Guizi lai le

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.