55 Days at Peking - Plot

Plot

55 Days at Peking is a dramatization of the siege of the foreign legations' compounds in Peking (now Beijing) during the Boxer Rebellion which took place in 1900 China. Fed up by foreign encroachment, the Dowager Empress Tzu-Hsi uses the Boxer secret societies to attack foreigners within China, leading to the siege and subsequent direct intervention by foreign expeditionary forces which were dispatched to put down the rebellion. The film concentrates on the defense of the legations from the point of view of the foreign powers, and the title refers to the length of the defense by the colonial powers of the legations district of Peking.

The foreign embassies in Peking are being held in a grip of terror as the Boxers set about massacring Christians in an anti-Christian nationalistic fever. United States Marine Corps Major Matt Lewis heads a contingent of multinational soldiers and Marines defending the foreign compound in Peking.

Inside the besieged compound, the British ambassador gathers the beleaguered ambassadors into a defensive formation. Included in the group of high-level dignitaries is the sultry Russian Baroness Natalie Ivanoff, who begins a romantic liaison with Lewis. As the group conserves food and water while trying to save hungry children, it awaits reinforcements, but Empress Tzu Hsi is plotting with the Boxers to break the siege at the compound with the aid of Chinese troops.

Eventually, the forces of the Eight-Nation Alliance arrive to put down the rebellion and relieve the siege of the foreign compounds following the Battle of Peking. These events foreshadowed the coming demise of the Qing Dynasty which had ruled China for two and a half centuries.

The Chinese are depicted in accordance with western prejudices of the times: ridiculously long-nails, speaking in (almost) inscrutable phrases, and fundamentally inferior to westerners. Most of the Chinese, including the Empress Dowager and her Prime Minister are played by white performers. The Japanese (who in actuality made up the largest contingent of forces of the Eight-Nation Alliance) are barely mentioned or seen, but when they are they are "civilized" and fight alongside the Europeans and Americans. The film emphasizes the anti-Christian aspects of the Boxer Rebellion, with only one scene (when the Empress Dowager states that most of China is under the control of the foreign powers) expanding on this being a response to the numerous "unequal treaties" the foreigners had imposed on the Qing Dynasty.