Zhan tianyou

This movie is about the first Chinese engineer who designed the first indigenous Chinese railway, and his name is used for this movie.

On the surface, this movie is an accurate biographical account of this great engineer, but in reality, the hidden message was the cultural introspection behind the biography, which prompt Chinese audience to ask the following questions, such as why a brilliant engineer failed to become railway tycoons like those in USA although he had successfully completed the railway despite western railway experts' claim of impossibility? Why do brilliant students like him must go abroad to get technical education? Why modern technology and new ideas could not fruit in China?

These questions of cultural introspection hidden behind tragic life of the railway engineer is an excellent reminder to Chinese about the dross in the traditional culture.