I also disagree with the idea that an honour code, makes a civilization or its armies better. No matter if you’re looking at ‘chivalric’ medieval knights, samurai, or modern professional armies, an honour code is a mere fiction invented to justify the actions of societies who have made warfare a regular and ‘noble’ part of their cultures. Study of history shows that these honour codes arose in the wake of the dominance of elite warrior castes, and were blatantly ignored (largely fictitious) anyway. Medieval ‘chivalric’ knights, samurai, and armies in World War 2, still butchered civilian populations - men, women and children - despite chivalry, honour codes or Geneva Conventions. In fact, as we know these are the very societies that managed to raise the wholesale slaughter of fellow humans to unprecedented levels.
Compare ‘barbarian’ tribes fighting for their existence. It makes pefect sense that if you’re fighting for survival you send in every man, woman and child you have to kill every man, woman and child you can of the enemy, by any means at your disposal. It may seem barbaric to us, but it makes perfect sense in an historical context, and in the long run, is far less barbaric than the ‘civilized’ killing carried out by the so-called ‘honourable’ socities.
I disagree. Cultural relativism might be a good tool for anthropological study, but I believe it is possible to say one culture is inherently “better” than another (as long as you’re talking about some reasonably well-defined aspect, obviously).[/quote]
If you want to get all anthropological or sociological about it, then cultures are defined as different but equal. No one culture is better than another.
Civilizations, on the other hand, can be compared and ranked.
Now cultures lead to civilizations, so it’s easy to confuse the two, but they are different terms.
Let me give you an example. All people are equal. We can all agree on that (I hope). A bunch of people living together will create a city. Cities, however, are NOT equal, despite the fact that they are comprised of people who ARE equal. Kind of see what I’m saying?
Back to the point about killing the school teacher. Yes, I agree, there should be rules regarding the murdering of innocent victims during times of war. But Seediq Bale was not a war; it was a rebellion against oppression. And for the children, the oppression came from their teachers who beat them for being stupid, for being smart, for winning a contest against a Japanese kid, for wearing their ancestral clothes, for speaking their native tongue at school, for refusing to swear their allegiance to Japan, you name it. So while I don’t necessarily agree with the killing, I certainly do understand it.
Bu Lai En: it’s true that those codes are often ignored, but the fact that they exist at all acts as a brake on the worst excesses. When breaches do occur, the do at least register as breaches and cause shame to those involved. And I wasn’t thinking of “chivalry”, either in the west or in pre-war Japan, which was indeed just a ritualisation of violence. I was referring to the basic understanding that war is “politics by other means”, and is fought between armies, not between peoples. And obviously those codes don’t make war any less disgusting, or less likely to happen - I never said that. What they do is ensure the genetic survival of the societies involved, and they minimize (NOT eliminate!) the depth of psychological trauma involved. That’s about the best that can be expected.
An interesting example was the behaviour of Russian soldiers during WW2, who were famous for their shocking behaviour (in some instances as bad or worse than the Japanese). The Russians, at that point in history, were a traumatized people. Many of the traditional social restraints on (for example) murder and torture had been removed by the Revolution and its aftermath. A counterpoint might be the behaviour of the British in colonial India, who were racist and treated the Indians as inferiors and slaves, but outright cruelty and abuse was (relatively) rare, despite the fact that they could (in theory) do what the hell they wanted with impunity. The only restraint was the British social code that said certain things are simply “not done”.
It’s also important to stress that the Seediq were most emphatically NOT “fighting for survival”. They were kicking back against the petty - and relatively minor - cruelties of occupation and exploitation. They sat around moaning about how they were “losing their culture” but I couldn’t figure out what aspect, precisely, they were most bothered about; they didn’t seem to have a culture to lose. They didn’t seem too worried, for example, about the Japanese trashing their environment and carting off all the trees (although I guess they didn’t comprehend the scale of it). Ultimately, they could have survived with culture and gene pool more-or-less intact by simply disengaging from the Japanese (as far as possible) and keeping a low profile - which is exactly what Mauna tried to convince everyone to do. The Japanese were using them as unpaid labour and no doubt meting out arbitrary “justice” (I was surprised how little of that was depicted in the movie), but generally speaking, the Japanese occupiers just wanted a quiet life.
I understand your point, and yes, in extremis, you’re right. But that wasn’t the situation here; more importantly, it could not have worked. The outcome (genocide) was completely predictable. And examine your reasoning from the Japanese point of view: although they were the invading group, the massacre confirmed their view that the Seediq were barbarians, and therefore the only logical response was a barbaric one.
[quote=“Amasashi”]
If you want to get all anthropological or sociological about it, then cultures are defined as different but equal. No one culture is better than another.
Civilizations, on the other hand, can be compared and ranked.
Now cultures lead to civilizations, so it’s easy to confuse the two, but they are different terms.
Let me give you an example. All people are equal. We can all agree on that (I hope). A bunch of people living together will create a city. Cities, however, are NOT equal, despite the fact that they are comprised of people who ARE equal. Kind of see what I’m saying?[/quote]
I don’t follow you at all. Firstly, “defined” by whom? I don’t accept that cultures are “different but equal”, nor do I accept that culture can be logically separated from civilisation. You haven’t given an explanation either for the distinction, or for the axiomatic assumption of equality. All people are not “equal”. They are all genetically different. A rottweiler is different to a poodle, on various different dimensions (yeah, I know, they were artificially bred that way, but humans do similar things to themselves). Among any given population, some people are cleverer, taller, more aggressive, more able to interact socially with their fellows, etc etc. There will also be genetic similarity within a population that distinguishes it from other populations. Now, a culture that favours highly aggressive behaviour (for whatever reason) is demonstrably inferior to one that values social skills because it is unlikely to survive for long: firstly, it will be unable to create an intellectual warrior class capable of producing advanced weapons and strategies; secondly, it will frighten other societies who will, out of perceived necessity, attack it. Since they have inferior fighting skills - despite being more aggressive - they will be wiped out. The culture that values social skills will most likely prosper immensely because it will be adept at either exploiting other cultures, or forming alliances with them and within itself. Cities are not equal because the people who build them are not equal. Likewise with civilisations.
Are you seriously suggesting that murdering a child because he/she bullied you is “understandable?”. And what difference does it makes whether you use the word “war” or “oppression”? I know western nations like to invoke legal mumbo-jumbo to avoid their obligations (by not actually declaring war before going off to kill people, for example) but that’s a relatively recent development and a perversion of the original intent. By your logic, the hairbrained Japanese guy who got beaten up was justified in calling in the troops to kill everyone for being mean to him. A large part of civilisation (or culture, or whatever you want to call it) is learning how and when to rein it in.
[quote=“finley”]
It’s also important to stress that the Seediq were most emphatically NOT “fighting for survival”. They were kicking back against the petty - and relatively minor - cruelties of occupation and exploitation. They could have survived quite happily by simply disengaging from the Japanese (as far as possible) and keeping a low profile - which is exactly what Mauna tried to convince everyone to do. The Japanese were using them as unpaid labour and no doubt meting out arbitrary “justice” (I was surprised how little of that was depicted in the movie), but generally speaking, the Japanese occupiers just wanted a quiet life.
…
And examine your reasoning from the Japanese point of view: although they were the invading group, the massacre confirmed their view that the Seediq were barbarians, and therefore the only logical response was a barbaric one.[/quote]
I hope I’m not taking your quotes out of context by pointing out the contradictions in your statements here. You claim the invaded had some choice in the matter and could have disengaged and kept a low profile, while the invaders just wanted a quiet life.
I’m quite sure the invaded just wanted a quiet life, and if the invaders wanted a quiet life, they would’ve just stayed home and enjoyed the sushi, sake and making love with their missus in Japan.
The USA is known as a “champion of human rights country” and likes to think of itself as a knight in white armor. But we did use the atom bombs and they killed women and children, old and infirm, those in hospitals, babies in CITIES. We didnt throw one or two in the ocean to show them what could happen. We threw it at them , at CITIES, not factories or army bases. Did we not know there would be babies and kids and women there? Sure we did. But WW2 was no picnic on any side. The germans bombed London. The brits bombed german cities. Were there no women and children in those cities? No “innocents” ?
Honor codes make great King Arthur movies but history has shown that actually it didnt much exist.
The aboriginals WERE barbarians . There were bloody head hunters ! They were as barbaric as many indians in the USA who likes scalping people.
The japanese while perhaps not barbaric were pretty sadistic in WW2. Germans were not barbarian but were pretty sadistic in WW2.
Sadists against Barbarians is what we had.
(different topic but i think the American indians are related to Taiwanese aborigines)
There is nearly always a choice. It might not be an especially palatable choice, but there often is one. Mauna was the evangelist for (one of) the other choices, at least until he was backed into a corner. Like I said, the “other” choice is the one the Japanese wisely took, after being bombed into the stone age and occupied by the USA.
I was thinking mainly of the colonists - the ordinary workers, the women and children - rather than the soldiers. The occupation was a long one. There was plenty of opportunity for the two cultures to make the best of a bad situation.
Thanks, that was a bit more succinct than my rambling
As for the USA and the atomic bombings - I guess that’s a whole other thread. If you read the history about that (what isn’t still secret or hasn’t been doctored) there are all sorts of shades of grey in there. There were apparently some in the White House who specifically argued for targeting civilians. Likewise with (for example) the firebombing of Dresden, which is now widely acknowledged as a war crime. I’ll say it again: codes and mores don’t prevent this stuff happening, but they reduce the impact from “catastrophic” to “survivable”.
Is that so, or are you just wondering? I’ve wondered that myself but have no idea if anyone’s come up with a proven link.
Is that so, or are you just wondering? I’ve wondered that myself but have no idea if anyone’s come up with a proven link.[/quote]
Only in as much as they’re both basically Asian. The American Indians came out of Siberia. It’s pretty clear that the Taiwan aborigines are the root of the Polynesian peoples though.
I can’t wait to see this one personally, though I’ll hold out for the DVD. Japanese meet Aborigines. What do one side have to be saints? This thread has made this way more complicated than it really is.
I would like to first remind people that this is a movie/story not a how to guide for inter-racial cooperation. I saw it this afternoon and had my expectations greatly exceeded. Some of us discussed it later and can’t understand some of the comments made here. Far from being one battle scene after the other most of the film is character and cultural development and of course the long buildup to the final battle which yes is most definitely disturbing. Those who balk at the kids killing their teacher as somehow invalidating the Seediq cause are missing the entire point. They are meant to have blood on their hands, morally ambiguous blood. This is not a Hollywood hero-fable but a morally complex tale.
The film is a bit jumpy at the start, but probably deliberately so, but then goes into a long arc building Mouna’s complex (and not always likable) character, demonstrating the Seediq resistance to the Japs and their eventual acquiescence.
The direction is solid, with some fine story-telling going on. In the first 30-40 minutes I thought the director was developing the scene too fast but then found he had merely set it up and would spend the next hour adding layers to it.
Part of the appeal of this film is that we are slowly made to understand and then empathize with the Seediq’s cultural aspirations (to reach their version of heaven as blood-stained warriors) despite the fact that it will entail a massive loss of human life, including some people we also sympathize with. One of the most disturbing scenes (mentioned above) is when the kids kill their teacher and the women and Jap kids with him. There are no shades of the cultural revolution here, but revenge pure and simple on a bully. Ah, but it isn’t so simple because the teacher is humanized and the women and other kids are blameless. The scene is also massively disturbing because the leader of the students is a character we have been made to really like: in fact until then he has been a focus of comic relief.
It’s great drama to have someone so likable commit such a horrendous act. That before he kills he invites the victims to join his people in the afterlife was a brilliant touch. At once we are appalled, understanding and almost complicit. Also note that the director pulls away as the Seediq students attack the other kids. Despite the abundant bloodshed, you never feel the violence is gratuitous.
Anyway, highly recommended. I’m sure a few of the other forumosans I saw this will chime in.
Having seen it today I also agree with MM, having talked about it with him afterwards. I’d like to add that although it wasn’t a fantastic print, with minor problems with the soundtrack, the production values were superb for a Taiwanese production, especially one with such an amount of historical set design and outdoor filming.
And the story certainly was a lot more complex than the good versus evil fight of something like Avatar.
I am shocked that the theatre was only half full on a Sunday afternoon. Saturday night was packed. The 2pm Sunday showing was the last one during non-working hours for many (it shows at 11:20 am and 2pm until the 29th). Where was everybody?
Hopefully they made enough to justify making subtitles for the second part. They cannot just use the international version, which only has one part (the whole thing condensed). Also, the subtitles have to be submitted to the govt for approval. Of course.
C’mon, people- make it worth their while.
Sounds like a film worth seeing. Iv been watching youtube clips where the director and others have given interviews about the film and he has often had to defend the film and that he is not trying to cause racial disharmony, rather he is just telling the story as best he can of the incident. He seems quite a low key, humble and likeable guy. He said he needed the commercial success of Cape No. 7 to film Seedig, which was his ambition for along time. He thought the story needed to be told.
Avatar was made for commercial success. It takes place in a foreign land, very foreign. Out of this world in fact. It deals with only simple good versus evil as previously mentioned and it doesnt touch upon anything that is controversial or too close to the truth about homo sapiens.
This film seems to be more raw and much more controversial. It does bring ugliness about our human race to the fore front in some respects.
well … guess I should just stick to not watching war movies. Sure, as MM says, if it were a drama it would be a good one; but it’s not. It’s history. It’s about real people who lived and died and suffered, mainly for no good reason. Watching people with all their human frailties hanging out is just porn, except without the entertainment value. Maybe I’m just not edumacated enough to grasp that when Japanese soldiers fucked over Nanjing, that was, um, bad, mmmkay, but when Aboriginals do it, that’s all like, authentic and morally ambiguous and stuff, and you just don’t understand their culture. If I want to be entertained, I’ll go watch Avatar; if I want to learn history, I can read.
well … guess I should just stick to not watching war movies. Sure, as MM says, if it were a drama it would be a good one; but it’s not. It’s history. It’s about real people who lived and died and suffered, mainly for no good reason. Watching people with all their human frailties hanging out is just porn, except without the entertainment value. Maybe I’m just not edumacated enough to grasp that when Japanese soldiers fucked over Nanjing, that was, um, bad, mmmkay, but when Aboriginals do it, that’s all like, authentic and morally ambiguous and stuff, and you just don’t understand their culture. If I want to be entertained, I’ll go watch Avatar; if I want to learn history, I can read.[/quote]
I dont think people really mean that the Japanese slaughtering Nanking men women and children was a no no while the aborigine doing the same was “understandable”. Evil is evil.
My thinking is that the taiwan aborigine are part of what we should call the “ancient world”. In the ancient world we had these polynesians all spread out across the pacific. We had the mayans and the incas in central/south america. We had the egyptians and israelis , etc in the bible lands. Greeks and their myths. The huns, the mongols, and others of this ancient world.
These people were different from those of the 20th century.
The japanese were of the 20th century but the taiwanese aborigine were not. They were part of the ancient world.
Chivalry, respect for elders, kindness towards children. These values probably were not values held dear to the heart in the ancient world. Remember the ancients liked to sacrifice young children. At that time , war was WAR. You killed everyone you wanted and could kill. Women and children were either killed or kept to be raped of put to use as slaves at the whim of the conquerors.
It was a violent ,violent world. The DARK AGES. Truly Dark.
With the 20th century and the more widespread education of the masses, we begin the slow journey as mankind towards more lofty ideals. The feeling that women and children should be considered as “innocent” and should be kept out of harms way while the “professional soldiers” fight each other.
Innocence was unknown in the ancient world. Man was born guilty and so was woman.
People were traded as commodities all throughout the known world. All over world conquerors enslaved, raped or slaughtered those who were vanquished.
In this tale based on an historical event. A 20th century imperial empire’s soldiers came upon an ancient race of people and sought to subjugate them and obliterate their ways. They eventually succeeded through sheer numbers but not without tragedy amongst them.
There is no equivalent between the rape of nanjing and anything in Seediq Bale. For one thing, Mouna very likely would have stopped the 13 year old boys from killing the women and children (just as he stops the killing of the Chinese shopkeeper and the Jap wives and kids of the Seediq who have intermarried).
The kids killed because they were angry and fueled by the bloodlust around them, they were alone, and they had never been raised to be true warriors. They had also been taunted by the Jap kids who earlier had told them point blank that all their land was theirs.
A situation where a 13 year old kills another child because the parents of the latter have stolen all his land and effectively enslaved him, is tragic. It’s not remotely equivalent to a fascist regime letting it’s brainwashed soldiers massacre a conquered people.
Then there is the song playing in the background the whole time wondering allowed how much regret the Seediq are going to feel for their actions? This is griping drama. A lost cause to restore dignity to a people according to the ancient ways that only a few even understand, and that yes, is going to get messy and bloody.
