Commentaires des utilisateurs

This is truly a masterpiece. I didn't plan to write a comment, but there are only 15 comments. Then I found out that it was banned by the Chinese State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television due to its political incorrectness. So I am compelled to write a comment. This film was never released in mainland China. Is that government that afraid? Why do the Chinese filmmakers have no freedom? Those great Chinese directors, actors can not live on forever. When will the Chinese filmmakers have the freedom to make films that they want, so those films can be forever treasured by the generations forever.

This film reminded me of the other film called "Life is beautiful." They are both funny and about world war II. So few people in the West knew about the Japanese invasion of China during world war II, and millions of Chinese were brutally killed. Who could have thought that this kind of war movie can be super funny and meaningful? If they can give Oscar to "Life is beautiful" and "Schindler's List", they should also give Oscar's Best Foreign Film of the year or maybe Best film of the year to this film. This is just a rare epic coming from China. I have seen quite a few so-called best foreign film of the year given by the Academy, they were not great at all.

Most of the Chinese and Japanese actors were pretty good. However, David Wu as Major Gao did not perform well. When he first appeared, he actually was speaking Cantonese instead of the standard Mandarin Chinese. Then when he was delivering his speech, he also said a few words in Cantonese. Overall, he doesn't look like a Chinese nationalist army major at all.

Comparing to "Life is Beautiful", this film lacks of the beautiful music. I can laugh and cry when I watch "Life is beautiful." I can only laugh and feel sad when I watch this one.

There is no question that the Japanese occupation of mainland China during WWII was marked by unimaginable cruelty and actions so barbaric that any sane human being would shudder at the description of them. This is all obvious to anyone who has had an unbiased, detailed education of that dreadful time period. On the surface, Jiang Wen's film touches on these acts to illuminate what it must have been like for the Chinese to cope with the Japanese "devils". But a thorough viewing of the film reveals so many more questions not just about the Chinese and Japanese but about the universal relationship between war and humans. Wen directs this film in a peculiar way. He uses comedy that forces us to laugh at things that we shouldn't. You find yourself smirking or smiling in moments until you catch yourself and remember that the whole scene in which you were laughing at was where character's lives were at stake. Most people will read this and not see what is so masterful about this approach. What makes Wen's quirkiness work is that it illuminates the naivety of human beings while at the same time brings these characters to life, which in the end leaves us trembling with emotion. It is a film that transcends common conceptions about war. A masterpiece.

Do I feel late to the party on this one - how could I overlook this for the last 4 years? I was floored.

Watching "Devils on the Doorstep" reminded me of the first time I watched "seven samurai". Barring obvious comparisons such as being shot in black & white, using a combination of drama and comedy, and finishing it off with a startling ending, the movie's sense of time was fluid thanks to an excellent screenplay. Although the movie is lengthy, like many gems of Asian cinema, it was anything but a chore to watch it.

The plot is deceivingly simple, come alive thanks to Jiang's poetic directorial style. His characterization is succinct, but evocative, built up from his own personal memories. His vision of war has many ties to US cinema, with delirious, often hauntingly surreal, images of people trying to reconcile their own individual nature with that of being part of a collective.

I can see why Chinese censors would take offense to the film. China is painted as the victim that it is so often stereotyped as. However, with the country's continued objections against the Japanese glossing over wartime indiscretions, it could be seen as having nationalist overtones. I don't see the film as necessarily sympathetic to the Japanese: at the end of the movie, they are still the "devils". Additionally, when the plot is extrapolated outside of the film itself, the irony is of course that Japan was defeated by a powerful external force due to their brash political maneuvering.

This is the second time I see this film. As a Chinese, I feel a strong urge as well as an obligation to write some comment about it. I can safely conclude that the film vividly showed what the real situation was during the Japanese occupation in China back in WW2.

It is totally different from those main-stream anti-Japanese war films we can see throughout our early life, which still can be seen being replayed in CCTV (China Central Television) over and again again. In those films, almost all Chinese, young or old, men or women, were all warriors fighting against the Japanese invaders. We all know that it wasn't true. From this film, we can see how ignorant and stupid those Chinese peasants were. It gives us a chance to review what was really going on during that time. It is a history we cannot deny. As a matter of fact, this film was banned in mainland China by some kind of a "censorship" mainly because it revealed so much truth.

The director of the film, Jiangwen, is my only favorite director from China. You can say he is ambitious, a genius or whatever. But i say that he is a director with a sense of responsibility to our nation, to our people, to those heroes and civilians died in the war. He is not afraid to dig up the less-bright side of the history and present it to us, to those younger generation who never go through the war. It reminds us never to forget history.

After enjoying the excellent In the Heat of the Day, I really looked forward to watching this movie and had high expectation on it, and I certainly wasn't disappointed.

This movie is a tragi-comedy about the Japanese invasion of China, which of course is no laughing matter, but this movie is genuinely funny and never falls into the bad taste category because it shows you the brutality of war and how it affects the Chinese people (albeit from a different angle than one would expect).

The ending, which I am not going to give away, is excellent and I think it is the most courageous war movie ending I have ever seen. However, one thing about Jiang Wen's movies is that they are so technically interesting that it is difficult to see what his movie is about as a whole.

Anyway, I highly recommend this film.

I will agree with my fellow reviewers that this is indeed a very well-made film. It is well-shot, well-acted, thoroughly moving and at times amusing. The way it lulls the audience into a false sense of security is very skillful, and I was genuinely speechless and rooted in place when the climactic, but not final, scene came along. This is something that despite watching countless films, I am not accustomed to.

HOWEVER, I am absolutely astounded that nobody else has read this as a horribly dehumanising account of the Japanese. Before anybody starts saying that the Japanese army in WWII committed some horrific atrocities, I know this full well. However, it is the way that this film goes about portraying this message will truly disturbs me in a fashion that is cinematically brilliant and all the more worrying for that reason.

The Japanese soldier who is captured by the villagers is well-crafted. To begin with, he is understandably somewhat uncooperative with his captors. However, over time his human side comes out in often comic fashion, and we begin to develop some kind of sympathy for him and feel that he has come to develop sympathy for his captors. Unfortunately, this is all utterly shattered later. Likewise, the Japanese general initially impresses us with his sense of honour despite his fierce nature. Again he is set up as somebody who has developed some kind of sympathy for the villagers and has acted honourably. But, without spoiling the latter part of the film, he then completely derails any such thoughts and proves that, deep down, he is a completely evil swine. His logic for his acts is utterly ludicrous, and demonises the Japanese. This film is let down by the fact that it portrays the Japanese as pure evil. It suggests that even when they seem nice on the outside, they are still backstabbing devils.

I understand that the Chinese are very bitter, and rightfully so, for the atrocities committed against them by the Japanese during WWII. And I don't blame them whatsoever for showing this side of the Japanese army. After all, our own cinema has repeatedly and rightly depicted the Nazis as evil. However, what concerns me is the total lack of any of the Japanese characters coming out as in any way good people. They all, to a man, come out as barbarians. The biggest missed opportunity was for the captured soldier to refuse his order near the end and die honourably. But no. Even films about the Nazis that are as harrowing as Schindler's List have Germans we can be sympathetic with. Devils on the Doorstep, sadly, only creates a veneer of decency around some of the Japanese characters, whilst using this as an effective tool to deride their 'true nature'.

I found this film very disturbing and disappointing for this reason. But, as I say, it is very well-made, and well worth watching. I just hope that viewers don't fall prey to the message beneath, and that the film has not done too much damage to already tense race relations between the Chinese and Japanese. If I had not found the film so inherently racist, I would have awarded it 8 out of 10 (I'm a harsh marker), perhaps even nine. But it will have to be a 7.

Oh, and I'm confused by a previous review which claims the film is too long for the subject matter. Too long for a story about a war?!? I personally never felt it was too long.

Devils on the doorstep is a living proof that they can do beautiful and interesting historical films in China. Even if it is way too long (2 hours and 44 minutes) for this rather simple story, this film about the Japanese occupation of China, is well worth seeing if you get a chance.

Most of mainland movies about the Second Sino-Japanese War are fairy tales. The basic tune is that, Japanese are stupid, evil, and weak, and Chinese are smart, decent, and strong. This movie is one of the very few trying to illustrate a real slice during that war.

"guizi lai le" is the most improtant chinese film since 1988 when zhang yi mou's "hong gao liang" won the golden bear in berlin. it's a great film to prove the jiang wen's thinking of the whole anti-japanese war and the real chinese,gave us a new version of chinese.

Although the movie has been released in the year 2000 and shot little before that, it does have the feeling of "older" movies. What do I mean by that? Pacing wise it takes the route classic war movies have taken before it and doesn't opt for the MTV Generation cuts/pace (I watched the nearly 3 hour version).

I called this a war movie, but don't get excited about fight scenes, it's more a drama! Saying more than that, might spoil something so I leave it at that! Just be aware of that fact, before you watch the movie! It's very well acted and you're unaware of where this will go! Which I think is great! Although it changes kind of "direction" near the end, it fits the movie (imo).

This film is a masterpiece. The first time I saw this film was in senior heigh's class when I was in China. And to those reviewers who know nothing about China, except the issue when the film first went public, this film is the representative work of Jiang Wen which is spoken highly by the Chinese audience. It never goes underground and now it is accessible everywhere on Chinese video website. One less thing to criticise us, what a pity.

I usually only watch Japanese Samurai movies and Japanese anime'. I tried a few Chinese Martial Arts movies and was really annoyed with them. The production, acting and plot are very poor.

I ordered this from NETFLIX thinking (for some reason) that it was a modern Japanese samurai story. So when I saw it was made in China - not just Hong Kong, but mainland China - I was hesitant to watch it. Having nothing else to watch I decided to watch this movie thinking it was about their form of martial arts and give this genre' a chance - one more time.

First off, it takes place during the Japanese occupation of China. (I won't say any more.)

My impression was that this movie is nothing short of perfect. It is film of the highest form. I don't say that about many movies, although I like movies in general, I have said this for only a few. Everything is done right - from cast to production to editing. If I was a director this movie would have made me think over my entire career - and have me learn from it. 12 out of 10.

-LD

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my faith: http://www.angelfire.com/ny5/jbc33/

As others have already stated, this is a marvelous work by Wen Jiang. The setting was beautiful and the cinematography was outstanding. Western audiences may be unfamiliar with the Sino-Japanese conflict but elements of the story transcend that. I will re-watch it carefully but, on first viewing I could not figure out who "me", the kidnapper, was. There is a possible clue however. "me" points a Mauser pistol at Ma Dasan in the opening scene. Mausers were "en vogue" with many Chinese warlords of that era. Was this a coincidence or a subtle hint? Was "me" therefore Chinese? Why would a fellow Chinese person saddle Ma Dasan and his village with such a disastrous assignment?