There are no big productions in Taiwanese films. This is a general consensus.
Although they often can't help but make movies very long, long, such as Cai Liang's movies that start in three hours, they don't burn money. From the Taiwan New Wave of 1980-1990 to the new trend of same-sex films now, Taiwanese films have always been a delicate model of life-oriented films, tirelessly sculpting characters and emotional details, and laying out the ability to narrate as if every one is Proust's rebirth.
But ten years ago, there was an epic blockbuster movie with 12 years of preparation, 20,000 people mobilized, and a total investment of NT$700 million (about 140 million yuan, jay Chou invested 40 million yuan), which may also be the only epic song in Taiwan, that is, "Saidek Bale".
Sidek Balai is a Sydek language meaning "real man". These "real people" are the aborigines of The Island of Taiwan, with piercings, dancing knives and guns, courtship in campfires, and hunting in the deep mountains and old forests with their bare butts. It is no exaggeration to say that they lived a primitive life of drinking blood.
Drink deer blood
The rite of passage of "Saidek Balai" is "out of the grass", that is, to harvest the heads of foreign races, and what is needed is the brute force of the knife falling from the hand, and the more heads are harvested, the more revered they are. This is much more brutal than the Indians cutting off their scalps.
The knife fell from the hand
But this film is not about how ferocious and barbaric they are, but rather, they are a group of righteous men who have been forgotten by history.
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On April 17, 1895, from the moment the Treaty of Maguan was signed, the Qing Dynasty abandoned the island of Taiwan. The inhabitants of the island suddenly lost their identities and were orphaned in the Pacific. Although the Japanese won the Sino-Japanese War, they still landed on the island as a foreign invasion.
The film opens with a parallel clip to contrast the description.
On one side, the Sideksman Mona Rudao hunts the deer in his dreams, and the completely animalistic behavior expresses a gentle nature, a pure need for survival, and a relationship with nature.
It's also quite poetic
On the other side is the "hunting" and trampling of the Han chinese by the Japanese army, and the Japanese army carries mature industrial products such as aircraft, cannons and machine guns, which is equivalent to a dimensional reduction strike on the islanders, hinting at the rules of violence implicit in modern civilization.
The two sets of rules seem to run parallel, but in fact, the expansion of the Japanese army determines that they must belong to the provocative side.
For the sake of mineral and forest resources in the deep mountains, the Japanese army hastily raised its guns and did it. They thought that the Sidek of the Mist Society was a bunch of monkeys, a bully. But Sedek stood at the top of the mountain, and with the blessing of home field advantage, he had already designed a set of original ecological defense techniques. Without much effort, a single stone killed ten Japanese troops, and soon this Japanese army was completely annihilated.
The depleted Japanese army later made a divisive plan, uniting the enemy's enemies and provoking tribal relations. And the soldiers divided into two routes, one head chasing after the strong adult male Saidek, and the other end smashing and burning their tribal strongholds.
The young Mona Rudao, unable to resist the threat of extermination, surrendered. The year was 1910, and the entire Sidek tribe began a long 20-year period of "indoctrination" by the Japanese.
How to indoctrinate it?
The inclusion of Sedek into the so-called civilized order stripped them of their status as "Sedek Bale" and then given them the status of slaves at the lowest level; stripped them of their primitive mode of production, and then turned them into coolies and servants, exploiting them unchecked; stripped them of their spiritual beliefs, and then instilled in them a Japanese education, and constantly reminded them of the inferior "raw births".
The Japanese took Sydek's land as invaders and told Sydek to cut down woods and destroy hunting grounds, which was as painful as cutting bones and cutting flesh.
The elderly Mona Rudao realized that being enslaved and assimilated was the true extermination, and indignantly said, "If civilization teaches us to bend the knee, then I want you to see the barbaric pride." ”
Instead of living humbly, it is better to die heroically.
So the proud Sidek finally plotted a complete revenge, that is, to "come out of the grass" to "sacrifice the ancestral spirits". In the early autumn of 1930, they rushed into the venue with knives while the Japanese were holding sports meetings, and stabbed each person in the head.
According to Theodek's custom, the grass does not kill the old, weak, women and children. But this time, the red-eyed Sidek hacked to death a group of Japanese women and children hiding in the darkroom. Cruel, right? It was an indiscriminate massacre.
"Sidek Bale" is divided into upper and lower parts, and if the main theme of the upper part is murderous revenge, then the theme of the lower part is desperate suicide.
In the 20 years of humiliation, Sedek has had more than 150 scattered armed resistances, and the "Fog Society Incident" in 1930 was the most thorough and intense. Because they are ready to walk the "Rainbow Bridge", that is, to die. "Rainbow Bridge" is the belief of the Sidek tribe, and unlike the Nai Ho Bridge of the past life, Saidek walking the Rainbow Bridge is heaven, representing honor and sublimation.
The Rainbow Bridge is the soul guide that Sidek regards as dead.
First of all, the most tragic, in order not to drag the women and children of the frontline soldiers hanged themselves collectively in the woods.
Then there is the most torn, because of the painful problems of self-identity caused by the Japanese education from childhood, the Suicide Ritual of the Huagang Brothers is a Japanese-style abdomen cutting, but the use of a Sidek machete. This part of the contradiction between Saidek and the entire generation of Taiwanese who followed is the same, and this problem is more expressed in the films of Hou Xiaoxian and Yang Dechang.
Finally, the most intense, the pinnacle duel between the old and the young and the Japanese army.
Although in the romanticized imagination of the film, Sedek beat the Japanese army to the ground, but historically, it was actually the Japanese army armed with machine gun cannons and chemical poison gas that almost completely wiped out Sydek.
Although they have no knowledge and learning, they have a way of life that is closely related to the countryside, and in the innate feelings of life, they have a sound temperament that is not tempted by fame and fortune and propaganda. They will never be swayed by others because they live and die in symbiosis with the land.
——Wu Turbiliu, "The Orphan of Asia"
On the occasion of the 81st anniversary of the July 7 Incident in 2018, Xinhua News Agency published an article commemorating Mona Rudao, calling it "a heroic national martyr who can sing and cry." But after the 1930 Fog Society incident, for a long time, these "heroic" deeds were the secrets of Pandora's box, and people did not dare or want to mention it, until the release of "Sidek Balai" in 2011 became a public history.
There were 1236 Sideks who united to fight the atrocities of the Japanese army, and only 298 remained. After they dispersed, they hid their names, but "the Japanese still did not let go, thinking that there were still warriors, and under the covert visit, they found 23 people, took them to Puli in the name of sightseeing, and never returned." Later, a lot of bones were dug up over there, and I believe it was them. This is the memory of Ma Jiao, the great-granddaughter of Mona Rudao.
Ma Ji Ba Maru, Chinese name Li Shuzhen
The historical Fog Society incident is not as loud as the movie. The rebellious Sidek took advantage of the early morning to raid the Mist Society, almost blindly slashing, and all those dressed in kimonos were stabbed, so that they accidentally killed two Han Chinese and a Sidek girl. In this raid, Sedek took 134 lives, 36 of which were children.
When the Japanese heard about it, they reacted quickly, again with poison gas bombs and aircraft cannons, and with the alliance of tribes that could not play with Mona Rudao to surround Mona Rudao. Trapped deep in the mountains, Sidek was either hungry and weak, or hanged himself.
The film portrays Sydek's decisive counterattack against the Japanese army very intensely, when in fact their counterattack ability is very weak. According to records, Sedek's sporadic counterattacks only killed more than twenty Japanese troops.
The surrendered Saidek remnants were "exiled" to the plains below the mountains, and they did not say anything about the past. Even if the Japanese left and the Kuomintang came, they did not talk about it, as if nothing had happened.
Historical photos
The most cruel thing is not to expose the corpses in the wilderness, but the glorious sacrifice that ends up without a trace.
"Sidekbarle" is adapted from a 1984 bloody comic strip, Qiu Ruolong's "The Incident of the Mist Society". Wei Desheng spent three years writing the script and another ten years raising funds. The issue of funding alone is enough for Wei Desheng to write a history of blood and tears of 100,000 words, so it is difficult for Taiwanese films to have large-scale productions, so it will not be carried out here.
There is still a long time to find actors, to find the original forest. Wei Desheng said: "For half a year, I walked around the mountains, participated in the wedding and funeral celebrations of the indigenous people, and secretly took photos of people like paparazzi, mainly picking eyes, with the eyes of hunters; in addition to the eyes of hunters, they also had their attitude towards the camera. "The powerful gaze you feel when you watch the movie is the gaze of a real hunter.
Among them are juvenile Mona and young Mona indigenous hunters
Wei Desheng filmed very hard, very hard, and even risked his life to shoot scenes, such as scenes on the edge of the cliff. But the social response has not been satisfactory. In Taiwan, it is indeed very sensational, and it has a box office of 700 million to 800 million as soon as it was released. However, in the mainland, at the Venice Film Festival, etc., they are not applauded or popular, perhaps because they have been cut for nearly 2 hours after re-editing.
It is a bold guess that if Wei Desheng treats "Sidekbare" as a film with extremely strong national sentiments, as xinhua news agency set the tone, rendering Saidek as a "national hero who can sing and cry". Such a more vertical angle should be able to earn hundreds of millions more at the box office.
Photos on set
But the reality is far more complex than the assumption of nationalism. For example, in reality, Mona Rudao, who led the uprising, shot and killed some of the women and children accompanying him at the end of his life, and then committed suicide.
Another example is that some of the Sidek were instigated by the Japanese to kill the rioting Sidek with the Japanese.
Therefore, Wei Desheng chose a more complex and tangled expression to constitute the confrontation between the "Sun Flag" and the "Rainbow Bridge". He hopes that the film will provide multiple perspectives, not to share the sky of the Cedek, Japanese, Han and so on.
This is actually a process of disenchantment of heroes. After disenchantment, what's left?
Contradictory people.
The victims of war either survive or are martyred. The painful struggles eventually condensed into hatred.
Hatred makes people passive and blind. They couldn't understand what each other was doing, so why destroy the hunting ground? Why cannibalism? Decades later, the faces are finally legible. Wei Desheng can dissolve the hatred that has been simmering for decades in a multi-perspective display, especially for the descendants of Sedek who have stood on different fronts, and this film can allow them to "self-dissolve".
Many people understand the film as a struggle between "civilization" and "barbarism", and if barbarism does not return, it will only end up in destruction. This logic seems thin, not exactly the main theme of this movie.
Although Wei Desheng tried to paint a spiritual map of the Saidek people in a 4-hour movie, if you understand that they must use human skulls to confirm the courage of life, then you can understand the meaning of the totem "Rainbow Bridge". But Wei Desheng didn't actually have the luxury of asking everyone to understand, as long as people could see these warriors who had been silent and stoic.
The twentieth century was a century of anti-colonialism. From Africa to South America, from the Northeast to Southeast Asia, there is already a wealth of sources writing about the history of these rebellions. After "Sidekbare", it is hoped that when people mention the historical heroes who fought against foreign invasions, they will leave a place for Sidek.
The history of Sidek deserves to be remembered.
Resources:
Walk into the tribe of Saidekbale, the Remnants of the Wushe Incident: We don't have hatred but only know how to share. 《Hong Kong 01》
After the Fog Society incident, where did the Sideks go? "Story"
Wei Desheng and Sedek Balai. Southern Weekend, Wei Chenjie
"Sedek Bale", for reconciliation with his own history, Triptych Life Weekly, Li Dongran
The Fog Society Incident. Wikipedia
Design/Vision: XIAOLI/XIAOLV
Crazy, savage, shocking, epic