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On August 14, 1900, the Eight-Nation Alliance attacked Beijing. On the walls of Chaoyang Gate, a group of ordinary Qing soldiers held their ground through smoke and artillery fire for nearly twelve hours, until the gate was finally blown open by the Japanese army. Their pay had long been overdue, yet they remained behind the battlements.
They were not nameless.
Guardsman Wan Yubin, Cavalryman Fushan, Musketeer Songchun, Guardsman Wulintai, Reservist Yisanbu, Cavalryman Shuangxi…
Beneath the battle is a story about soldiers caught between confusion, wavering decisions from above, and orders they had no power to disobey. Many were remembered only briefly, while others disappeared from history without leaving even a name.
A surviving manuscript fragment runs through the film, gradually revealing the fate of these forgotten soldiers. At the end of the film, an unnamed soldier finally picks up the manuscript and comes to understand what Bao Xun had recorded: while Empress Dowager Cixi was sending watermelons to appease the foreign forces, the Qing soldiers at the city gate were still being ordered to hold their position and continue fighting. Yet even after learning the truth, the unnamed soldier can no longer change what has already happened.
Through the manuscript, the unnamed soldier senses that Bao Xun had written with fervent conviction, pouring his deepest worries about his country and its future onto the page. Four days later, Bao Xun, the author of the manuscript, would be killed defending Chaoyang Gate. In the film, his body is later discovered by Aman. Bao Xun would ultimately become little more than an ordinary name—保勳—among the countless forgotten names recorded in the Draft History of Qing.
At the end of the film, the unnamed soldier quietly writes “I understand” on the back of Bao Xun’s manuscript. These words become an exchange between two Eight Banner soldiers who had never met and never knew each other. Bao Xun would never see this response, just as the unnamed soldier would never meet the author of the manuscript he held—Bao Xun.
At first, the film may appear to center on Wan Yubin and Fushan. Later, the highly skilled time-traveler Kai and the coldly composed Aman may seem to become its central figures. Only in the end might the audience realize that the film’s true protagonist is not any single character, but the ordinary soldiers whose lives were swept up by their time and then quietly forgotten by history. Bao Xun and the unnamed soldier become the final and most intimate expression of this forgotten group—one left behind only as a name in history, the other without even a name of his own.
At the heart of the film is the tragic fate of ordinary soldiers caught in the confusion and wavering decisions of those in power—above all, Empress Dowager Cixi and Zaiyi. Their decisions left these soldiers with little choice but to remain at the walls and face death. The sacrifices of Bao Xun and the other Eight Banner Qing soldiers ultimately helped buy Cixi, Zaiyi, and others at the center of power precious time to flee westward, eventually reaching Xi’an.
In this quiet exchange between two Eight Banner soldiers who had never met, the film comes to an abrupt stop. The fate of the unnamed soldier is left unwritten—perhaps there is another chapter, perhaps there is not. The rest belongs to the audience, left open to their own imagination.
I created The Nameless Soldier independently with the assistance of AI, personally handling the screenplay, direction, visual design, music, editing, compositing, sound, and final production. AI was used primarily to generate the film’s visual imagery, not simply as a technical effect, but as a means of reconstructing a historical world and expressing a story about memory, war, and the people history left behind. The film contains 476 selected AI-generated clips, with all creative decisions, shot selection, editing, compositing, and final assembly handled by me. Photoshop was used for image editing and compositing, Adobe Premiere Pro for final editing and color grading, and After Effects for selected visual effects and compositing work.
Some buildings and most characters in the film were recreated with reference to historical photographs of people and places from around 1900. Although it is impossible to recreate the period with complete accuracy, this was my attempt to bring its appearance as close to the historical record as possible.
This 15-minute short film took 213 days to complete, from February 18 to September 18, 2026, and cost approximately US$700. Without a genuine love of filmmaking, I could never have carried it through to completion.
The film’s central idea is simple:
“They were not nameless. They were forgotten.
Some soldiers did not even leave a name behind.”
One simple sentence—“I understand”—becomes the final echo of The Nameless Soldier.
The Nameless Soldier is dedicated to all those forgotten by history.
Directed by Junwei Dai (China)