China\u2019s Boxer rebellion into a racist Western"},"content":{"rendered":"


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This is the latest instalment in a feature series reflecting on instances of East meets West in world cinema, including China-US co-productions.<\/em><\/p>\n

Hoping to replicate the success of his 1961 smash hit El Cid<\/em>, Hollywood producer Samuel Bronston turned to the events of the Boxer rebellion, which took place in China from 1899 to 1901<\/span>. Named after a crucial siege, the ensuing epic, 55 Days at Peking<\/em> (1963), would star Charlton Heston and David Niven, and be shot on huge sets in rural Spain.<\/div>\n

Bronston told the Los Angeles Times he was attracted to the story because it showed \u201cthe unity of peoples, no matter what their beliefs, in the face of danger\u201d. Those people? Mostly white. The face of danger? Chinese.<\/p>\n

As the Boxer rebellion threatens to engulf China, the Eight-Nation Alliance\u2019s outnumbered forces try to hold the capital, then known as Peking.<\/p>\n

With Heston\u2019s Major Matt Lewis representing tough-talking American militarism, and Niven\u2019s Sir Arthur Robertson the picture of urbane UK diplomacy, you can imagine similar tussles taking place today over the Iran war.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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This is the latest instalment in a feature series reflecting on instances of East meets West in world cinema, including China-US co-productions. Hoping to replicate…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52518,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[22730,6292,578,4924,9431,18835,15443,403,98],"class_list":["post-52517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bored-interesting","tag-boxer","tag-chinas","tag-days","tag-hollywoods","tag-peking","tag-racist","tag-rebellion","tag-turned","tag-western","wpcat-33-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/52518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}