After World War I, the Western Allies gave Qingdao and Jiaozhou Bay to the Empire of Japan at the Treaty of Versailles, stirring sentiments amongst China's youth, leading to the May Fourth Movement of 1919.

Dubbed by the Western media as a "propaganda epic",[14][15] the film has a final all-star cast, including celebrities from mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and other countries, who play the roles of various historical figures; a few notable actors include Andy Lau, Chow Yun-fat, Taiwanese-American singer Leehom Wang,[16] Hong Kong film director John Woo,[11] Taiwanese actor Chang Chen,[17] Hong Kong actor Eric Tsang,[18] mainland Chinese singer Han Geng[19] and Russian singer Vitalii Vladasovich Grachyov (stage name Vitas).

[15] A cinema group executive, however, alleged that unnamed "industry insiders" had questioned the factual accuracy of her character and denied the decision was related to Tang's role in Lust, Caution.

[14] Production values have improved over Han Sanping's previous film The Founding of a Republic, with better-lit widescreen photography created by Zhao Xiaoshi.

[25] Shanghai GM, the Chinese joint venture of the American automotive giant General Motors, announced in September 2010 that its subsidiary Cadillac had become 'chief business partner' to the film.

[10][26][27][28] General Motors said the sponsorship was a commercial alliance initiated by its Chinese joint venture and described it as "part of a strategic alignment with the film industry".

[22] Two days after the box office release, the film's gross exceeded RMB 50 million,[30] and there were reports that the majority of viewers were young people.

[32] A review by Derek Elley suggests that Han Sanping's idea of "selling" official anniversary films by cramming them full of celebrity cameos was not as successful in The Founding of a Party in comparison to his previous 2009 film The Founding of a Republic created to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China, although the tactic still works to a lesser extent; he suggests that the use of star cameos was inherently less panoramic because the film plot is set within a smaller scope of a 10-year period, and that the concept of star cameos is "a tad less fresh".