Cast members attend the premiere of Jian Dang Wei Ye (Beginning of the Great Revival, or The Founding of a Party), in Beijing on Wednesday, June 8, 2011.[Photo:163.com]

Jian Dang Wei Ye (Beginning of the Great Revival, or The Founding of a Party), a movie chronicling the history of the Communist Party of China (CPC), premiered in Beijing on Wednesday. It is among 28 movies promoted by the State Administration of Radio Film and Television (SARFT) to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the CPC, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

According to Huang Jianxin, the film's director, the movie has a cast consisting of 178 celebrities from the mainland, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, and will go on wide release on Wednesday.

The movie will also be available on IMAX.

The movie is one of the films promoted by the SARFT for the Party's anniversary.

Tong Gang, director of the SARFT, said at a promotion event on Tuesday that SARFT had selected 28 movies for recommendation and added that these movies serve as a report that the Chinese movie industry has submitted to the CPC and the Chinese people, according to Xinhua on Wednesday.

The 28 movies include a profile of Qian Xuesen, CPC member and pioneer of Chinese missile and space projects, a movie depicting the rebuilding of the quake-hit Beichuan in Sichuan Province and a movie about the development of the J-10 fighter jet.

Tong asked the distributors to "be highly aware of the films' political and social responsibilities" when showing the movies.

However they also must achieve a total box office value of "no less than 1 billion yuan ($154.4 million)," the report said.

In 2009, to mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, Jian Guo Da Ye (The Founding of a Republic), a movie charting the history of the nation with similar production to Chinese Communist Party, collected 419 million yuan at the box office.

Han Sanping, director of both films, said on the premiere that "Beginning of the Great Revival is even more exciting than The Founding of a Republic."

A director surnamed Lu from the Film Administration Department of the SARFT told the Global Times that these movies have been in the works since January 2010.

"We have planned and selected movies that can best reflect the history, the achievements, and the outstanding members of the Party," Lu said.

Han also revealed that the movie will be shown in over 10 foreign countries, including the US, Canada, Australia, South Korea and Singapore, and added that the global version finished editing on Wednesday, according to a report by chinafilm.com.