It wasn't until I watched Wei Desheng's "Sydek Balai" that I really understood Taiwan's history.
If "Sedek Bale" taught me a lesson, I would say that it opened a window in history, allowing us to begin to understand an event, and then to become curious about it and to begin to investigate deeply.
For me, there was really no way for me to treat Sedek Bale as a pure film.
If you ask me, is the movie "Sedek Bale" good? My answer may not be as good as expected. But if you ask me, does Sedek Bale get you anything? I can tell you that this is really more than what is taught in the textbook.
"Sedek Bale" is a history that belongs to this land, that happens in this land, and most of the people who are stepping on this land are unaware.
It is also the story of a group of people who have worked hard to defend their beliefs and cognitions in this land, even at the cost of their lives.
<h1>Generate curiosity</h1>
"Sedek Bale (Part 1): The Sun Flag" is more than two hours long, and while it is not perfect, it does not disappoint.
(hereinafter referred to as "Sedek Bale")
During the process of watching the movie, I was constantly distracted, and my mind could not fully concentrate on the plot, not because the director did not shoot well, but because I could not believe it, this was actually from the hands of a cutting-edge director with no experience in action films, and I could not believe that Taiwan could also make an epic movie that was not inferior to Hollywood!
Even if there is an international famous director Wu Yusen sitting in the supervising production, can shoot this kind of achievement, still moved me to goosebumps all over my body, and I am sincerely proud of Taiwanese films. Now, with the joint efforts of several acclaimed and well-received films, Taiwanese films have finally broken through the sky again, won high topics and high box office, and even begun to enter the international entertainment market.
Looking back, this scene of "recovery" in the film industry also has Wei Desheng's "Cape Seven" film that year.
Many viewers actually do not understand Wei Dao's insistence on challenging this difficult subject, only when he does not measure up to his own thoughts, but after watching the movie, it suddenly disappears.
I admire his courage to challenge taboos and present history objectively.
And "Sedek Bale" seems to have such an influence.
Including myself, many friends around me are curious about this history after watching the movie, so they privately checked a lot of relevant information, and when they met, they said a word to me, as if they were all transformed into historical knowledge, exchanging each other's knowledge.
Isn't it also one of the values of the film itself that allows the audience to have such a sense of verification and curiosity, and to have a better understanding of Taiwan's history?
"Sedek Bale" shocked the audience from the first sketch.
The film introduces us to Mona Rudao in the most direct way, which is the bravery of his original personality. I like this arrangement, and occasionally I envy that "reckless" momentum, that fearless spirit. It all comes from a strong faith, blood sacrifice to ancestral spirits, the use of grass to prove one's warrior qualifications, and to become a real man.
That's tradition, that's history, there's no difference between barbarism or civilization.
The title of "Sidek Bale" is said to be "Sidek, become a real person", so the film is about how the Sideks became real warriors.
The Saideks were forced by the Japanese to lose their culture and faith.
They are forbidden to tattoo, lose their traditional beliefs in totems, and cannot become "real people." After thirty years of humiliation, Mona Rudau finally chose to fight for their belief, a hunting ground that they could only enter via the Rainbow Bridge after death.
Life can be lost, and the hunting ground they enter after death is where they can never lose.
"Sedek Bale" not only faithfully presents the sense of resistance that is fighting alone, but also strengthens the impact of the identity of indigenous education entering the second generation.
One of the characters that makes me feel very much is the body of ichiro Hanaoka and Jiro Hanaoka, and it is precisely because they are not made up characters, but living past. Two Sideks chose to enter the Japanese patrol office as elementary school teachers and police officers, but they did not know where they belonged because of the Kirisame Incident.
Knowing another culture, you will begin to have a comparative mentality, And Ichiro Hanaoka and Jiro are caught between identities that neither side agrees with, but still try to move forward to accept the new culture.
When close-up of Ichiro Hanaoka's expression, director Wei Desheng must have done his homework, but unfortunately, the limited space of the film could not continue to go deeper.
<h1>The thoughts that Sidek brings</h1>
Most of the criticism of this film comes from the grass scenes, some think that it is too cruel and bloody, and even think that these films are ugly to the aborigines. This kind of thinking, in a way, is actually somewhat similar to the Japanese who think they are superior in the film.
Japan, which has become a civilized power, does not see the indigenous people "act barbarically, like beasts", but want to civilize and educate them, and rationalize all kinds of exploitation into "favors"?
In fact, not only the indigenous people, but also the early Han people, the thinking and behavior are also very different from modern times, and many can be called barbaric in modern thinking. In that era, it was possible to mercilessly beat to death a person who had done something wrong, or to impregnate a woman who went out to steal an affair. In the battle for territory, many cruel tragedies are repeated.
Every era has its own way of life, and it is actually unfair to criticize it from a modern perspective.
And even in the same era, it is not arrogant to look at one ethnic group according to the cultural habits of one ethnic group, to reject and despise their cultural habits, to have no respect or attempt to understand, to correct and coerce them wishfully, and to think that the other party should be grateful for this?
That's why I love the film "Sedek Bale."
It did not demonize the Japanese, nor did it glorify the Sideks and make Mona Rudao a great hero.
What is presented to the audience is only human nature, naked human nature.
Seeing people who are different from their own skin color and backward living standards inevitably have a contempt and bullying heart; the ethnic consciousness of treating things unfairly and favoring "their own people" everywhere; the friction and misunderstanding that gradually heats up when conflicts of interests arise... Such a story does not only happen in the Mahpo Society, not only in that primitive society, it exists all around us and is constantly playing out.
Perhaps Wei Dao deliberately did not show a part of the irrational Japanese people who maliciously treated the Sidek tribe, did not deliberately conceal the blood and ferocity of the Sidek tribe when they came out of the grass, and to some extent failed to live up to the audience's expectations for the confrontation between good and evil and the mode of evil over the right, so that when watching the movie, there was less pain and happiness, but there was always an unspeakable depression pressing on the heart.
But this balanced clip setting also brings complex layers that make people more introspective – what exactly caused this tragedy?
Monaroo has a line that says, "If civilization wants us to bow down, I will show you barbaric pride."
Admittedly, one of the reasons that prompted the Sideks to revolt was the oppression of life, almost desperate and intolerable, but more importantly, they gradually lost their pride as Sideks.
"Sedek Bale" has its own ingenious intentions, and of course, it also belongs to the director's deliberate impact on the vigour of the crowd.
The hunting grounds of the ancestors were gradually cut down;
As a pure traditional tattoo culture, it is forbidden;
Until their next generation grew up with a Japanese education...
All kinds of "cultural invasions" have made them realize that if they don't get up and do something, not only will they not be able to maintain their dignity, but even their souls will disappear.
Even the Saidek people, who were as eager as Ichiro Jiro to get rid of the shackles of the People and climb up the ladder with their intellectual ability, finally had to face up to the fact that they were always inferior and could never compete fairly with the Japanese.
So Mona Rudo said:
"The Japanese are denser than the leaves of the forest and more stones than the turbid stream, but my determination to resist is stronger than that of Mount Chilai!"
This is a national struggle.
<h1>Complex backgrounds and historical trauma</h1>
First of all, let's talk about a background involved in the movie - the Fog Society incident.
The "Kirishe Incident" is a rebellion launched by the aborigines against the oppression of the Japanese during the Japanese occupation period, which is probably the stereotype that the initiator Mona Rudao is an anti-Japanese hero, and I basically do not understand the reason for what happened in it, nor have I ever wanted to go deeper into the past, I believe that even the local people know very little about this history.
After watching "Sedek Bale", the shock left in my heart completely exceeded the original expectations.
Before watching this movie, I went to see it purely as a fan who loved Wei Dao, and I actually had a fixed number of praises and criticisms on the Internet, but I never expected that the story told by this film was far beyond my imagination, completely subverting the previous existing views on the Wushe incident.
Seriously, if it were not for a director like Wei Desheng who is full of enthusiasm and personality to make such an epic masterpiece, I think even if the Taiwanese living in this land really do not have many people who can deeply understand this history full of blood and tears!
The Wushe incident has never been a national righteousness, it is just a kind of resistance that comes from being persecuted unequally and being forced to give up their faith, and the Wushe incident is not against the state, but against atrocities.
Compared with foreign epic films, "Sedek Bale" has put enough effort into historical evidence.
The most unique thing about me is that the method I interpret is from the perspective of the closest to history, and most of the epic movies I have seen before will be beautified and embellished in terms of plot or character setting in order to cater to the audience's taste.
Although Wei Desheng's "Sedek Bale" is also somewhat embellished, he is still very insistent on his ideas for the key plot parts and presents them in the closest way to historical facts.
For example, the "grass" of the aborigines at the beginning of the film, the killing behavior in order to compete for the hunting ground and prove their ability, is a bloody ritual that is quite difficult for the audience to understand and accept now, and I believe that the audience who expected to see the beautiful side of the Saidek culture will definitely be disgusted.
I think Wei Dao must have taken this into account, but he insisted on shooting the most real side to the audience according to historical facts, and the same situation also appeared when the Final Kirisho Incident was launched, when the Sideksmen frantically slashed and killed innocent Japanese people in the school, and every scene made the audience stunned and indescribable, and completely subverted the previous view of the Kirisha Incident.
For me, I admire from the bottom of my heart that Director Wei can shoot such a historical film from such a detached and unbiased perspective, and in exchange for a Hollywood producer to shoot this movie, I believe that such a paragraph will definitely be cut, after all, not every audience can accept the hero in their minds is such a brutal image.
And this is also one of the messages that Wei Dao most wants to convey to the audience: even heroes have flaws in their personality.
The pursuit of truth is Wei Desheng's consistent fine style.
The launch of the Wushe incident was definitely the one that impressed me the most, and through Wei Dao's precise dispatch, the panic and the tense atmosphere of slaughter were captured quite gripping.
The meaning that "Saidek Bale" wants to convey is not only that the hero has his personality flaws, but also the cultural conflicts that arose during the Japanese occupation period, whether it is the long-term oppression of the indigenous people by the powerful Japanese military and police, or the people who are caught between the tribe and Japan, or the Saidek people who want to regain the cultural pride of the past.
This kind of contradiction and conflict is really difficult for modern values and perspectives to measure right and wrong, and it is difficult to put yourself in it, and it is difficult to make the most correct choice.
In the case of Ichiro Hanaoka and Jiro Hanaoka, who grew up in the Sidek tribe but received a complete Japanese education in the film, they carry the expectations of both sides, but the conflict between the Japanese and the Sidek tribe also makes them suffer from it, and they are not human on both sides;
The Japanese, Genji Kojima, who is closely related to the Sideks, is one of the few Japanese who are friendly with his people.
However, this friendship has also been turned by the occurrence of the Wushe Incident, all kinds of contradictions and conflicts are caused by the unfair treatment under the colonial culture, although there is no obvious clarity in the film, but it also vaguely conveys to the audience a message that different cultures must respect each other to avoid tragedy.
In one scene, a Saidek teenager with his peers killing an unarmed school teacher and a Japanese woman and child is shocked at the moment, and the simple teenager suddenly becomes a murderer with blood in the eyes of the audience, he listens to the elders to regain his pride as a Sidek, but is he right to do so?
He has ruined the lives of innocent people, and it can only be said that in such a complicated atmosphere, it is difficult for anyone to make the most correct choice, not to mention that he is just a clueless teenager.
Although this passage is slightly different from the historical facts, it does not make people ponder whether such a retaliatory action is right or wrong.
In addition, I also like the last scene in the movie, the camera overlooks Mona Rudao sitting under the flagpole from the air, looks at the chaotic Fog Society, and the innocent people who are full of mourning, thinking about the next step heavy and calm, bringing unlimited imagination to the audience.
Such an atmospheric and large-scale scene can suddenly make me feel extremely proud in my heart at that time, and the level of "Sedek Bale" is not at all inferior to the epic films with more foreign budgets.
<h1>The artistic expression of the film</h1>
There are many killing scenes in the movie, so many that they can be described as "rivers of blood".
Although the compact editing and the realistic performance of the actors make the action scenes full of observability, the filming is flamboyant, there is almost no common "miscellaneous fish" in ordinary action movies or war movies, each of the indigenous people who appear on the scene is murderous, strong and brave, the action is fast, fierce, accurate, and the atmosphere of the deer's death is strong, so that the audience does not dare to take a breather.
As I watched, I couldn't help but marvel at how Director Wei trained these actors. Barefoot can still run so neatly on steep slopes and gravel roads, and even climb up the trunk of a tree lightly, which should not be easy for ordinary people who live a comfortable life, right?
In addition, the use of poetry is the most amazing.
Because the lyrics are really beautiful, the aboriginal singing voice is really beautiful, but it is used too widely, and it is somewhat upsetting.
This also slows down the narrative to some extent. Personally, I personally dislike the one at the end of the final battle, because I remember it as a song that for the first time brought into the director's subjective consciousness, as if indirectly condemning the killing. In my opinion, the evaluation is still left to the audience, and the director only needs to concentrate on telling the story.
For the selection of the role in the film, it is absolutely necessary to give director Wei Desheng a big affirmation, not to choose well-known actors to play the most important roles, but to find ordinary people and unknown actors to perform. It was a feat.
Playing Daqing and Lin Qingtai in my youth and middle age, the murderous eyes of the two completely convinced me that they were the most suitable actors to play this role, and the young Mona Rudao played by Daqing had a brave and courageous personality, fearless, wild and confident like an uncontrollable beast.
And the middle-aged Mona Rudao played by Lin Qingtai impressed me even more, the look in his eyes was still full of murderousness, but also with a mature and sophisticated deep wisdom, interpreting the majestic and unconsciously awe-inspiring leader in the eyes of the clan and their children.
In addition, Xu Yifan and Suda, who played the tragic characters Ofichiro Hanaoka and Jiro Hanaoka in the incident, are also very good, and the audience can't help but be troubled by their embarrassment mixed with the Sideks and the Japanese.
In addition to the excellent character selection, the director can also cleverly let each role have enough room to play, so that the audience is very impressed with each role, and the actor's performance is definitely one of the best parts of this movie.
Mona Rudao was arranged by the Japanese to visit Japan, but what made him most memorable was the courtesy of the Japanese police. This is very different from the Japanese police at the Fog Society Patrol Station.
Mona Rudao's sister was also arranged to "govern the marriage" with the Japanese police, but in the end she was abandoned.
Although "Sedek Bale" did not shoot these into it, it made me feel that unfair and oppressive in the movie. It is only after watching the movie that the history is traced back to the conflict even more.
"If we're going to trade our lives for tattoos on our faces, what are we going to trade in for our lives?"
"Pride!"
What is pride? I think our generation may have to forget how limitless the energy that these two words can inspire. Fortunately, we also have a work like "Sedek Bale" to remind us of the quality of pride.
So to be fair, "Sedek Bale" is not perfect, in addition to being rough in animation, the editing at the beginning of the film is also slightly messy and hurried, but the atmosphere created by the director in the middle and late stages is gradually getting better and more exciting.
The final bloody battle and the last scene are also some of the best movies I've seen in recent years, not to mention the most wonderful soundtrack in the Chinese film industry in recent years, even if it is not under the slogan of patriotism and love for Taiwan, from the perspective of an audience who likes to watch movies.
I wonder if "Sedek Bale" were released now, would the box office create a miracle?
Although I don't know if the final result will be satisfactory, I think it should not erase the audience's love for this movie.
For director Wei Desheng, who is willing to invest everything to complete his dream, not blindly moving closer to the world, but using Taiwanese themes to go out of the world, I want to pay the highest respect!