Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale

[GeneChing]

Swords vs. Guns

Produced by John Woo.

《賽德克‧巴萊》戲院預告(HD) - Seediq Bale - Theatrical Trailer - English Subtitled

[GeneChing]

Interesting back story on this film. Now I'm more interested in it.

CHINA BEAT: Venice fuels Taiwan feud
by James Marsh, August 1, 2011 2:23 PM

There have been mixed emotions in the Greater China region this week following the announcement from Italy of this year's Venice International Film Festival line-up. Jet Li's latest, THE SORCERER AND THE WHITE SNAKE from director Ching Siu Tung, will be playing out of competition, while Ann Hui's A SIMPLE LIFE will compete for the Golden Lion along with 20 other films, including Wei Te-Sheng's SEEDIQ BALE. We have given over a fair few column inches to Wei's upcoming reconstruction of Taiwan's famous Wushe incident that saw a tribe of some 300 indigenous aborigines attempt to fend off the invading Japanese army in 1930. Opening in Taiwan next month as two separate films, SEEDIQ BALE will screen at Venice in a single 135-minute version already being labeled "the international cut." What's got the film's producers up in arms, however, is the fact that the festival organizers have listed the film as hailing from "China, Taiwan".

Not only has this riled the film's financiers who are adamant that SEEDIQ BALE was funded without any money from the Mainland, but the inference that Taiwan is officially a part of China - a point of heated conjecture between the two nations since the end of World War II. Both the film's production company and the Taiwanese government office have registered formal complaints with the Venetians, but at the time of writing the festival website showed no change to the film's information. In truth, what the festival organizers do next could prove incendiary as it is unlikely that the original information listed was any kind of clerical error. Chinese officials have a history of leaning heavily on any kind of organizational body who attempts to list Taiwan as a separate nation and were the organizers of the Venice International Film Festival to put their foot down and change the listing, they will likely incur the wrath of Beijing.

Sadly, what is more likely is that the original listing was an attempt at diplomacy towards the Chinese, and they won't budge. In turn this may very well result in Wei Te-Sheng and his producers pulling SEEDIQ BALE from the festival. While the film's production company, ARS Film Production, have not made any such threat publicly, it is difficult to see them concede to their product being labeled as Property of China when it most certainly is not. There is a third option, which is that they re-categorize SEEDIQ BALE as being a film from Chinese Taipei - a name we often see given to Taiwan in this part of the world at sporting events - but perhaps there is now too much pride at stake. Suffice to say, the festival organizers have the next move and it is one that must be played very carefully.

Back in China, Michael Bay's TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON opened wide across the country, taking more than RMB350 million last week and shattering every box office record going for a Western movie opening in the process. While Peter Chan's WU XIA still performed respectably, the excuses are piling up thick and fast as to why Party propaganda flick BEGINNING OF THE GREAT REVIVAL failed to come close to its desired record-breaking tally of RMB 800 million. Most likely in the wake of 2009's FOUNDING OF A REPUBLIC moviegoers simply got wise to the fact that the film was going to be dull, overlong and feature little more than a blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance from their favourite star. Whatever the reason, it has become a moot point and the marketplace is now clear for HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 2 to duke it out with the TRANSFORMERS for chart supremacy when the film opens later this month.

Finally, there is great news for martial arts fans living in Africa as it has been reported that Celestial Pictures, owners of Shaw Brothers' 760-film archive, has signed a deal with TV channel Sony Max to broadcast some of Hong Kong's finest kung-fu films across the continent. Among the films named in the deal are THE 36TH CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN, THE CHINESE BOXER and SHAOLIN TEMPLE all of which will be available, digitally restored, to cable and satellite subscribers in 48 different countries. If ever you were looking for an excuse to move to Africa, you may have just found it.

[GeneChing]

Taiwanese epic film draws lukewarm reception from China
2011/09/11 16:50:38

As Taiwanese enthusiastically flock to the cinema for "Seediq Bale," the biggest blockbuster this summer, reactions to the film from China had been far more muted and critical ahead of its release earlier this week.

Having been anticipated for years in Taiwan, the rare, large-scale war movie that was more than a decade in the making has provided renewed hope that the country's film industry can be revived and brought to new horizons.

The NT$700 million (US$24 million) film was referred to as Taiwan's national pride after being nominated for the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival, although it failed to win the award on Saturday.

The film was also selected as Taiwan's choice to compete for an Academy Award nomination.

All reports and comments of the epic film from Taiwan's mainstream media and critics were mostly glowing, focusing on the film's painstaking production process and its meaning to Taiwanese people.

"In terms of a film's production, Wei Te-sheng's whole process of making 'Seediq Bale' should become the textbook approach," said well-known novelist and radio program host Chang Ta-chuan.

After watching the original 4.5-hour film, Chang said it "introduces to us the attitudes and values toward life and death of the Seediq tribespeople -- a faith in reaching reunion and reconciliation through deaths."

But reports of the film's Sept. 1 world premiere in Venice from the Chinese press were a stark contrast to the film's hometown reception in Taiwan.

For instance, Taiwan's press reported the audience in Venice clapped at the end of the film for as long as 10 minutes, describing it as "a hit" at the festival.

The Chinese press, however, was far from impressed.

Headlines in Chinese online media included "Seediq Bale: Showy Pseudo-epic" and "Seediq Bale: Great Disappointment."

The Youth Daily described only a spatter of applause after the screening and that the international media appeared uninterested in the competition title.

"One of the widely-expected Chinese-language competition titles, 'Seediq Bale', drew cheerless reaction from the foreign media. Domestic press has endless negative comments on it," said the report.

Chinese film critic Zhu Xubin also called the film a "pseudo-epic that was big but empty and superficial."

The opinion echoed some international reviews on the shortened edition that showed in Venice to fit the festival's format. The director, Wei Te-sheng, admitted himself that a large part of the emotional buildup was sacrificed.

"The result is a watchable, visually detailed but uninvolving action drama that never spends enough time with the characters to engender any emotional empathy," the website Film Business Asia said.

But Wei, who said he did not set out to make a commercial film, has brushed off the criticisms.

In an interview with China's Nanfang Daily, he said, "In fact, you all worry too much (about whether audiences will like it or not). You come watch the film with a burden (of civilization) and (psychological) armament, so you are unable to get over it and reconcile."

He noted viewers can only understand the film if they leave behind their preconceptions.

"I dare to promise the Taiwanese audience would not have any problem accepting the film," Wei said.

The title took in NT$23 million (US$791,200) when it debuted at 68 theaters throughout Taiwan Friday, the highest opening-day record for any Taiwan-made film.

The storyline of "Seediq Bale" covers a 1930 revolt of the Seediq tribe against Japanese colonial forces.

The film will very likely be edited again before it can be shown in China, where no film rating system exists. Some of the violent battle scenes could be cut. By Kendra Lin, CNA Staff Reporter enditem/ly

Of course, I want to see that uncut version.

[GeneChing]

That's good news. Well Go has been doing a decent job of bringing Asian films to the U.S.

Well Go acquires Seediq Bale
Well Go acquires Seediq Bale
By Patrick Frater
Thu, 03 November 2011, 01:12 AM (HKT)


Well Go USA Inc has acquired all North American rights to Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale 賽德克・巴萊. The epic film is Taiwan's contender for the foreign language Oscar category. The deal was struck with sales agent Fortissimo Films.

The film, which premiered at the Venice International Film Festival, is Taiwan's most expensive film and has grossed over $10.5 million at the Taipei box office on release as two separate feature films. Both films are still in cinemas.

Directed by WEI Te-sheng 魏德聖, it tells of the rebellion by native Taiwanese against the occupying Japanese army in the 1930s. It features a huge cast of established actors and non-professionals. They include: LIN Ching-tai 林慶台, ANDO Masanobu 安藤政信, Vivian HSU 徐若瑄 and Mark MA 馬志翔.

"We are pleased to bring this truly epic film to North America and share another chapter of Taiwan's history with film goers," said Doris PFARDRESCHER, Well Go USA's president.

Well Go has become a major buyer and distributor of Asian films in North America and recently acquired another Oscar hopeful, The Front Line 고지전 from South Korea.

"We are thrilled that this very special and important film will enjoy a theatrical and multi-platform release in North America, through Well Go, which continues to demonstrate its growing commitment to bringing the best in world class Asian cinema to this market," said Fortissimo boss Michael J. WERNER 溫煦宇.

[GeneChing]

I'll add that to the title. Seediq Bale makes little sense in English obviously.

Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale I
Posted: 16 Nov 2011

With this four-and-a-half-hour action epic – which is screened here in two parts and as a 150-minute international cut at festivals overseas – Wei Te-sheng has followed up his gigantic box office hit Cape No.7 (2008) with the most expansive Taiwanese film ever made. Irrespective of one’s receptiveness to this new project, the director’s singular conviction in making it all happen has to be acknowledged: you just don’t throw US$24million on an aboriginal-language-speaking movie whose moral ambiguity would be worthy of most arthouse audiences (unless, perhaps, you’re Mel Gibson).

Based on the little-known Wushe Incident in 1930 Taiwan, Seediq Bale charts the head-hunting aboriginal Seediq clans’ borderline-suicidal uprising against their Japanese imperialist colonisers – right to its very grisly end. Despite its high commercial profile, Wei’s film is more Apocalypto than Avatar; and if his attention to anthropological details and his well-rounded portrayal of the aboriginal protagonists has unwittingly earned your sympathy early on, it’s not entirely his fault when you discover their barbaric side when things subsequently turn ugly – it happened in real life.

Headed by the charismatic leader Mouna Rudo (impressively played by first-time actor Lin Ching-tai), whose dignified restraint against starting war with the Japanese army is slowly worn down, the rainbow-worshipping clans will eventually see 300 of their warriors stage a massacre of their colonisers – including the unarmed, the women and the children – at a civilian sports event. The ethnic pride displayed here is undoubtedly dubious by contemporary standards, but Seediq Bale I does offer a disturbingly engrossing look at the savagery that exists equally on both sides of most human conflicts.

Edmund Lee

Dir Wei Te-sheng, category IIB, 144 mins, opens on Thursday 17, in Seediq and Japanese with Chinese subtitles only

[GeneChing]

November 25, 2011, 3:40 PM HKT
Taiwan Tribe Epic Leads Golden Horse Nominations
By Dean Napolitano

A 4-1/2-hour drama recounting the armed rebellion by Taiwan’s indigenous Seediq tribes in 1930 against Japanese colonial rule leads nominations at this Saturday’s 48th Golden Horse Awards, that honors the year’s best Chinese-language cinema.

“Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale” (賽德克‧巴萊) is up for 11 awards, including best feature film and best director for Wei Te-sheng (魏德聖) of Taiwan. So long is the movie, it’s being shown in two separate parts in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and one 2-1/2-hour film for other markets.


Fortissimo Films
‘Seediq Bale’ uses several first-time actors, something its director, Wei Te-sheng, says adds authenticity to the movie.

“Let the Bullets Fly” (讓子彈飛), an action adventure from mainland China, follows with nine nominations, including best feature film. It already claims the title for all-time box-office champion for a Chinese movie in the domestic market, earning 664.7 million yuan, or about US$105 million, according to media-research firm EntGroup Inc. It stars a trio of Chinese cinema’s most-popular actors: Jiang Wen (姜文), who also was nominated for best director, Ge You (葛優) and Chow Yun-fat (周潤發).

Rounding out the nominees for best feature film are “The Piano in a Factory” (鋼的琴) from mainland China, “A Simple Life” (桃姐) from Hong Kong, and “Return Ticket” (到阜陽六百里), a China-Taiwan production.

Audience favorite “You Are the Apple of My Eye” (那些年，我們一起追的女孩), one of the most-popular Taiwan films ever, is up for four awards, including best new director for Giddens Ko (known better by his pen name 九把刀, or Nine Knives).

The Golden Horse Awards, launched in Taiwan in 1962, are one of Asia’s most-prominent film events and focus specifically on Chinese-language movies. While the majority of the nominated films come from Taiwan, Hong Kong and mainland China, any Chinese-language film is eligible to enter. This year’s ceremony will be held in Hsinchu City, in northern Taiwan.

Follow the link for the complete nomination list (in Chinese).

[GeneChing]

Taiwan Stands Tall as 'Warriors of the Rainbow' Earns Foreign-Language Oscar Shortlist Spot
Zhang Yimou's "The Flowers of War" with Christian Bale, other East Asian contenders snubbed.
1:36 AM PST 1/19/2012 by THR Staff

Director Wei Te-sheng is now East Asia's only hope of a major Oscar this year.

The Year of the Dragon could be a good one for Taiwan director Wei Te-sheng, whose rebellion epic Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale was the only film from East Asia to find itself on the Academy's best foreign-language film Oscar shortlist Wednesday.

Noticeably absent among Asia's contenders is Zhang Yimou's The Flowers of War starring Oscar winner Christian Bale, China's most expensive production to date and its highest-grossing Chinese film for 2011. Zhang was looking for his fourth foreign-language film nomination and his first nod with his Rape of Nanjing story.

If Warriors makes the last five this weekend, it would be Taiwan's second nomination, after eventual 2000 winner Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. That movie remains the only Chinese-language film to win a foreign-language Oscar.

Wei, one of Taiwan's most commercially and critically successful directors, received the news in the middle of the Asian night. He was unsure why Warriors had made the shortlist while the rest of East Asia is staying home. Asian films played no part in any major category last year.

"My guess is that the material allows overseas audiences to look at a colorful and interesting part of Taiwan's past," he told The Hollywood Reporter in a telephone interview.

Wei hedged on his chances of progressing against a field that includes Golden Globe winner A Separation. "I haven't had a chance to see any of the other films, but it's certainly possible," he said.

However, on what a nomination alone would mean for his island home's local industry, Wei was unequivocal. "This helps the Taiwan film industry to grow and get bigger. It shows we can make Taiwan films in Taiwan, for Taiwan."
Like Zhang's Flowers, Warriors of the Rainbow also tackles Japanese occupation in Asia during the 1930s, focusing instead on an uprising by Taiwan's Seediq aborigines. Produced by John Woo, its graphic violence and long running time (276 minutes) tested audiences, but has been a box office success in Taiwan and Hong Kong. It is not slated for release in China, with its violent and Taiwan nationalist themes as barriers. Wei's earlier Cape No. 7 was a hit during its 2009 release, one of the first direct releases of a Taiwan film on the Chinese mainland.

The failure of Flowers to make the short list may be a blessing in disguise for China. Just days after the movie's world premiere in Beijing, Bale was rebuffed when he attempted to visit a blind Chinese lawyer under house arrest in coastal Shandong province. With a CNN camera crew in town, Bale scuffled with what appeared to be plainclothes police, saying "Why can't I visit this free man?" A spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry later accused Bale of "creating news."

With Flowers out of competition, China won't need to address having an award-winning film with a foreign star who is now possibly banned from visiting or working in the country again.

China claims Taiwan as a breakaway province, even though both Hong Kong and Taiwan may put forth their own candidates for the foreign-langauge Oscar each year.

China and Taiwan are enjoying their best relations ever since the two sides split following a civil war that ended in 1949. Republic of China on Taiwan president Ma Ying-jeou, who opposes full independence for the island, was just re-elected, a move celebrated by both sides.

It didn't make it.

Foreign Language Film
Belgium, "Bullhead"
Michael R. Roskam, director

Canada, "Monsieur Lazhar"
Philippe Falardeau, director

Iran, "A Separation"
Asghar Farhadi, director

Israel, "Footnote"
Joseph Cedar, director

Poland, "In Darkness"
Agnieszka Holland, director

[GeneChing]

Here's the release area, from their theatrical site.

In Theaters : April 27th
New York, NY AMC Empire 25

City of Industry, CA (Los Angeles) AMC Puente Hills 20

Monterey Park, CA (Los Angeles) AMC Atlantic Times 14

San Francisco, CA AMC Metreon 16

Cupertino, CA (San Francisco) AMC Cupertino 16

Houston, TX AMC Studio 30 HOU

Austin, TX AMC Barton Creek 14

Dallas, TX AMC Stonebriar

Seattle, WA AMC Pacific Place 11

Richmond BC (Vancouver) Silver City Riverport Cinemas

Vancouver BC Cineplex Odeon International Village Cinemas

Toronto, ON Scotiabank Theatre

In Theaters : May 4th
Honolulu Pearlridge West 16

'Warriors of the Rainbow' review: Taiwan uprising
G. Allen Johnson
Friday, April 27, 2012
Well GO USA


Lin Yuan-Joe (left) and Lin Ching-Tai are in the film about the Seediq tribe's fight against occupiers.

POLITE APPLAUSE

Taiwanese war film. Starring Lin Ching-Tai, Vivian Hsu. Directed by Wei Te-Sheng. (Not rated. 150 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)

Produced by John Woo and muscularly directed by Wei Te-Sheng, "Warriors of the Rainbow" is Taiwan's "Braveheart," with a nod to "The Last of the Mohicans."

Based on the true story of a 1930 uprising (the Wushe Incident) by the Taiwanese aboriginal tribe Seediq against its Japanese military occupiers, it is bloody and overlong, but has great heart and an interesting insight into the cultural traditions of the Seediq, an indigenous people who have struggled for rights much like American Indian tribes. Many of the actors in the films are actual aboriginal tribespeople.

The spine of the film is the elder but virile chief Mouna Rudo (Lin Ching-Tai, an Aborigine making a magnetic acting debut), who leads the revolt that massacred more than 130 Japanese, but ultimately cost the lives of more than 1,000 Seediq.

The original version ran about 4 1/2 hours; at 2 1/2 hours, the international version shown here seems a bit much. But it has commitment and style, and you can see why Woo, the noted Hong Kong action director, would want to produce it: It fits right in with his "heroic bloodshed" cinematic legacy.

G. Allen Johnson is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. ajohnson@sfchronicle.com

[GeneChing]

Excellent ultravi. A native Taiwanese tribe fights off Japanese invaders - barefoot machete & bows vs. machine guns, grenades & biplanes. This is a great jungle warfare flick. The tribe are headhunters so there are a lot of decapitations. It's almost 3 hours long and I never lost interest. There's a story too, with complex characters even, and it's not at all distracting from the fight scenes - quite the opposite really. There are themes of traditional warrior codes, native cultures, rascism/culturalism, modernization, honorable deaths, transition to manhood, and did I mention there were lots of decapitations? Sword fights? Hell yeah, machete vs. gunto. A perfect dose of the ol ultravi - goes great w/some moloko+.