Zhong Jiang Film Review
Filmography:
On November 26, 2008, members of a terrorist organization armed with heavy weapons such as ak47s and grenades arrived in Mumbai, India, by boat, listening to the spiritual guidance of extremist fanatics coming from headphones, and thoroughly brainwashed to start a massacre in Mumbai to fight for the gods in their hearts, and the number of civilians they hoped to kill was 5,000.
One of the targets of these poor and very young terrorists is Mumbai's most luxurious five-star hotel, the Taj Mahal Hotel, which their class would hardly ever find in their lifetime.
What kind of human purgatory will their arrival make the hotel?
Hotel Mumbai is a thriller historical drama film produced by Australia / USA / India, written and directed by Anthony Maras, Amy Hammer / Nazanin Boniati / Dave Patel / Jason Isaac / Anupan Kyle / Liu Chengyu / Angus McLaren / Sachin Job / Tilda Gerham Harvey / Vipin Sharma / Abroy Singh / Diva Ani / Sandyap Boyaka / Zinia Starr, It premiered at the Toronto Film Festival on 2018-09-07 and was released in Australia on March 14, 2019. Due to the high degree of restoration of the terrorist attacks of "Mumbai Hotel", during the north American release, it was unanimously rejected by the "Hollywood Big Six", resulting in an extremely limited release scale in North America; at this year's Beijing Film Festival, "Mumbai Hotel" was played with a deleted version of up to 16 minutes at the beijing film festival, and it was unheard of to play a deleted version of the film at the film festival.
The calm and brutal narrative of Hotel Mumbai makes the film seem extremely real. The little-known Australian director Anthony Maras, who was born in Adelaide, the capital of South Australia, inadvertently watched an Australian documentary filmed in 2009, "Survivors of Mumbai", and was immediately shocked by what happened to those innocent people in the Mumbai terrorist attack, and decided to make a film with the same theme, "Hotel Mumbai".
Terrorist attacks in Mumbai
At about 21:30 on November 26, a group of terrorists carrying submachine guns and grenades broke into the Taj Mahal Hotel, Mumbai's most famous five-star hotel, and they carried out a ruthless "indiscriminate shooting" and threw grenades everywhere... Almost at the same time, nine locations, including the Oberoi Hotel, the Jewish-populated Nariman Building, a Large Market, and the most heavily trafficked CST train station, were also attacked by terrorists. Local opinion generally believes that this is the most terrifying night ever recorded in Mumbai, India's most modern city.
Indian media quoted statistics from the Mumbai disaster management agency as reporting that the nearly 60-hour terrorist attack from 21:30 on November 26, 2008 to 10:00 on November 29, 2008, killed 195 people and injured another 295 people, mainly Indians, but also included at least 22 foreign travelers.
The Mumbai terrorist attack was originally a terrorist attack launched by terrorists specifically against foreigners, especially those holding AMERICAN and British passports, but in fact most of the victims were local Indians... Afterwards, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the terrorists came from foreign forces, planned carefully, and chose Mumbai luxury hotels as targets, especially Westerners, with the aim of creating panic in India and destroying the financial center of Mumbai.
The Mumbai terrorist attack was a "ignored terrorist attack" or a horrific massacre of indiscriminate and arbitrary killings. In fact, before the bloody case, Indian, British and American intelligence services had already detected clues that terrorist groups were about to launch attacks. The early warning notice was sent to various places, but the local government in Mumbai was paralyzed and ineffective, which eventually led to a catastrophe.
As intelligent beings who now think they have successfully ruled a planet, there seems to be no shortage of self-extinct antisocial outliers among human beings, because we are so good at creating disasters, creating hatred, creating human disasters that are more severe than natural disasters: world wars, Chernobyl nuclear leaks, 9/11 incidents, Fukushima nuclear leaks... And the frequent terrorist attacks that break out around the world, we are so good at destroying ourselves. Humanity cries out all day long to save the planet, but sadly, the earth never needs to be saved, and even if all of humanity disappears, the earth will still be alive in billions of years.
It was always us who needed to be saved.
"Mumbai Hotel", which can be called the adaptation of India's "9/11 Incident", once again vividly interprets this multi-faceted interpretation of human beings, and presents us with a terrible and bloody event that once shocked the world and must be recorded in human history in an almost realistic way.
We found out that in the face of the massacre of evil people, there was no hero in the crowd who often appeared in the movie plot, only an ordinary person who fought with the lives of terrorists with their flesh and blood...
The 2-hour period of "Hotel Mumbai" is too short to fully show the whole horror event; but it is too long, and its true and even cruel record of the entire crime and the escape of ordinary people makes people look painful and will make the audience hope that it will end soon. The film not only has thrilling pictures from beginning to end, but also a display of the Islamic faith without any critical stance, and compared to other crisis relief films, "Hotel Mumbai" partially weakens the rescue and moral trial of the potential "hero" image, but only records it as a "disaster".
The director did not deliberately portray the terrorists in the play as cold-blooded murderers, but instead adopted a relatively objective perspective to present and explore the behavior and psychology of terrorists, and then showed their close to the real human side:
They will also marvel at the luxury of the hotel;
The fuss at the first sight of the flush toilet;
Fear is also felt before the heart's twisted beliefs are killed;
They even care if their families receive a pension from the organization...
From the various indications in the film, it can be seen that although these terrorists are killing people, they also have a childlike childishness in them. The instructer behind these terrorists is the Pakistani terrorist organization "Lashkar-e-Lashkar-e-Taiba", which has undergone long-term systematic training and brainwashing by terrorist organizations and have become pawns for others to realize their interests.
The best way to brainwash is religion, whether orthodox religion or cult organization, as long as the cycle is continuously exported in a closed environment, after a period of time, the brainwashed person will become a slave to 100% obedience.
It is poverty and ignorance that lead them to be easily deceived and become pawns of terrorists; out of a little profit and blind faith, they sell their young lives at a low price...
A mysterious mastermind behind the scenes in the play has been giving them orders in headphones;
Even when the terrorists were besieged by the police and saw that they were going to die, the mastermind behind the scenes told them to be "brave";
He told them that after doing this, their families would receive a sum of money and that they would go to heaven after they died.
In contrast, such talents are real terrorists, and they also show the cruelty and shamelessness of their human nature.
Fortunately, human beings are so multi-faceted, and how dark the dark human nature is, how bright the human nature is.
Most of the characters in Hotel Mumbai are artistic, with only one character using the name of the witness, and this character is Obroy, the chef of Taj Mahal Hotel. In this massacre that annihilated humanity, O'Brie used his actions to erect a great beacon for the trapped masses. At this moment, he is not alone in the fight, he represents the human society in the fight against terrorism, is the hope of people in a desperate situation, and gives everyone a shot in the arm to survive.
Of course, "Hotel Mumbai" is not Aubroy's personal heroism film, but an ode to the glorious deeds of a group of ordinary people. Terrorism cannot frighten everyone, since ancient times evil has not prevailed, even if the evil forces can gain the upper hand for a short time, sooner or later they will be suppressed by the forces of justice. Although terrorist attacks are crazy and cruel, and they can bring about killing and unrest, they will never be able to knock down the kindness and bravery in people's hearts.
"Hotel Mumbai" also shows a surprising thing is that the Indian national defense force is so weak and vulnerable, as India's largest city and economic center, Mumbai has no defense force, when the people at the Taj Mahal Hotel are being killed by terrorists, there are only four police officers who can be present, and the special forces need to be mobilized from the capital New Delhi, 800 kilometers away, when they come to Mumbai with "snails". It turned out to be a day after the terrorist attack...
And with the strength of the whole country to clear 10 terrorists, the commander of India's anti-terrorism special forces was also killed... I am really glad to see this place and live in a peaceful era under the protection of a powerful motherland.
In reality, 21 months after the incident, under the leadership of Chef Obroy, the Taj Mahal Hotel returned to its former glory, and grateful survivors came from all over the world to attend the opening ceremony.
Those who died were forever inscribed on the stone tablets.
Unfortunately, the tragic thing is that today's world of terrorist attacks and shootings are frequent, and the public has paid attention to and forgotten these events; concerned, forgotten... Cycle.
This makes one wonder: What's wrong with the world?
Fortunately, there is still goodness and justice in this world, just like the line in the play that supports Sarah's life---
If you feel scared, just jump down, you may fall, but you may also fly...
As long as goodness and justice remain, the world will eventually see a glorious moment of peace!
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