Throughout Taiwan's film history of more than 100 years, the most classic anti-war film is the film released in September 2011 - "Sedek Bale".
The film "Sedek Bale" is directed by Wei Desheng, the director who once directed the film "Cape Seven", and the film took twelve years from planning to planning. The film is based on the "Wushe Incident" in the Nantou Mountains of Taiwan in 1930, and tells the story of Mona Rudao, the leader of the indigenous Sidek tribe, who led more than 300 warriors of his clan against the Japanese army of 3,000. The film is co-starring Lin Qingtai, Ma Zhixiang, Wen Lan, Qianye Tanaka, Ma Rulong, Luo Meiling, You Daqing and others, in order to show jaw-dropping war scenes, the crew mobilized and hired almost 20,000 people to participate in the filming of the film. But it's all well worth it, because these efforts end up being rewarded handsomely. The 267-minute film eventually won numerous awards and indirectly touted several otherwise obscure film and television actors.
The film's male lead actor Lin Qingtai has no previous film experience, he is a pastor of the Tribe's Presbyterian Church in Taiwan, and has been spreading the gospel in the South Australian tribe. The male protagonist of the movie "Sedek Balai" Mona Rudao is the first role he created, the initial Lin Qingtai entered the crew only because he acted as a guide, but he did not expect that Wei Desheng saw him and decided that he was the undisputed lead actor, all because he was full of unpainted domineering. Although he first touched the film, Lin Qingtai was also too nervous to almost die of a heart attack during filming, but he eventually became a hit and became a superstar supported by many star chasers. It is worth mentioning that after Lin Qingtai became famous, he did not continue to follow the shadow, but went with his wife to the Fushan tribe in the Wulai Mountains to serve the local people. Lin Qingtai had visited there before and found that many local children were either from single-parent families or had parental alcoholism or generational support problems, and children who grew up in such families had serious educational deficiencies. After Lin Qingtai went there, he took advantage of his carpentry skills to build schools and churches by himself, so that the children could receive formal education, and exchange their efforts for a change in the children's fate. Such an effort, in my opinion, is far more meaningful than being an actor.
After the Sino-Japanese War, the Qing government ceded Taiwan to Japan. The Japanese vigorously pursued a colonial policy, forcing the indigenous people to learn Japanese, wear kimonos, and perform Japanese rituals. In order to completely eliminate the bloodiness of the taiwanese aborigines, the Japanese stipulated that men were not allowed to hunt and need to perform hard labor, and women were not allowed to weave domestic servants to accompany alcohol. Under the long-term enslavement of the Japanese occupiers, the people of Taiwan gradually began to become numb, and many even began to get used to life under Japanese rule. The cause of the fight in the film is a Japanese policeman's misunderstanding caused by a quarrel, but in its bones is the Japanese people's hatred and contempt for the taiwanese aborigines into a wanton insult to the Sidek people. Decades after the Japanese occupation of the island of Taiwan, the Sedek tribal warriors seem to have begun to die. However, the Sideks, including Mona Rudo, have been quietly preparing for revenge. In the face of the brutal and bloody suppression of the Japanese as invaders, the power of faith in the blood of the Sidek warriors was reawakened. Although decades have passed since the original Killing of the Japanese, the older generation of Saidek warriors has mostly withered away, and the newborn Saidek warriors have the same faith in their fathers' blood, that is, they are not free, they would rather die.
Mona Rudao, the leader of the Mahepo tribe, who had endured humiliation, decided to lead the clan to launch an attack at the Fog Society Public School Games first, arming himself by snatching the weapons of the Japanese. At the beginning of the war, with the advantages of the Saidek warriors' familiarity with the terrain and their ability to rush to fight, the warriors led by Mona Rudao carried out an almost crazy slaughter of the colonists. After learning of the incident, the Japanese regular army did not attach too much importance at first, but only sent a small number of troops to carry out conquest. As a result, the Japanese army, which was not good at jungle warfare, was ambushed and killed by the warriors led by Mona Rudao, and it was only then that the Japanese leader began to send heavy troops to hang the Saidek warriors. In order to make the hanging successful, they also recruited the indigenous mountain people of Taiwan who had a grudge with the Mahepo tribe to participate in the strangulation. Although Mona Rudao was brave and good at war, it was difficult to escape the fate of annihilation under the strangulation of the Japanese regular army with foreign guns and cannons.
The Saidek warriors fought for their freedom with their actions, and they fought at the risk of extinction. While the Saidek warriors faced thousands of regular Japanese troops in a desperate Jedi, the elderly, women, and children of the Saidek committed suicide or were sent to the Rainbow Bridge by the men themselves, and although the Sidek warriors eventually lost the battle against the colonization, they won the respect of the enemy, including the enemy.
There is another phenomenon in the film that deserves our deep consideration, after being colonized by Japan for many years, the thinking of many Taiwanese people has changed, and they have gradually begun to identify with Japan. The Film's Saedek aborigines, Ichiro Hanaoka and Jiro, who bear the Japanese name, have always lived in a contradiction between identity and opposition, and the Japanese colonization has fundamentally stifled the history and culture of Taiwan's indigenous people, but also brought modern civilization. Schools, post offices, and railways made Ichiro, who had given up his safari life, reluctant to return to a state of barbarism, and made them deeply confused about their identity. After the outbreak of the "Kirisa Incident", Hanaoka Ichiro and others were forced to return to the clan, but they were reluctant to take up guns and fight with their brothers of the same clan, and Finally, Ichiro Hanaoka ended his life in a kimono and his wife Hanako Kawano and other family members. The film "Sedek Balai" reflects a very similar era to today, and the young generation of Taiwan, who has been isolated from the mainland for many years, has gradually developed a sense of distance from the mainland of the motherland. It's very scary, and it shouldn't be allowed to happen.
At the end of the film, the few remaining warriors of the Sidek tribe, led by the tribal leader Mona Rudo, rush to the enemy, but all die heroically in the Shelling of the Japanese Army. The real result of the "Kirisame Incident" was that the Sideks were almost completely annihilated under the siege of several times as many Japanese troops, and the few remaining old, weak, sick and disabled were also relocated to live elsewhere. Mona Rudo, the leader of the Sideks, fled into the jungle after killing his two sons and wife with his own hands, and has since lost track. It wasn't until 1933 that a hunter entered a cave while on a hunt and stumbled upon the bones of Mona Rudao. The Japanese pulled Mona Rudao's body back for exhibition and then sent it to taipei imperial university's indigenous ethnographic research laboratory as an academic specimen. In 1974, at the strong request of the Sideks and elders, the skeleton of Mona Rudao was returned to the "Monument to the Anti-Japanese Uprising of mountain compatriots" of the Wushe Society for burial.