Les démons à ma porte

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.

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.

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.

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.