I will be especially interested in how U.S. reviewers handle the film. American war films have certainly evolved greatly over our lifetimes. Modern films will usually present U.S. and allied characters as real, conflicted individuals. (Some films succeed better than others.) And most modern U.S. films will humanize the enemy to some degree.
Doing right by the characters while not mangling the plot and the underlying politics can get tricky. Patton (1970) is now an old film. (Egads, that means we ain't young no more neither.) But even at that time, Patton was an extremely sophisticated film. The bombastic, tub-thumping glorification of war, so much in evidence in many scenes, is entirely acceptable in that movie because it is all a direct projection of George Patton's own inner vision. The film imposes Patton's view on the viewers.
But at the same time, every other character in the movie recognizes that Patton is a cracked egg, a great commander and someone you want on your side in a fight, but still not right in the head. Many characters have this reaction, and Omar Bradley carries the narrative through the film. It's the tension between the Patton and the Bradley point of view that gives the film its power. The scattered reviews I've seen suggest that The Battle of Lake Changjin is a reversion to crude comic book characterizations. Whether that will play to anyone outside of China is the question. It's a surprising miss in my book.
I once met a guy who said he was drafted into the Army in 1969, but for whatever reason was sent to Washington D.C., not Vietnam. While there he was assigned to appear outside the theater where Patton made it's D.C. premiere in 1970. Omar Bradley was among those who saw the movie that night, and the press asked him what he though of George C. Scott's portrayal of Patton. Bradley was not impressed. He said Scott was far too understated.