"Bethune" gets 4 stars from me for its documentary-like
visuals, and as a history-theme film from which modern-day
audiences can learn a great deal. It equals "Reds" for an
international panorama of the revolutionary left, and if it
seems to lack the rawer passions of "Reds" that is partly
because the romances of Norman Bethune were simply not John
Reed's.

If essentially true to "history" the murky history of the
film itself ought to be kept in mind. It was the outcome of
a
France-Canada-China co-operative project of the 1980s,
whose
production was further complicated by hangovers and
holdovers
from the era depicted in the movie. The politics of the
depiction of the young Mao Tse Tung was one of many image-
making issues on the Chinese side. On the Western side, a
key
problem was the decades-long 'ownership' of the film rights
to the Bethune story by the Canadian dramatist Ted Allan
(d.
1995), who would eventually receive $400,000 for his
instrumental role in launching and scripting "Bethune."
Allan wrote the original screenplay as a propaganda piece
for
Daryl F. Zanuck way back in 1941, and arguably, had far too
much invested (financially and otherwise) in this project.
Among many other things, Allan had a personally fraught
relationship with the real-life Bethune, whom he had
politically clashed with--some would say betrayed--during
the
Spanish Civil War. He writes himself into the movie in the
character of Chester Rice (Colm Feore).

Video allows one to more fully appreciate this fascinating
Canadian/international film.