Xiaolou's release from Japanese custody in which a line of bedraggled Chinese are lined up before a firing squad and executed. The film gives no reason for their deaths, creating a criticism of Japanese executions as random acts of murder, historically epitomized in the event known as the "Rape of Nanjing". Following the Japanese invasion, the film endeavors to also portray the effects of the Cultural Revolution on the main characters. Whereas the Japanese invasion found the main characters as passive participants (they were not seen being abused are extremely physically linked to the events shown), the Cultural Revolution finds Junxian, Duan Xiaolou, and Cheng Dieyi playing an active role; they were being actively investigated, interrogated, and publicly punished.
             The Cultural Revolution, whose scenes take up a large portion of the end of the film, began in the spring and summer of 1966. Prompted by a seemingly increasing amount of political lethargy and party corruption the Central Committee issued a sixteen point directive, which outlined the aim of the Cultural Revolution and called on the masses to rise up against those that were capitalistic and anti-revolutionary:
             Our present aim is to topple those in power who are taking the capitalist road, to criticize reactionary scholarly 'authorities', criticize the ideology of the bourgeoisie and al exploiting classes. We must reform art and literature, reform all parts of the superstructure that do not accord with the socialist base of our country. Our purpose . . . is to stabilize and develop our socialist system.
             The leaders of the Cultural Revolution called upon the students to form the vanguard of the new revolutionary upheaval called the "Red Guards" . These students, under the directives of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), attacked what were considered the "four old elements within Chinese society – old customs, old ...