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  • two quotes I found in the office of Yvette Biro:

    "We are tight-rope walkers for good."

    "A great film is a mixture of scandal and miracle."

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  • More Homage to Jiang Wen - Gui Zi Lai Le

    Wednesday, Apr 23, 2008 12:20AM / Standard Entry / Members only
    7 comments

    Still thinking about Jiang Wen. Just re-watched "Devils on the Doorstep." It won the Grand Prix at Cannes in 2000. Amazing film. He co-wrote, directed, and acted in it.


    Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AuYls6Zt6Y


    But there are only Japanese subtitles on this clip someone uploaded onto youtube.

    For English-speakers who haven't seen it, it's about these innocent Chinese villagers who are pressured into taking on Japanese captives and interrogating them. A wild but intelligent comedy. The gist of the comedy comes from the fact that the interrogators are relatively pure of heart, inexperienced and unwilling to do what they have to do to their captives. Another funny recurring situation is that between the two Japanese captives, one keeps asking to be killed and the other keeps translating inaccurately into Chinese in order to stay alive.

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Entry comments (7)

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  • loctaipham
    loctaipham
    posted on Tuesday, Apr 29, 2008 7:52AM [Report]
    Funny...I saw this @ the library...checked it out...then returned it before I left! hah...How sad!

    Now, I will just have to queue it up again...heh...
  • peachey
    peachey
    posted on Thursday, Apr 24, 2008 4:17AM [Report]
    It's actually infuriating bc the film does show Japanese occupation and brutality which I think isn't shown enough in general! DOTD was silly for part of it.
  • JoanneSanderson
    JoanneSanderson
    posted on Wednesday, Apr 23, 2008 3:38PM [Report]
    I like how it's filmed in black and white. I really didn't know it caused so much controversy. After seeing the clip, I really would like to see the movie for my own opinion. But I have to say what I loved in this clip was the facial expressions, they didn't really need words for me to know what was going on. Tha'ts impressive.
  • w-bird
    Official artist Wendy Cheng
    posted on Wednesday, Apr 23, 2008 3:55AM
    Peachey: Really? Do you find it infuriating because you feel it's treating the Japanese occupation of China lightly? Actually, I have to admit that I was just surprised and impressed to see a Chinese film that satirized this situation so bluntly, and to some extent, humanized both Chinese and Japanese, and in a style which effectively reaches a western audience.  
    Yes_Tom: I think it is a comedy on a mission, where the mission is kind of  like, not to have a mission.
  • Yes_Tom
    Yes_Tom
    posted on Wednesday, Apr 23, 2008 2:01AM [Report]
    sounds like a "comedy on a mission!" At first when I read your little blurb I thought it was a film against the Japanese occupation, but now that I've read that it was banned in China I'm not so sure....

    Either way, it sounds interesting. I wish I had time to watch more movies....Just finished a documentary on Thelonius Monk yesterday called Straight, No Chaser (which was awesome), and I've got Vertigo loaded onto my iPod but I haven't started it yet.
  • peachey
    peachey
    posted on Wednesday, Apr 23, 2008 1:47AM [Report]
    It was really amazing how the Japanese POW changed so drastically from wishing to annihilate the Chinese to feeling sympathetic and gracious to them. All through the lies the Chinese translator had been feeding him. But ultimately it was him or JW's character and of course we'd rather much to save our own behinds. I don't find much to laugh about in this film. More like infuriates me.
  • invincible
    Official artist Invincible Adi
    posted on Wednesday, Apr 23, 2008 1:19AM [Report]
    wow ... nice remind me of the first time when i watched it ... !!! so funny ... it will be more funny if u understand "Tangshan hua" hehe !!!
    i like jiangwen too !!!

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  • Wendy Seo-Ling Cheng is writer/filmmaker/songwriter who graduated with a BA in English Literature from Cornell University and an MFA from Tisch School of the Arts in filmmaking, where she received a...

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  • Occupation:  Author , Director , Composer
  • Gender: Female
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