You see, the beautiful rainbow, at the other end of the mountain,
Wife and children! Did you brew the wine well?
Drink it! Wine dedicated to ancestral spirits.
You see, the beautiful rainbow, it was the ancestors who summoned me.
Wife and children! Are you on your way to the ancestral spirits?
It's time for us to hit the road too!
I always thought we couldn't make an epic blockbuster like Braveheart, but a trip to Taiwan changed that. On the bus from Taipei to Kenting, the leader of the car put a film, at first I did not care much, in the groggy center absently watching, and then the more sober I watched, the more exciting I looked, and even sometimes I could see goosebumps, so that some of the visiting points were just skipped, hurry back to the car to let the leader put the film, at that time remembered the name of the film - "Cideke Balai", and later searched for this film several times, it was really a shocking blockbuster.
"Saidek Balai" is about the famous Kirisame Uprising in the 1930s when Mona Rudao, the leader of the Mahepo Society of the Saidek ethnic group in Taiwan, led a clan uprising against the Japanese under Japanese colonial rule. Balay means "real man" in the Saidek language. From the narration of the cartoonist Qiu Ruolong, who excavated this historical event, the tragic heroic deeds of the "Wushe Uprising" and Mona Rudao are really singable and tearful, and shocking people's hearts. Wei Desheng, the director of "Cape Seven", was shocked by reading Qiu Ruolong's comics, spending NT$700 million and spending 12 years to make this epic blockbuster.
Under the rule of the Japanese, the Saidek lost their hunting grounds for survival, lost the traditional way of life of men hunting women to weave colorful clothes, were forced to engage in logging and other work, built the so-called modern civilized life, and even lost their culture and beliefs. The self-proclaimed civilized Japanese regarded the Saidek as barbaric, the Sideks were forbidden to stripe faces, were forbidden to go out of grass (hunting the head of the enemy), under the rough rule of the Japanese, the ancestral hunting grounds were cut down, and the Sideks lived a humiliating life in scolding and scolding. The most terrible thing is that such a life makes them completely lose the hope of reuniting with their ancestors through the rainbow bridge after death, because Sedek's belief is that they are entitled to tattoo their foreheads and cheeks by hunting the head of the enemy before they die, and only when they have tattoos can they become real men, can they get married, and only after death can they walk through the rainbow bridge to the hunting ground of the ancestral spirits. Under the rule of the Japanese, the Saideks not only lost their hunting grounds and freedom, but also lost the hope and destination of life. In a day-to-day, year-after-year of patience, Morarodo angrily exclaimed, "If civilization wants us to bow our knees, I will show you barbaric pride." "The Japanese are denser than the leaves of the forest, and there are more stones than the turbid stream, but my determination to resist is stronger than that of Mount Chilai!" "If we're going to trade our lives for tattoos on our faces, what are we going to trade in for our lives?" "Let's exchange pride for it!" What is pride? Growing up in peacetime, it is hard to appreciate how terrible the energy that these two words can inspire, and "Saidek Bale" reminds us of the power of pride.
"Sedek Balai" is not only a peasant uprising film against tyranny, it covers a very rich content, the description of the characters is also very complex, and the connotation of the film is deep and thick. The film does not demonize the Japanese, nor does it glorify the Sideks, and all that is presented to the audience is humanity, naked humanity. In the film, there are Ichiro Hanaoka and Jiro Hanaoka, who grew up in the Saidek tribe but received a full Japanese education, who carry the expectations of both sides, but the conflict between the Japanese and the Saidek tribe makes them suffer and cannot be relied on. The Japanese, Who are closely related to the Sideks, kojima Genji, are also deeply involved in contradictions because of the conflict between the two sides. Conflicts abound due to this difference in perception and inequality in colonial culture, including a scene in which a Sailor teenager leads his companions to kill an unarmed school teacher and Japanese women and children, watching a simple teenager turn into a fierce killer in the blink of an eye, and he listens to his elders to regain his pride as a Sidek, but these shots bring mixed emotions to the audience.
In "Sedek Bale", Mora Rudao and Saidek are heroic and strong, iron-boned, and the opponents are also fast, fierce, and accurate, and the battle scenes make people hold their breath, the nerves are highly tense, there is no sense of false emptiness, which is very fascinating.
In addition to the fierce battle scenes, complex cultural conflicts, and deep tribal conflicts, there are also many shocking scenes in the movie, such as the scene of the Mahepo women dying en masse in order not to drag the men who fought, the fierce battle in the cherry blossoms blooming all over the mountain, the dialogue between Mora Rudao and his dead father under the Rainbow Bridge, etc., the scene is tragic and beautiful, which makes people shocked and sighed!
The nation is the world, and Wei Desheng has made Taiwanese films go global with "Cape Seven" and "Sedek Bale".