Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale I

I walked out of the cinema with both surprise and worry. I'm worried because maybe this is not a very good film, especially not a good "commercial film" to make both ends meet, but I'm really glad to see that Te-Sheng Wei can still insist on his idea even in such a big production.

Before going to the theater, my first concern was whether it would become a stereotypical nationalism or humanism film, because The Wushe Incident had been represented so many times in our history class in Taiwan that it seemed to be too difficult to make this film without compromising on political correctness, but Te-Sheng Wei made it！

Sàidékè balái presented a mass of killing and death, not in a humanism or Han Chinese Nationalism way, but from the aspect of the Seediq. I have heard people arguing if it is necessary to have so much violence in this film, but I have to say that the value of peace or anti-war is the main stream nowadays but not so to the traditional Seediq that time. Therefore, I think the director is not a moral relativist, he just chose not to judge the past with today's value, and resisted the mainstream that drowned the voice of the minority.

It impressed me that there was little Chinese or Taiwanese through out this film. Instead, the film is composed of Seediq language and Japanese. We should cherish it that 80 years after the The Wushe Incident, we can finally see a film which represents historical event not based on the authority opinion but on people who didn't lead the history, i.e. the native.

then try to watch this 'Warriors of The Rainbow', and tell me if you could spot the similarities of these two movies. The invasion of the British soldiers to north America vs the Japanese soldiers invaded Taiwan; then there's a great fighter among the Mohicans warriors on par with a ferocious fighter among the Taiwanese aboriginal tribes; then again, the Mohicans got feudal sworn enemy of another tribe to the similar feud of two Taiwanese aboriginal tribes....Then when i watched this movie, i suddenly realized that the whole picture is more like when the American forces invaded Iraq, there were tribes to become the collaborators helping Americans and using them to help killed their own feudal enemies... But this is the first time that I felt this movie was a very mature production since I never found anything like it out of Taiwan. Because usually, all movies from Taiwan, the dialogs were disgustingly embarrassing feminine, males whining like females. Yet this movie is absolutely masculine and this is first time that I felt the male population in Taiwan sounded and acted more like man, not just whiners. Furthermore, this is also the first time that I consider this movie is at a higher international level with great acting, directing and cinematographic achievement. And this is very rare to me and totally win my respect back to the Taiwanese movie industry. Salute!

Wei Te-Sheng had this movie planned way before his hit movie "Cape No.7" which was a big hit. And his efforts really shows in this movie, it's basically a high budget epic from taiwan that is most definitely worth watching. On the exterior it might seem like another historical movie about Japanese occupation and invasion and how they mistreated, enslaved and also raped the people on the land they invaded. While also taking away their tradition, culture, language and freedom. Thus making the people rise up and throw a rebellion and fight the Japanese for justice, pride and freedom. But this movie has a lot of interior elements as well. It really does a good job of now going down a narrow rebellion movie but brings out the scars, the harshness and manly pride. Some scenes are uncomfortable to see but it shows the brutality and the length the rebels are willing to go. The movie takes place in taiwan during the 1895 and 1945 on a land where two tribes use to fight each other. but what happens when a more menacing enemy comes to enslave all of them? This movie is simply very well crafted with good pacing and editing. Wei Te-Sheng seems like a talented director and I am grateful that his vision his got from a comic book came to life on the big screen. This feels kind of like a taiwanese version of the movie "300" except with more substance and emotion with scars going for it. Highly recommended to anyone that enjoys historical movies with some realistic guerrilla battle tactics.

8.2/10

I wont say much about this film, but what I will say is this.... I am from England, but I have a huge interest in world cinema as well as action movies from the far East, I have been watching both for over 30 years, so I somewhat understand myths and traditions and folklore from that part of the world. Pretty much on all these accounts the film delivers in bundles, it wont be to everyones tastes, but considering where this film comes from, and what the Director has done it is incredible. You would not get a film like this anymore from Hollywood, the last film I can remember that it really reminded me of is GLORY (for those of you that know it), although that is Hollywood, and this is Taiwanese. They were both unrelenting though. This motion picture saga has...Great landscapes, beautiful haunting tribal folksongs in the soundtrack, and authentic wardrobe and sets, obviously some of the other comments that detract from the film might be fair, but this is a moving and unforgiving four and a half hour epic, where else are you gonna get to see a film like this ?

Red Cliff parts 1 and 2 maybe....but this is a Nobel and Splendid film.

An excellent movie: historical, good action, realistic, in the beautiful nature of the Republic of China, where one learns the raw violence of the eastern races, greater than that of the West.