鬼子来了 Devil at the Doorstep

They were showing this at the National Film Theatre in London, so I went to see it.

Can't say I liked the film much. It was far too bleak for me, and I can quite happily sit through the bleakness and depression/unhappy ending of a Korean film, but this took it to a new level. It was also a very long film.

It's hard to describe, but it's kind of a cross between Jean de florette, Seven samurai (ie peasant humour), 'Allo 'Allo (i.e. wartime comedy involving occupying forces), JSA, Schindlers list, and Catch 22.

My friend who I saw it with, didn't like it either. However apparently it's a very well regarded film.

Spoilers: couldn't really understand what the movie was trying to say, was it that everyone is essentially a bastard? Did seem pretty anti nationalist, with the least likeable character being the Nationalist officer, who for some reason decided to speak a bit of Cantonese when operating in the area around the Great Wall.

I thought it was a pretty good movie. I think this film showed the occupation of China by Japan in (what I imagine to be) a fairly realastic portrayal. Also, not all Japanese were universally evil.

I also really like Jiang Wen. There were quite a few funny parts (like the shagging and 豆子 scenes) I do agree that it is depressing, but it's hard to do an up-beat occupation movie.

I saw this a couple of weeks ago, and would agree with those who say it's one of the best war films ever made. I thought it was very good at contrasting the difficulty the Chinese peasants had, as ordinary people, in agonizing over how to deal with their captives humanely, with the later brutality of the Japanese, and in giving an idea how the Japanese could have been made to act in the way they did.

The Chinese government didn't like this movie, either.

http://ifmagazine.com/new.asp?article=1126

CHINA BANS DIRECTOR JIANG WEN FROM MAKING FILMS

Published: 7/14/2000

THE SKINNY: SCREENDAILY reports that Chinese actor-director Jiang Wen has been banned from making films for seven years by the Chinese Film Bureau. His film DEVILS AT THE DOORSTEP (GUIZI LAI LE), about China during the time of Japanese occupation, was judged as insufficiently patriotic.

Jiang, who starred in several films by Zhang Yimou and turned director with 1994’s IN THE HEAT OF THE SUN (YANGGUANG CANLAN DE RIZI), is banned from appearing on film or TV for seven years and is not allowed to direct or produce. Dong Ping, who executive produced the film, receives a two year ban and is to have his name removed from Ang Lee’s CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON, which he co-produced.

DEVILS, which won the Grand Prix at this year’s Cannes festival, was also denied a certificate allowing its release in mainland China. As a knock-on effect, the Chinese release of CROUCHING TIGER - which does have a certificate - has also now been postponed.

"It is a terrible shame that the Chinese people will not now see this fantastic film," said Wouter Barendrecht of the picture’s international representative Fortissimo Film Sales.

According to news agency reports the Chinese authorities argue that the film "seriously distorts Chinese history," and is not sufficiently patriotic. Apparently the Chinese soldiers do not hate the Japanese army enough and too much time is given to the Japanese national anthem and national flag: "Demonstrating the power of the Japanese army this way hurts the feelings of the Chinese people." The film was also qualified as vulgar for showing a donkey on heat.

IMDB link.

Can't let that article be posted without pointing out that they didn't ban Jiang Wen at all, as the above link shows - most if not all of those post 2000 films had mainstream cinema releases in China. Best not to pay much attention to huffing and puffing from 'Chinese authorities', especially when they are not even named. It would also be interesting to know what effects the 'banned in China' label has on attention paid at film festivals. . .

Also from that article -

Zhang Yimou was prevented from travelling to Cannes and later to the Oscars with his film SHANGHAI TRIAD after making a controversial documentary about the Tiananmen Square massacre.

What is this documentary? I've never heard of it.

EDIT: I suspect the above is a misunderstanding of this

Chinese authorities told Zhang not to attend the New York Film Festival in 1995 where his film "Shanghai Triad" was chosen for the coveted opening slot at the event. Beijing was angered after the festival showed a documentary about the bloody 1989 crackdown on student-led pro-democracy demonstrations.

(five dollars says this page won't load now . . .) - no, it's ok

The author made a mistake. It's not a documentary made by Zhang Yimou. Rather, Zhang was prevented by the Chinese govt from attending the festivals because they were showing the documentary "Gate of Heavenly Peace," which Zhang had nothing to do with.

http://www.filmscouts.com/scripts/diary.cfm?Festival=ny95&File=2773

Edit: Sorry about stepping on your heels again, roddy.

Here's a Time magazine article about the ban.

http://www.time.com/time/asia/magazine/2000/0724/china.jiangwen.html

Yet the Film Bureau's view is rustic in its naivete. "The language used in the film is offensive in many places," the report notes. (A frequent epithet is "turtle-f---er.") "There is also a shot of a nude woman. In general, the style of the film is vulgar." It also says Devils is too nice to the Japanese and too critical of the Chinese. "The evaluation basically accuses Jiang of intentionally vilifying the Chinese and beautifying the Japanese invaders, of being a neo-fascist and national traitor," says a Chinese producer. "That's a very serious accusation." It is a mirror of charges from Japan's ultra-right groups, which see the film as a slur on its military. These groups are reportedly trying to keep Devils from being shown in Japan and threatening to harm the Japanese actors who appeared in it.

The Film Bureau in Beijing is slated to be dismantled as the state bureaucracy is streamlined; some film people believe that, by stoking this controversy, the censors are trying to make themselves appear indispensible. "It seems I am caught in a political power play," Jiang says. The officials are also telling producers of a new project not to hire Jiang as a star. "They may not have the guts to tell him, 'You're banned,'" says an industry observer. "But they could put him on an implicit blacklist."

The ban is pretty crazy. There is not a Japanese character in the movie who hasn't lost our sympathy by the end, and the pretty much all the Chinese characters are shown as being basically decent, honest people trying to survive under occupation. I guess the real problem they had with it is that any resistance is almost completely absent from the film. It also shows the Japanese not being inherantly evil, but having been conditioned by their nationalist government. The Chinese government can't really complain that not enough international attention is paid to the Nanjing massacre, and then try to ban such a thoughtful film on the same subject.

Plus as Roddy says 'banned' in China doesn't mean much, there's copy available in my local DVD store, with the English blurb on the back saying 'it angered the Chinese censors so much they banned it'.

I hope you don't mind if I quote directly, and at length, from Ross Terrill's the New Chinese Empire (p. 152-3):

Jiang Wen, a well-known Beijing actor and film director, won the Grand Prize in Cannes in 2000 for his movie Devils on the Doorstep, set in the the Japan-China war of the 1930s and 40s. But the Chinese public could not see the film. Part of Jiang Wen's problem was similar to Ha Jin's: The foreign world saluted him as a Chinese artist, which intensified the Chinese party-state's view of him as an unreliable grumbler.

In Beijing, Jiang Wen met obfuscation. His film was not banned; nor was it approved. The Film Bureau, which must approve everything seen on China's screens, murmured that the fim had "lots of problems." The bureau spokesman's only concrete statement was to claim to artistic global extraterritoriality. The film "was shown at a film festival abroad without prior approval, which is a clear violation." A Chinese, even in Cannes, was not outside the constraints of the socialist household (jia).

Some film people in Beijing obtained a copy of the original report made on Devils on the Doorsteps by the Film Censorship Commitee of the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television. It showed the paternalism of the Jiang party-state. "The Japanese military anthem is played many times throughout the film," complained the bureaucrats. "This signifies the strength of the Japanese military and severly hurts the feelings of the Chinese people." The father-and-mother officials felt there was not hatred shown in the Chinese characters' attitudes towards the Japanese.

"It's all too much like a Hitchcok thriller," said Jiang Wen of his experiences with the party-state. "There's terror all around me, but I can't see what's going on".

Last night, I finally made up my mind to watch this movie before that DVD I bought months ago goes decayed on my bookshelf. OK, this may sounds a little weird, but for all these days, I read and reread the short illustration on the back of DVD before I actually viewed the movie, hoping to image the contour of the whole story, or more possibly to dig out how Jiangwen depicted the history. It was brain consuming, but I have to say that the divergence between movie and what I imagined, though predictable, is interesting.

One thing that never ever came to my imagination is that the theme, rather than reflects the cruelty of war, but more of uncovers the human nature and moral status at the turning point of historical period. Ma Dasan (马大三), as the representative of majority Chinese peasants then, lived under conquest in humiliation for 8 years. Alternatively, 花屋小三郎, as the representative of majority Japanese invaders, was bewitched and incented to slaughter innocent Chinese. These two (kinds of) people were by no means conciliatory in theory, but both retrieved their basic human natures when that contract of mutual trust was signed. However, when they finally realized that war endowed no sympathy, but pride to both sides, they quickly turned back into what they originally were ------ prey and insane slayer.

The whole tragedy acmed in this scene: on the exact day when Japanese platoon (I think?) was informed surrender, the leader plotted an evil massacre of all villagers as a curtain call of their invasion. 花屋, who wanted to be recognized and accepted again, declared the opening of the massacre. The casting there, IMHO, is a bit shaky which affected the vision effect as well as its meaning.