Pessoas-Pássaro da China

"The Bird People in China" is one of those films you hear very little about, but that piques your curiosity after reading the synopsis. And then you watch it and realize what a gem it is.

Japanese filmmaker Takashi Miike is renowned for his ultra-violent films. This is a delightful departure for him and proves what a tremendously versatile director he is. Yes, there are some snippets of violence, including a rather brutal machete attack. But that's all offset by the film's wonderfully whimsical nature.

The film revolves around a Japanese businessman sent to a remote Chinese village to inspect the jade mines for his company. Along for the ride is a yakuza man to ensure the businessman's company's debt is paid off.

The film not only chronicles their colorful journey - those turtles must be seen to be believed - but then taps into the characters' psyches as they reach the village and suddenly find themselves trapped there. These two disparate men both find themselves enchanted by this magical place.

I won't give away much more of the story because you really should watch this film. Miike injects magical realism into his story and some moments are beautiful in every sense of the word. There's also plenty of humor. The van scene is positively hilarious, especially given the driver's deadpan reaction.

The film's very much about our need to dream. But it also tackles important issues such as the encroachment of civilization and the importance of keeping some places pristine and innocent, no matter how valuable they might be to the rest of the world.

If you like interesting foreign-language films that open a whole new world, then do yourself a favor, see this film. You will not be disappointed.

I've just finished watching The Bird People in China and have skimmed the other reviews on IMDb. Like most of the others, I do enjoy Miike's work, though not to the level of unconditional love that seems to be common here. In my limited experience, around nine Miike films so far, none have been a waste of time and several are fairly amazing. Notably Audition, though definitely not for the faint of heart.

This film left me with mixed emotions. It truly has touching moments, but it also suffers from common issues with Miike films... disjointed structure, unmotivated action (particularly from the Yakuza character), a bit of excessive violence, a kitchen sink approach to ideas... every possibility explored, even when simple would have been more effective, and finally a liberal borrowing from other films. In fact I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned in other reviews. Miike clearly took much of the premise and emotional content from the movie Local Hero. A corporate drone begrudgingly travels to a remote village and, to his amazement, is touched by the locals and the lifestyle. There's more to the similarities but I don't want to give away too much. Though I will note that he pays homage to his source material by throwing in a Scottish song as a major motif. I also didn't buy into the ending... it seemed to detract from the more realistic aspects of the film.

All of this aside, the film is worth seeing. The scenery is amazing and fairly unique, the photography handsome (considering the budget), Masahiro Motoki as Wada is quite good (as he was in Okuribito/Departures), many of the secondary characters are wonderfully drawn (another Miike specialty), it's genuine and funny at times, and it takes you on an unusual journey, an actual adventure... rarely a dull moment.

Another gorgeous film from Miike (is it the filters, film stock, or the Chinese landscape that makes it all so visually engrossing?) that trades in incessant, sensationalistic violence for light-hearted (relatively speaking) fantasy. Which is not to say that Chûgoku no chôjin avoids heavy social topics while maintaining its calm demeanor: the inevitable encroachment of civilization, and the assimilation/annihilation of traditional rituals and beliefs in the sweep of modern culture are issues thoughtfully explored along with arresting images of unspoiled Chinese vistas by frequent Miike collaborator Hideo Yamamoto. An unusually pensive yet rewarding experiment from Miike, and one that continues to prove there is much to his oeuvre besides global destruction, excruciating torture scenes, and zombie dance numbers.

I've seen this Japanese movie on the 48th Melbourne International Film Festival. It is such one of the great films I have seen. I think the novel should be a good starting point of this film. It is the story about Japanese business, development, money and high technology to a far far away village in Yunnan, China. Certainly, some people argue that pure nature would be destroy and they can do anything to against the project of development. The researcher team difficultly get there. When they finally are in the village, people there are very nice. The villagers believe that their ancestor could fly. What is the truth that the team discover? Go to watch this movie. You are going to know then.

Anyway, I wouldn't love this film if the end wasn't like this. You need to see this perfect end by yourself. There is no word to explain. As well, you need to go to listen to the theme song. It makes me mad about the sadness of the character.

Takashi Miike is the living definition of the word "indefatigable". In a career that began in the early 1990s, he has directed a staggering number of films in a mind-boggling array of different genres, from horror to family films, even a musical (!); but Miike is probably best known for his Yakuza (Japanese gangster) films. The likes of FUDOH, ICHI, and DEAD OR ALIVE, with their over-the-top violence and surreal (often disgusting) setpieces, are Miike's chief claim to fame. In one respect that's a pity, because every once in a while, Miike will produce a wild card, and BIRD PEOPLE IN CHINA is a film that fits into that latter category. The man character is a young Japanese executive named Mr. Wada (Masahiro Motoki), who is sent by his boss to a remote region in the wilds of China to survey a supposedly rich jade mine. He is joined on his trip by a Yakuza named Ujiie (Renji Ishibashi), who plans on taking the jade as payment for some outstanding debts on the part of Wada's boss. After they are taken as far as the train will go, Wada and Ujiie are met by their guide, the absent-minded Mr. Shen (scene-stealer Mako), who takes them through the rugged, unsettled terrain of rural China, first on foot, and then on a raft pulled by several huge sea turtles. When the three men finally reach their destination, a village left untouched by the ravages of industrialization, Wada and Ujiie have a few epiphanies that will prove to make leaving rather difficult. It sounds like a simple story, and it is, but there's something about this film that makes it great, but that I find hard to articulate. No doubt the startlingly beautiful cinematography by Hideo Yamamoto has a lot to do with the film's hypnotic quality. And then there's the genuinely touching story of two men who discover a whole other side to themselves that they were never previously aware existed. And finally, the film's deft blend of genres is seamless: it shifts gears from a screwball/buddy comedy to a jungle-bound adventure to an existential rumination on identity and civilization, finally ending on a dream-like note of perfect serenity. There is one scene of Yakuza violence that seems inserted to remind us that we're watching a Miike film, but it's fleeting and, compared to some of what can be found elsewhere in his films, it's utterly tame and inoffensive. There's also an ecological message packed into the mix. So, final verdict: for fans of Miike who wonder what else the man is capable of, I highly recommend BIRD PEOPLE IN CHINA, surely the gentlest and most poignant of all the man's movies (at least that I've seen). For the truly open-minded aficionado, there is much to be enjoyed here.