Film on uprising against Japan gets rare honor in Taiwan

I wonder when the Japan Film Board will pass it to be seen here.

why dose the "Japan Film Board" need to "pass" some kind of propaganda film promoted by KMT mainlanders who control the government/media in Taipei? It's obvious these KMT mainlander magnates have been unhappy with the incredible popularity enjoyed by 海角七號(Cape No. 7) and many other Japanophilic films produced by the Taiwanese.

rarara: Someone's a bit over-sensitive! It's a film based on history, and I'm interested in seeing it given that it might win some international awards. Just because you might be afraid of the content is no reason why I can't desire to see it myself. My comment in part was a jab at the Japan film board, who absolutely LOVE to pass movies that paint Japan as either the victim or aggressor in a positive light, but release very quietly (or not at all) movies that poke fun or paint the past actions of Japan in a negative light. Lost in Translation, which won two Academy Awards, never saw the light of day in movie theaters except in some small, repetoire theaters nearly two years after the fact, and most DVD rental shops I saw carried VERY few copies of it. The Last Samurai, on the other hand, was screened the same day as it was in the US, although a lot of people took the title so literally they complained that Tom Cruise couldn't be a samurai because he's not Japanese, same as they complained about a Chinese playing 'Sayuri' in Memoirs of a Geisha.

In other words, the Japan film board is guiltier of propaganda than you claim this film is; the difference being the film is based on history whereas the film board usually wants to deny it.

know nothing about "Japan Film Board". but if it's anything like Japanese TV industry, it must be half Koreanised due to the financial support of Pachinko money (which inevitably means yakuza connections).

Hundreds of people died because a Japanese officer refused the offer of a ceremonial drink offered by the chief of the tribe, and they went on the rampage. Great subject for a movie.

I would like to see the film before I pass judgement,

and, i highly doubt the feel-good, hate-japan, holier-than-thou "history" promoted by smithinjapan, KMT mainlanders, etc. would resonate with the non-KMT ordinary Taiwanese. after all, they are the people who love a film like Cape No.7 , which became such a huge hit because it evoked an "intense nostalgia" for their Japanese era, to the great dismay of ruling mainlanders in both taipei and beijing. powerful propaganda machine in taipei may succeed "internationally", but not within taiwan.

This is ironic because those aborigines were relieved of their foreign Japanese masters only to be subjugated again by fleeing KMT elements from the mainland.

and, i highly doubt the feel-good, hate-japan, holier-than-thou "history" promoted by smithinjapan, KMT mainlanders, etc. would resonate with the non-KMT ordinary Taiwanese. after all, they are the people who love a film like Cape No.7 , which became such a huge hit because it evoked an "intense nostalgia" for their Japanese era, to the great dismay of ruling mainlanders in both taipei and beijing. powerful propaganda machine in taipei may succeed "internationally", but not within taiwan.

LOOL! intense nostalgia for their Japanese era? LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!!! no one feels nostalgia over the occupation by the barbaric japanese imperial army who caused suffering among the people of taiwan

funny how people call this a 'propaganda' film. why? because it doesnt show japanese soldiers acting like the saints as written in japanese whitewashed text books?

jackiengSep. 04, 2011 - 11:25PM JST LOOL! intense nostalgia for their Japanese era? LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!!! ]

just google [ "Cape No.7" nostalgia taiwan japanese ] http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Cape+No.7%22+nostalgia++taiwan+japanese&btnG=Search&hl=en&source=&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq= or, ["intense nostalgia" taiwan japanese "Cape No.7" ] http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Cape+No.7%22+%22intense+nostalgia%22++taiwan+japanese&btnG=Search&hl=en&source=hp&rlz=1W1GWYH_ja&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq= or, just [ taiwan japanese nostalgia ] http://www.google.com/search?q=taiwan+japanese+nostalgia&btnG=Search&hl=en&source=hp&rlz=1R2GWYH_jaJP411&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=

feel very sorry to mainlanders in taipei, beijing, etc. but, it seems imposible to deny the truth.

@rarara Sounds like you don't know Taiwan at all, maybe you should try learning more about it?

1) Cape No 7 (that you love so much) and Seediq Bale are directed by the same director who also happened to write both screenplays. Propaganda hmmm?

2) As a anime fan who loves Japanese culture, I at the same time enjoy history being presented. What Japan did before has no relation to what Japanese are today, and I feel no grievances whatsoever. Yet history is what history is, it's silly to try looking at it through rose tinted glasses. What you're doing is akin to a German complaining about Schlinder's List. It happened, deal with it.

3) The leader of the opposition also attended the premier screening, with the director calling the attendence of both the president and the leader of opposition a rare show of political cease-fire. No one in Taiwan seriously considers Seediq Bale a government propaganda, if you're thinking otherwise I suggest you find better sources that's not written by someone with an axe to grind.

as a matter of course, i have known the fact that both of them were directed by the same director.

and, as a part Taiwanese myself, i am quite familiar with things Taiwanese, including complicated ethno-national politics and more obviously my great granparents' excessive nostalgia for the Japanese era. (but, even my great grandparents are not so extreme as the stereotypical taiwanese grandad/grandma's japanophilia featured in some films such as 吳念真Wu Nien-jen's 多桑. and their Tanka are not good enough to appear in 台湾万葉集).

@rarara

Given that you failed to answer any of my points I will consider you concede on them all. Now we Taiwanese will get on with celebrating a great local Taiwanese film production.

rarara: "and, i highly doubt the feel-good, hate-japan, holier-than-thou "history" promoted by smithinjapan, KMT mainlanders, etc. would resonate with the non-KMT ordinary Taiwanese."

Oh! Now it's me AND the KMT who are guilty of propaganda... not those who decide to white-wash Japanese history or claim other nations feel nostalgia for the time of their colonial oppressors. Yeah, rarara... it's ME spouting propaganda! hahaha. You're kidding yourself when you say people are nostalgic for a time of oppression and slaughter, and you're disrespecting your relatives, ancestors, and the part of you that is Taiwanese, as you claim. Like anime all you want -- anime does not tell proper history, while this movie might.

People should definitely move on and head into the future, but with the Japanese government, film board, and textbooks and what have you, 'moving on' without acknowledging the past is nothing short of a hate crime. It is the responsibility of Japan to do their utmost to acknowledge the MASSIVE number of hate crimes they committed in the past, including forcing others to service military members in brothels, committing slaughter in Nanking and elsewhere, and many, many other examples. Instead, you have people like rarara claiming that people actually wax NOSTALGIA about such times! and then cannot answer others' questions about it, like with renntiz' questions.

Talk about propaganda! rarara--do you work for the film board, by chance? :)

smithinjapan, i am certainly averse to the hate-Japan, holier-than-thou, feel-good "history" publicised by you, KMT mainlanders, etc. but, don't worry, i am not so japanophilic as my great grandparents and all the other (very) old Taiwanese I know, who were born/bred during the Japanese era. unlike them, i also don't hate the KMT mainlanders who killed/tortured/oppressed the taiwanese for the past several decades. (after all, i myself did not experienced the mainlanders' bloody White terror from 1945 to mid-1980s). With regard to your so-called "white-washed Japanese history", i recommend you to read books wrtten by 黄文雄(Huáng Wénxióng), 金美齡（Kim Bí-lêng), 周英明(Zhōu Yīngmíng), etc. (many of them are published in japanese) Oh, also, don't forget books/articles written by former Taiwanese President 李登輝(Lee Teng-hui), the Father of Taiwanese democracy, who overcame the Japanese government/media's intense sabotage against his eventually successful attempt to pay respect to his late brother enshrined in Yasukuni. Not a single japanese historian extol pre-1945 Japan so much as these old taiwanese people, born/bred in pre-1945 Taiwan. Actually, many of these japanophile Taiwanese have been shut out of the mainstream Japanese media, which heavily rely on the korean Pachinko money and mostly hold to the "correct" smithinjapan-type view of the japanese history. it's obvious that japanophilia of old taiwanese are not very convenient for the Japanese "elites" in media, political, economic and scholarly circles. as a result, only the fringe media publish the j-language articles penned by　李登輝、黄文雄、金美齢、etc. , etc.

rarara:

I feel so sorry for you. All that bitterness and hate is going to bring on a heart attack. By the way, how did the Taiwanese themselves (pre-KMT) treat the aborigines?

Lee Teng-hui, the former president who openly stated that Senkaku Islands belonged to Japan?

Regardless of who the island belongs to, for a former president to openly state, against common opinion of the people he supposedly formerly represented, speaks alot about him. I don't think he's what can be considered unbiased opinion. Imagine if a former prime minister of Japan states the Kurils belong to the Russians?

Are there people who like the colonial era? Sure. Do they even represent 1/5 of Taiwanese? Why don't you check the polls. Japanese did good things, and a lot of bad things, making a film based on the bad things isn't propaganda unless you also consider making one on the good things one. Once again, both Seediq Bale and Cape No 7 are written by the same person, either both are propaganda or neither are, which is more likely?

Once again I'm puzzled that you're trying to paint Seediq Bale as some kind of KMT propaganda given all the points I raised already, but hey, whatever makes you sleep at night.

dear renntiz, you sound like my beloved half-mainlander, half-taiwanese cousin. on the other hand, Lee Teng-hui's writings/atmosphere are reminiscent of my great grandfather/his brothers, born/bred during the japanese era (although, as i wrote earlier, their japanophilia is certainly not so extreme as that of the old "多桑", featured in the film of 吳念真Wu Nien-jen.) there is a generation gap. In some respects, Lee Teng-hui (and the old 「多桑」 generation as a whole) are probably more popular/respected in Japan than in Taiwan. Most japanese, especially traditionalist conservative ones, would be really jubilant if they can ever "borrow" 李登輝, 彭明敏, etc. as their prime minister to head the government in tokyo. with regard to the Senkaku, actually most japanese would not be bothered about occupying or not occupying the island if Taiwan is a truly independent country of the Taiwanese (Republic of Taiwan rather than Republic of China). it's considered a common sense among the japanese that Taiwanese-controlled Taiwan (as distinct from KMT mainlander-controlled Taiwan) would be always the best friend of Japan.