Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale
This is the most expensive movie ever filmed in Taiwan and the original version came out in two parts totalling four and half hours. What I saw was the international cut which is about half that length. Not surprisingly with so much cut, there were a lot of characters that the movie clearly wanted me to care about that I simply had no frame of reference for and barely recognized let alone gave two s
hits about. Another odd thing is this: it's a true story in the
Braveheart vein where the underdog clans (in this case the aboriginal Taiwanese tribes) are trying to fight off a powerful foreign invader (Japan), but the film is pretty unflinching in the way it depicts the violent headhunting ways of the native population and frankly they don't come off as any better than the Japanese. Ultimately I was left with a pit-of-the-stomach feeling of "why are human beings so unbelievably horrible to each other", but I wish I had felt like I had more of a side to root for. Nevertheless an interesting watch. Moderately recommended.