The late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping is well known as the chief designer of China's modernization drive, who introduced the country's reform and opening up policy more than two decades ago, but many people know little about his early years. To remedy this, the film "Deng Xiaoping in 1928", about the adventurous days when he was in his 20s, is to be shown to commemorate the 100th anniversary of his birth.

Chinese audiences see quite a few motion pictures portraying the lives of Chinese leaders, either their fighting during the revolutionary period to overturn foreign and feudal rule, or their efforts after the founding of New China to guide the country out of poverty and backwardness. But in the history of the Chinese film industry, few films record the early days of the Chinese Communist Party and how its "underground" leadership struggled for survival. As the director of "Deng Xiaoping in 1928", 62-year-old Li Xiepu says, he is trying to trace how the young Deng Xiaoping grew from a patriot into a seasoned party leader, and identify the qualities he demonstrated at an early age that would make him so devoted to the well-being of his country. CRIENGLISH.com said Monday.

"I think we may find some hints of what he would become by focusing on what he did when young, and see that his personality and character indicated he would be a person well capable of changing the history of China."

The director picked 1928 as the major backdrop, when the Chinese Communist Party was facing its darkest hour due to the breakdown of cooperation with the ruling Kuomintang and the sweeping military build-up by Chiang Kai-shek seeking to destroy the Party. Facing this deteriorating situation, 24-year-old Deng Xiaoping was sent to Shanghai as chief secretary of the Party Central Committee, in charge of general headquarters' documents, confidential work, communications and financial affairs. With Kuomintang spies everywhere, this work was highly dangerous and makes the film a thriller in its own right.

"It's an attempt to make an historical film a thriller. Only in this way can we truly depict the history of Deng Xiaoping's narrow escapes with his life during a touch-and-go dangerous period, and how courageous he was to keep working when he could be murdered at any time."

The director explains that the film is different from the previous one on Deng Xiaoping's whole life. For the first time, it covers the love story of Deng Xiaoping and his first wife, Zhang Xiyuan, a fellow revolutionary who died a year later when giving birth to their child. Director Li Xiepu hopes showing the other side of Deng Xiaoping will help people see his essential humanity.

The film will premiere in Shanghai in mid-August, and then hit the screen across the country. It is a fitting memorial to commemorate the late Chinese leader's centenary.