The film “Seven Samurai” was over three hours long! After the second hour, I was anxiously expecting to see the bandits enter the village. It was too long for me, but the film was enjoyable. The story is set in Japan in the 16th century when the central authority collapses, war lords control the land, and farmers face severe hardships. I viewed the film with the commentary device on. The insights into the film were provided by Michael Jeck. He lectures and distributes Japanese films. Jecks interjections throughout the movie helped me stay focused during the long film, but mostly importantly he emphasized the nuisances that I would have surely missed.
The conflict confronting the villagers is a group of troublesome bandits. The villagers decided to hire several samurai to deal with them. Two hours of the movie are spent presenting the quandary of the village, the recruitment of the samurai, and then the training of the villagers by the samurai. The last hour and thirty minutes deal with the attack of the village by the bandits.
The film is truly a work of art. Michael Jeck stated that most of the film was shot in a lot. You could not have guessed that. The actors in the movie did an incredible job. I was memorized by each character’s unique personality and how their interactions advanced the plot. Of course, the best character was the comical Kikuchiyo. He is an endearing fellow with some major inner demons. Kikuchiyo is better understood at the end of the film.
I would definitely use the film in my classroom to discuss the tension between the samurai and the peasants, to discuss the political climate in Japan in the 16th century, and the values of the samurai.
Even though the film was long, I highly recommend it.
I viewed The Last Emperor. It was a wonderful film about the last Manchurian emperor of China. I was captivated with the story that was pretty much historically accurate. The story was presented from a very personal and human perspective. I came to feel sympathy toward young P’u Yi who since the age of three was like a prisoner in the Forbidden City. The young actors portraying P’u Yi were extremely artistic in presenting a young Emperor who was callow, naive, and manipulated throughout his life. The movie presents the major events of the Emperor’s life, such as the selection of his wife, the troops of a warlord entering the City to remove him, life in Tientsin, a puppet Emperor in Manchuria, and finally as a prisoner of war.
I wonder if any scenes were actually filmed in the Forbidden City. The sacredness of the City as a symbol of imperial grandeur and China’s glorious past are well presented in this film.
I would definitely use this movie in the classroom to explore the question: “What is the role of the monarchy today?” The movie is also useful in showing the changes in China during the period of life of Emperor P’u Yi. A teacher could use this movie as a spring board to explore world events or those specific to Asia, such as the Japanese invasion into Manchuria, the attack on Pearl Harbor, or Communism in China.
ENTER THE DRAGON This section certainly has some interesting reviews of films that I hope to check out at some point. Here is my two cents. I was debating which film to review, when a friend of mine who is, among other things, a certified Bruce Lee nut, loaned me the 30th Anniversary DVD edition. I remember seeing the film as a teenager, but the only thing that really registered was Bruce Lee's ability to kick some serious butt.
Having explored the film a little further, it soon became apparent to me that this is a very important film on some levels. Filmed in 1973, it was the first martial arts movie that was designed for a worldwide audience, and was the first co-production between an American film company (Warner's) and Golden Harvest films, which was owned by Raymond Chow in Hong Kong. The film was written by an American (with input from Lee himself), boasted an ethnically diverse cast, was filmed in and around Hong Kong using many up-and-coming martial arts stars like Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung, and was the first attempt to really sell an Asian actor to an American audience. It was filmed on a budget of $850,000, and went on to make a substantial return worldwide. In fact, it is on several lists of most profitable films of all time. It launched Lee as a bona fide superstar and cultural icon, which only compounded the tragedy of his death at 32 a month before the film premiered in Los Angeles. Ironically, it was the least popular of Lee's films in the Asian market, but it did very well in the US and Europe.
Lee is a Shaolin monk who is recruited by the British to investigate a notorious ex-monk named Han. Han holds a martial arts tournament every three years on his private island, which just happens to be in international waters and outside the jurisdiction of the British. The Brits are convinced that Han is responsible for running a drug and prostitution ring, and they need someone who can infiltrate the tournament to snoop around. Lee is at first reluctant, until of course the Brits tell him that Han is a former member of his temple and is also directly responsible for the death of Lee's sister. The tournament is nothing more than an elaborate ruse, as Han uses it to recruit new talent for his nefarious organization. Thus motivated, Lee travels to the island and meets up with a colorful cast of characters, including: Roper, the cynical-yet-warmhearted gambling addict/karate expert who is on the run from the mob; and Jim Kelly, the African-American karate champ who has escaped relentless persecution at the hands of the police in the deep south. The tournament begins and there are many explosive and original fight scenes during the day, and at night Lee snoops around the island to gather the evidence that the Brits require. Eventually, Han is tipped to the fact that Lee is an agent and they have a fight to the death, while the whole island simultaneously brawls. The troops arrive, order is restored, good has triumphed against evil, and personal scores have been settled.
This is pretty standard fare and is certainly a product of its time. A cheesy 'Shaft'-like theme, replete with crazed wah-wah pedal stomping floats through the entire movie, the dialogue is loaded with dated slang, Jim Kelley sports the quintessential afro and the black militant angle is alluded to at points, the fighters- especially Lee- feel the need to wax poetic about the fighting itself, the adversary is a Dr.No clone, and the story has its share of holes. The movie saves itself on the strength of the fighting scenes, which happen frequently and escalate to the all out brawl that concludes the film. The star of the movie and the reason for the movie is Lee himself. He was a magnetic performer who exudes a cocky confidence and inner anger that is asonishing to witness. What a great physical actor. Basically, the movie is James Bond meets "Shaft".
What is interesting about the film is that Lee is not your typical Asian actor of that time. He is strong, clever, opinionated, stubborn, brave, incredibly gifted, but he also follows a strict code of ethics. Let's face it, he is also the real deal. Remember that many Americans exposure to an "Asian" actor was during "Kung-Fu", starring David Carradine- a westerner dressed up to appear more Asian (Ironically, Lee never got over his anger at being turned down for that role). Flash back a few years prior to that, and Bruce Lee makes his appearance in the seldom seen action series "The Green Lantern" as Kato, the loyal and somewhat quirky sidekick to his American boss. Lee is nobody's sidekick anymore, and he establishes this in the first minute of the film. He is not only a superbly gifted martial artist, but also a teacher, a philosopher, and a man of great morality. Interestingly, the Americans are portrayed in a noble light as well, but they are not without their flaws. Jim Kelly is portrayed as a good man, but he is not adverse to partying and loves to 'get down with the ladies', while O'Harra, one of Han's American thugs, dishonors the tournament by attacking Lee with broken bottles, thereby causing Han and his team to "lose face". Roper refuses to join Han's enterprise, but he is also gambling on the outcome of the fights. The Americans are also not portrayed as physically intimidating, despite their larger frames, but the camera lovingly rolls over Lee, sans shirt throughout a good portion of the film, as he flexes his considerable physique. He is the Asian superman who can do things that other mortals can't even conceive.
The film is problematic for many of the reasons listed above. It would be a hard sell to show this movie in my classroom full of 8th graders (especially with our ridiculous LAUSD Policy). However, and more realistically, most of my students openly talk about seeing such fare as "Saw II", "Hostel" and other excessively gory flicks, so this would be rather tame. But, is is educational? I would argue that it is in certain ways. It does demonstrate the Asian method of combining philosophical thought with physical action, and demonstrates that they are not mutually exclusive. Some of Lee's philosophic utterirngs could be examined and would be an excellent hook to introduce a unit on Zen writing etc. However, I think the greatest value of this film is that it is the first joint US-Chinese cultural enterprise designed at infiltrating American culture and that it spawned an entire genre- big budget action films with Asian actors (Jet Li, Jackie Chan, and many of the 'Hard-Boiled" films from Hong Kong in the 80's). Also, the film was a concerted effort to change the average American's perception of Asian people. After "Enter the Dragon", there was no need to dress up a westerner in exotic clothing and pass him off as Asian (ala 'Kung-Fu'), the stereotypical Asian character was undermined by Lee's adoption of more accessible, but no less authentic, character traits that an American audience could relate to, and even admire (imagine Gary Cooper dispatching the bad guys in "High Noon" with Kung-Fu). The film is an interesting example of cross-cultural pollination, and the students would benefit from being shown how this character came to be, and the great distance travelled to arrive before them on the screen. Placed in the context of China's emergence in the American consciousness in the early 70's (Nixon's overtures to China), and during the end phase of the conflict of Vietnam, this film signalled the beginning of a new era. Asia was nobody's afterthought anymore.
"Tokyo Story" was made in 1953 by Ozu. It is unanimously recognized as a masterpiece. It may be a slow go for most of you in the first thirty minutes but hang in there. Sometimes the camera will hold as long as ten seconds on one scene. Ozu's primary subjects are the rituals and processes of middle class life. It you wish ato peak into middle class life see "Tokyo Story". It is an unvarnished look at Japenese life with the unit of observation being the family and extended family. The shots are very unconventional. For instance, the train opens the scene as it is traveling off the screen and reappears in the last scene traveling the other direction. The film is about an elderly couple and their children and in-laws, and how they are treated on a vacation. The mother's health takes a turn for the worst at the resort and they travel to the small town to comfort the father. I won't tell you more--- other than to be aware of the use of symmetry by the director. There are no loose ends in this film and all scenes exercise efficiency and sparse resources to deliver a heart wrenching climax. You walk away thinking simpliciy is truly beauty.
For good news, reviews, entertainment, resources, and screening events on Asian-American Films check out the following website:
www.asianamerican.film.com
The site provides links for screening events all around the USA, In-depth articles about Asian films and film-makers, Reviews of the good and bad movies, community message boards where members could share news and comments around the area, Resources on film-makers, films, a database, and even casting calls, and Minute Movies.
Log on www.asianamerican.film.com and check out this excellent resource for Asian-American Films.
Comic book meets the action film, the comedy, the musical, drama, and the didactic story;"Kung-Fu Hustle" by Stephen Chow is the movie that has it ALL!
"In a time of social unrest and disorder the gangs run amuck. The most feared of them all is the Axe Gang. Only in the poorest districts, which hold no interest for the gangs can people live in peace" (Kung-Fu Hustle Prologue)
I love-love-love this film! It is one of my ultimate favorites and this is the first time I have ever thought of the possibility of using it in the classroom to teach/review Elements of Literature (Exposition, plot, setting, conflict, complication, climax, denouement, and resolution) as well as, Narrative, and Theme. YES, it is rated R, but I would use it to teach enrichment in an after school or saturday class, AND of course I would get adminstrative and parental consent.
If I could get it approved , I will use this action-packed, fun-filled, great story-line to help my students understand the concepts I mentioned above.
How?
Well, teaching 1st and 3rd-person Narrative can be challenging if you have reluctant and/or low-level readers. Because I have a class with 11 resource students (all with different learning disabilities, and low-low reading skills), I would love to use "Kung-Fu Hustle" to draw the students in. If you think about it, I could hit a lot of the 7th AND 8th grade California English Standards doing this.
See..
The movie is like a cartoon! The characters run, act, fight, and behave like the Road-Runner, Wile E. Coyote, Tom and Jerry, and so forth. The students will definitely be into it. It's funny! Yes, it's in Chinese, and they will HAVE to follow the subtitles, but if they can't, they will be able to follow the action nonetheless.
With the students drawn in, and therefore paying CLOSE attention to the story, I can use it as a jumping base to talk about HOW the characters are depicted and introduced. What are their characteristics? Strengths? Flaws?
Then, we could talk about setting? When and where does the story take place? How do you know? Give examples, explain.
What is the conflict of the story? How do you know? Examples from the film? Do we see the conflict get worse? What are the complications? Discuss, explain.
The students will not have a problem telling me what the Climax is because it is evident. And although there are A LOT of exciting parts in the movie, they will know which scene was the most critical.
After the Climax, students will be asked to discuss the denouement...how are things winding down? What is the resolution? Was the conflict solved? How? Explain and give examples from the movie.
Once we discuss all of these elements (1week), I can always assign the students to rewatch the movie outside of school--and they will and do have access to the film. If I get approval,, they can even watch it in the school's auditorium for the second time during lunch time in 3 days! During their second viewing I will ask them to pay attention to the order of events (plot). What happened first, sencond, third, last? And have them create a flow chart the plot.
Once students have watched "Kung-Fu Hustle" at least twice, we can review the above mentioned elements and begin talking about theme. This film has soo many positive messages! World peace, redemption, kindness, love, etc.
Finally, we could discuss the characteristics of narrative by examining short stories. As a culminating task students will have the option to write a narrative assuming the persona of a character from the film or from one of the stories studied, and retell one event of the story in the 1st or 3rd-person point of view.
This of course will take about 2-3 weeks, 2-5 if we want to discuss the symbolism within the film.
I know the use of this film in the teaching of middle-school students is HIGHLY unlikely, but it is an exciting idea...maybe it be better for high-school or college students in basic English classes. Who knows! But I know I would get great results if it could be done.
On Oct. 1, 2007, the USC U.S.-China Institute will screen a dramatic documentary. My Dream is about a performing arts troupe where all the performers have overcome some disability in order to express themselves through music or dance. The troupe has performed at Carnegie Hall and Kennedy Center. Prior to the screening, we'll feature a discussion among specialists about the perceptions toward the disabled in China and efforts to meet their needs.
To be sure that you get reminders about this screening, please go to the USC U.S.-China Institute website (http://china.usc.edu) and sign up for the newsletter. You can also sign up by sending your contact information to mailto:uschina@usc.edu
I have lefft this posting until last because it is the one I did not want to do. I do not watch movies unless forced to because I simply do not enjoy them. I know this makes me an enemy of many people, especially in Los Angeles and all it's film glory, but I would rather read.
Since I had to watch and review a film I decided to see one that many of my friends had urged me to see. I rented Memoirs of a Geisha. I knew that there was probably very little useful footage for use in my elementary classroom, but I had hoped for a couple of 2 minute clips I could use in relation to other topics. I am not sure that I got any clips out of watching this film, but it certainly was beautiful cinematography. I did not know anything about the story line and so I was a bit confused at times but overall I thought it was a tolerable movie. I may even read the book to get a better grasp of the story line (in my opinion, a better way to spend 145 minutes).
Despite not being able to use this film in my classroom, I feel that it equipped me with more knowledge of East Asia and an aspect of Japan's history. I recall having once learned all about the Kimono and think I have been inspired to do more research on the meaning behind them. This may lead to a useful lesson. I also want to know more about the Japanese perspective on WWII and am going to seek out books on the topic. Again, I am sure the inspiration the film gave me to research other topics will lead to another useful lesson.
One thing I did like about the film was the presentation of Geisha as being almost like a competative sport. This is an angle I had not previously considered. The competition and jealousy between the girls was fierce and they strategically planned each of their moves to out-do the other. They were also simultaneously striving to be the best Geisha while questioning if they really wanted that life... and interesting juxtaposition.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is an adventurous story of noble warriors in feudal China. It's also the story of a love between one warrior and the fiancée of a fallen comrade, a woman in which it would be dishonorable for him to pursue. It follows the life of a beautiful teenage daughter (Zhang Ziyi) of a governor, who longs desperately for freedom in the face of an impending arranged marriage. This movie is filled both with action packed sequences as well as a great storyline. Although I couldn’t really show this movie in its entirety to my sixth grade class (because of the rating), I would love to use some clips for my history class. Especially notable are the themes of thievery, loyalty, duty and unrequited love that unfold in this movie. These values are very much part of Asian culture. In today’s world of reality tv, I think it would be interesting for my students to see a culture where you cannot think of yourself first. It would be great to use to show them the core values held in ancient China, and how those values affcted their daily lives. In addition, if I were to get permission slips or taught an older age, I would love to use this during my narrative unit. It follows the basic plot line well. While most movies do, this would be a good way to tie Chinese culture in my class, discussing with the students the conflict, subplots, climax, resolution, and of course theme, all the while learning Chinese culture. .
ANCIENT CHINA: THE ROOTS OF AGRICULTURE is a film created by The History Channel as part of the Where Did It Come From? series. I showed this film to my sixth grade students when learning about Ancient China. This film can be purchased from TheHistoryChannel.com as a DVD entitled Where Did It Come From?: Ancient China: Agriculture for $24.95. The film is 50 minutes long.
This is a great film to show students about the ingenuity of the ancient Chinese civilization who faced problems of maintaining a stable food supply that would need to a feed a large population of people. This film traces the origins of modern agricultural technology that was influenced by many ancient Chinese inventions such as the wheelbarrow, the hoe, cast iron plow, seed drill, and chain pump. Host Michael Cuillen travels back to 22 centuries back in time and reveals how Chinese farmers increase productivity and made numerous contributions to modern agriculture as well.
What was great about this film was that students got to see the ancient farming inventions created by the Chinese in the past and the modern farming equipment that was influenced by the Chinese. There was also a segment that recreated some of the early Chinese inventions such as the seed drill and the chain pump that pumps water uphill.
After watching the video, my students were really impressed with the ingenuity of the Chinese and can connect modern agriculture to Chinese history.
Akira Kurosawa is, quite simply, the greatest film director of the twentieth century. The early Orson Welles (Citizen Kane and, far less successfully, The Magnificent Ambersons) and Ingmar Bergman (his entire oeuvre) in their best moments equal Kurosawa. But no one exceeds him for startling originality, technical virtuosity and the sheer force of his stunning visual and dramatic presentations. New directors may emerge in the future, of course, to challenge Kurosawa's mastery. But the American and international films I have seen since Kurosawa's death--especially the epic attempts, such as the later Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and their many clones--continue to convince me that Kurosawa's supremacy remains secure.
Kurosawa in his long career produced what his most astute critic, Donald Richie, calls "a relentless succession of masterpieces." To single out one as the best is invidious. But if we have to do this, as I am doing here, then the obvious choice is the brilliant battle epic known in Engllish as The Seven Samurai. (I hedge my choice by calling it his greatest epic film, thereby eliminating from consideration astonishing mini-epics like Hidden Fortress and Yojimbo and contemporary masterpieces such as Ikiru.) Schininin no Samurai was first released in Japan in 1954 at 207 minutes and two years later in the US as The Seven Samurai in a drastically cut version that runs a little over two hours. Even in its truncated version the film is overwhelming in its visual power and narrative sweep and precision. I first saw it back in the '60s on television, and even with the small black-and-white screen and the heavy cutting and the unspeakable intrusion of commercials, I was stunned and humbled. No first viewing of any film has ever affected me as powerfully, not even my first encounter with Citizen Kane (which I first saw under similar deplorable conditions). Now that the full running time of almost three and a half hours has been available in the US in restored editions for the past several decades, it is easy to compare the cut and original versions and see that what the American editors excised back in the '50s were the deliberate repetitions of events and actions, the formal frozen kata that precede the sword duels and the abundance of details, in closeups and long shots, that contribute to the Zen-like intensity and almost meditative mindfulness of the full viewing experience. However, like any incomparable work of art, The Seven Samura is not to all tastes. Posts to this thread have criticized the film as overlong, boring or generally alienating. In no way does it conform to the venerable American pacing tradition best exemplified in Billy Wilder's ironic anecdote. (Wilder once complained that a European director could open his film with three shots of clouds, just clouds, and the audience would sit still for it; but while an American audience would sit still for the first shot of clouds, in the second there had better be an airplane, and in the third shot it had better explode.) Like any truly great and groundbreaking film, The Seven Samurai forces us to reconsider and redefine our sense of films, how they work and what they mean.
The film opens with a long shot of a gang of bandits on horseback attaining the ridge of a low mountain that overlooks a small village and its meager rice fields. In a terse bit of dialogue the bandit chieftain announces that this will be their next target, but a subordinate reminds him that they pillaged this place last year and had better give it a while longer to recover before they hit it again. The bandit chieftain agrees and the bandits ride off, to return on a later day when the time, and the rice, is ripe. A terrified villager, who has been hiding and has overheard this grim discourse, emerges from the undergrowth with a look of sick horror on his face and hurries down the mountainside to alert the other villagers of the peril they will soon face. So far, so basic. It could have come from a number of the great John Ford westerns that inspired Kurosawa (such as the sinister Walter Brennan at the beginning of My Darling Clementine). But Kurosawa looks nothing like Ford. The bandits are shot in extreme closeups from below, their horses' heads twitching violently back and forth, as if they would throw off these ragged and desperate men on their backs, desperate almost as the starving villagers they plan to rob and rape on another day. The village is brought to agitated life in scenes of angry discussions about what to do and how the farmers can defend themselves against the bandits. In one breathtaking sequence Manzo (Kamatari Fujiwara) approaches his teenage daughter Shino (Keiko Tsushima) with knife in hand. The terrified girl, knowing well, as the audience does not, what is in store for her, flees desperately, pursued by her frantic father, who cuts off her long, shining dark hair as she weeps helplessly, the father hoping to disguise her as a boy and spare her from rape and abduction at the hands of the bandits. A later sequence, even more startling in its intensity of action and revelation, occurs when Katsushiro (Isao Kimura), a young disciple of the head samurai Kambei Shimada (Takashi Shimura), chases after what he thinks is a disobedient boy until he catches Shino and, attempting to subdue him (her), pulls open her tunic and realizes, to his embarrassment and dismay, that she is a young woman. The scene ends with a shot characteristic of Kurosawa: an extreme long shot with the two characters at opposite ends of the frame, in a field of bright flowers, panting for breath, embarrassed, exhausted and excited, a perfect stillness charged with furious erotic energy.
Toshiro Mifune, who plays Kikuchiyo, the peasant who would become a samurai, is a great actor with a range that extends from broad comic slapstick to the heights of tragic anger and desolation, and Western audiences understandably see him as the "star" of The Seven Samurai, but that role belongs to Takashi Shimura, a magisterial actor who has played many parts, leading and supporting, for Kurosawa (who, like his model John Ford, knew the value of a versatile stock company). Shimura plays Kambei Shimada, the ronin, or masterless samurai, who recruits the other six and becomes their unofficial leader. We first see Shimada as an accidental savior called upon by a poor family to save their young child, who has been captured and is being held hostage inside a small house by a psychotic criminal who threatens to kill her. Shimada asks for the peasants to bring him a bowl of water, with which he wets his head then calmly shaves it, using a straightedge razor. Then he enters the house with a begging bowl, in the guise of a Buddhist monk, as the criminal screams at him, threatening to kill the child. Seconds later we see the criminal stagger out and fall to his death in subtle, exquisite slow motion (a device first employed by Kurosawa and later exploited and vulgarized by Sam Peckinpah, Sam Raimi, the Wachowski brothers and hack action directors too numerous to mention). Shimada comes out with the child in his arms, having performed this act of salvation as a matter of honor and skill. He continues to be the moral focus of the film, the man who recruits six other poor, masterless samurai to undertake the defense of a starving village for the payment of a few bowls of rice. He is not the most skillfull of the samurai. That honor belongs to Kyuzo (Seiji Miyaguchi)), the ultimate swordsman who goes out by himself in the rain to practice his technique, only to fall in the end, in one of the most ironic moments in world cinema, before a bullet fired from a Portuguese musket possessed by the bandits, a dark foreshadowing of the fate of Tokugawa Japan as a consequence of its first contact with the West. Kambei Shimada is the lesser warior but the wiser and the one who survives, along with his young disciple Katsushiro, to stand before the heaped-up graves of the other five in a shot that consciously echoes the conclusion of John Ford's The Lost Patrol. It is Shimada who announces, to the confusion of his disciple Katsushiro, that, once again, they have lost, that the farmers are the ones who have won, not the samurai who lie buried beneath the heaped-up graves. As magnificent as the battle scenes are, nothing in the film feels quite as magnificent as this subdued ending, quiet and powerful as anything in Milton, in which Kurosawa expresses visually and emotionally the great, dark theme of Homer's Iliad: that warfare brings no honor or glory to its warriors, nothing of value except the bleak fact of their survival, for those fortunate enough to survive.
If you love film, you must see The Seven Samurai. It is an obligation, not a choice. But don't see it when you're tired or pressed for time or with a crowd hungry for some fast martial-arts action. See it alone, or with someone who loves film as much as you do. Open yourself to it and let it do its work on you and, at the end of almost three and a half hours, it will have changed the way you look at film and film-making and, most probably, yourself.
Jia Hongsheng was a rising actor who had roles in films and television series when he began to experience psychological problems. His family sticks with him despite his many difficulties and his sometimes abusive behavior. Jia recovers his ability to function and wrote and stars in this film. The Chinese name of the film is Zuotian 昨天 or Yesterday. Jia becomes addicted to the Beatles and is especially fascinated by John Lennon.
This is a great film exploring obligations among family members.
Quitting will screen at 5:30 am on 11/13/07 on IFC (Direct TV 550), so set your recorder up.
I took the opportunity to go to the last day of the AFI film festival at the Arclight this weekend to see Please Vote For Me. This film is a documentary about democratic class elections at an elementary school in Wuhan. The director, Weijun Chen, is a TV producer in Wuhan, who attended a documentary film workshop, let by Don Edlers and the people at WhyDemocracy.net. This organization set out, with lots of funding, to make 12 films from all around the world, on the topic of democracy. Given that in China you, A) don't talk about democracy and B) don't usually get a bunch of Chinese doumentary filmmakers all together to write proposals for films about democracy, the WhyDemocracy.net people held a workshop to explain what the purpose of the project was and to elicit ideas from Chinese filmmakers.
Weijun Chen had footage of a colleague's son boasting about why he wanted to be the next primer of China. This film, eventually led to the idea of holding democratic elections for class monitor in a 3rd class in Wuhan. The child on the original video, Cheng Cheng, is one of three children in the 3rd grade class chosen by the teacher to run for class monitor. The other children are Luo Lei (the incumbent, bully, child of a police officer and polica captain), and Xiafei Xo (daughter to a divorced school administrative assistant).
The documentary follows the children home and sees the parents coaching each one in the ways of elections, debating, and dirty fighting. Bribery, taunting, and bullying all have their place in the election. The winner is announced after bringing gifts for the entire class for mid-autumn festival.
The film is both a fascinating look at how democracy plays out in its purest form with children who have few preconceived notions of voting, fairplay, and winning by merit alone. It's also a fascinating look at Chinese culture and how children are treated (and treat) their parents.
It was a hysterical and sometimes shocking view of democracy![Edit by="aronan on Nov 19, 7:29:13 AM"][/Edit]
Not loo long I saw the Chinese Bicycle Thief. It was a wonderfully beautiful mvie. It reminded me of the Italian movie by Vittorio De Sica with Aldo Fabrizi by the same name: The Bicycle Thief. The Chinese movie does not seem to provide a time period when it is taking place. The Italian movie takes place after WWII and one its important messages relates to the phenomenal utilitarian use of the bicycle in post-war Italy: it replaced, in a certain sense, the donkey and the mule for transportation purposes both of people and goods. I believe the Chinese movie could easily be taking place within the last 10-20 years. It too shows then importance of the bicycle as a means of transportation in a society changing from an agrarian culture to a manufacturing based economy. I enjoy viewing and analyzing movies from various cultural backgrounds and observe the way in which cultures view themselvels ... and then come to my own conclusions. The Bicycle provides the means of supporting one's family and its loss can be devasting to the point of sacrificing ones' own life to protect it and to keep it running safely and efficiently. It is a beautiful movie and I would recomment=d the viewing of bothe the Italian and the Chinese movie.
Not loo long I saw the Chinese Bicycle Thief. It was a wonderfully beautiful mvie. It reminded me of the Italian movie by Vittorio De Sica with Aldo Fabrizi by the same name: The Bicycle Thief. The Chinese movie does not seem to provide a time period when it is taking place. The Italian movie takes place after WWII and one its important messages relates to the phenomenal utilitarian use of the bicycle in post-war Italy: it replaced, in a certain sense, the donkey and the mule for transportation purposes both of people and goods. I believe the Chinese movie could easily be taking place within the last 10-20 years. It too shows then importance of the bicycle as a means of transportation in a society changing from an agrarian culture to a manufacturing based economy. I enjoy viewing and analyzing movies from various cultural backgrounds and observe the way in which cultures view themselvels ... and then come to my own conclusions. The Bicycle provides the means of supporting one's family and its loss can be devasting to the point of sacrificing ones' own life to protect it and to keep it running safely and efficiently. It is a beautiful movie and I would recomment=d the viewing of bothe the Italian and the Chinese movie.
I am in full agreement that the Seven Samurai is one of the greatest films produced by the human mind. I also agree that Kurosawa is one of the best film directors. I do not agree with the statement that, and think it too closed minded, Kurosawa is the by fsr the greatest film director of the 20th century... further, much the less would I place Star Wars in the same category as Kurosawa's films. We have had, in the 1940's, '60's, 70's excellent film directors of the highest caliber representing pressing and universal human issus on an individual and on a social context perspective. The problem with mentioning names is that it automatically becomes and "excluding" list.. therefore, in order to avoid this exclusion deficiency of my statement, I will end the statement with .... These directors are Burnel, Almador, Bergman (whom you mentioned), Pasolini, Fellini, DeSica, Polanski, Méliès, Melville, Jean Renoir,François Truffaut, Agnès Varda, Alfonso Cuaron, )Guillermo del Toro, Antonio Banderas, Pedro Almodovar, Luis Bunuel, Robert Rodriguez, Carlos Saura ..... All of these and plenty more directors are true artists performing a universal service to humanity by representing art in such a way that it exilerates emotions and passions of a sensitivity not easily aroused. Alas, however, the Hollywood cinematographic conglomerate builds gargantual walls around the US markets preventing any incursion into its super-controlled movie-theatre markets... all to the continuing poverty and regressive, conservative forces of our population.
There's a 1996 film called "The Pillow Book" that uses Sei Shonangon's book of the same title as both inpsiration and segue. The main character, Nagiko, is played by Vivian Wu. She's close to her father, who is a writer. Every year on her birthday, he paints calligraphy on her face, while telling her the story of creation. As a young girl, Nagiko's aunt reads to her from the Pillow Book, and she decides to being a Pillow Book of her own. The story follows her through her life as a model and writer, searching for men to write on. While much of the story is very sexy, and possibly not appropriate for even older students, there are segues in the film that show "Sei Shonangon" writing the Pillow Book. At the beginning of the film there's an spoke excerpt from the book, with visual pictures of duck eggs, ice cream in silver bowls, young children eating strawberries, etc. These parts of the film could be shown in conjunction with lessons on the Pillow Book.
I came into this movie with absolutely no expectations. All I knew was that is was a story about revenge and was hugely popular in Korea and loved by American critics. To call it a revenge movie is too simplistic and doesn't give the filmmakers enough credit. It is based on a Japanese manga of the same name.
Personally, I was surprised to see this type of movie come out of Korea. I've always thought of Korea as a bit more repressed and conservative than America. I've seen quite a few Korean dramas, and the raciest those get are when the leads kiss. To see a movie with simulated sex scenes, torture, and knives in people's backs was shocking.
Oldboy is a story about Oh Daesu, a man who has been locked up in a prison-like hotel room for 15 years. He is suddenly released by his captor, Lee Woojin, and given the assignment of finding out why he was locked in there. This gives Daesu a chance get revenge on the man who kept him in a prison for those 15 years. Without giving too much away, Woojin is exacting his own revenge on Daesu for something that Daesu did to him years ago.
This is definitely not a movie to show to students! It is very violent, has coarse language, and female frontal nudity and sex scenes. That being said, I would recommend this movie to adults. It is a modern noir movie, with ambiguous heroes and villains, complete with a femme fatale (sorta). The director, Park Chan-wook, did a wonderful job of telling a story with so many twists and turns (especially the final cringeworthy twist) and leaving it up to the audience to decide who is the hero and who is the villain. However, I think the real star of the movie is Jeong Jeong-hun, the cinematographer. The whole movie is exquisitely shot, and is really one of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen. Even at its most violent scenes, I couldn't get over how beautiful the movie was. Watching this movie has made me want to see all of Park's and Jeong's movies.
There was talk of an American remake, but it's been put on hold, which I think is a good thing. Inevitably, I think an American filmmaker or film company would try to make it more appealing to a mass audience by watering down the story and violence.
One correction about "The Bicycle Thief": the correct name is "Beijing Bicycle" ... it's a fantastic movie with loads of realism. I very highly recommend it not only for us as teachers but also for students to learn how young Chinese kids live in China and how responsible they are.
Shower- this is an excellent film where one can compare and contrast "new Beijing" and "old Beijing." Aside from the great acting one sees society changing in very new ways. In the old days people lives in Hutongs that had been turned into communes. People used public toilets and public showers, now however all that has changed. Now people live in apartments and people no longer "know" each other. The elderly are trying to come to grips with this fact, since places where they socialized are being torn down. the young folks see modernization as something important for their society. Like the old saying, "get rid of the old to bring in the new." The film can be used to show that china is not static, and that it is changing fast, but with change also comes loss. One can talk about how drastic change can people's like. For example a kid growing up in the city suddenly moving to the country side of Mexico. BUt not taking it as a societal shift. the film is not about politics or whatever it is about peoples lives.
The Big Potato- this is a really cool film that i saw while in china. It talks about how regular city people live. Not those that have money or the dirt poor people, just common people who work in a factory. the funny thing though is that it is somewhat about politics and the democratization of china. If you pay close attention the main character is a really good guy, although he might be clumsy and mess up often. In the film his position is that of manage, and he utilises that position to lord it over people. However as the film progresses it revealed that he is a good guy. To make things nice and short. At the end all the workers exercise democracy and elect him to head manager.
To Live- this film ranks in my top ten list of all time. This film can be used to show the change that china underwent from the 50s all the way to the 80s. The film puts a human face to the suffering and senseless chaos. It is good to show clips to students in conjunction to topics about Mao's china, but also how people have a will to survive.
Beijing Bicycle- this is a good film because it shows the life of peasant workers in the city and the life of city people. A bicycle is used to show the different levels of society that are mixed in all the chaos of the city. There is a joke in Beijing, "if your bike has not been stolen more than 6 times then you are not a Beijinger." (or something along those lines)
"Shower" This comedy shows lovingly how alike the people of world are.Movie depicts the efforts made by a sucessful grown son to settle the differences of his elderly father & his mildly retarded younger brother.At the same time movie raises the many core questions to changing china society.Movie has 3 main characters Da-Ming,Master Liu, & Er Ming accompanied by many small but strong relevent characters. The basic plot of movie is Master Liu is running a traditional bathhouse which is a meeting place of neighbourhood elders .Here deals got made,disputes are settled,&community is knit together.He is helped by his son Er Ming .His other son Da Ming is urbanite ,living away from his father but came after receiving a postcard about bad health of his father.He falls into old rythum of bathhouse& start loving & enjoying it.Neighbourhood welcome him & slowly he became unofficial wise man of his father.Then came a modernisation plan with lot of questions. The questions are very deep. What will happen to elderly father ,the retarded son,the wayward son&the community that has grown around bathhouse.A question not only to characters but for society as they remove old &embrace the modern .It could be a question to any developed country not having any such natural community gatherings.shower raises all such issues besides being warm ,wet pleasure to watch.[Edit by="aagarwal on Dec 27, 3:18:24 PM"][/Edit]
I'm glad to hear that someone else has used the story of Mulan. Since I teach many English Language Development students (Latino from Central and South America, Persian, Korean, Cambodian, Philippino) I have found that animated movies are well-received and serve to inform students that require multiple intelligences approach to scaffolding historical thinking. In particular, I show Mulan after making connections to their prior knowledge relating to invasions of the Roman Empire causing weakness. Are the Huns the Mongols, is another topic. We talk about Geography first and the Great Wall. We talk about myth and historical evidence. In particular how new information can change history. Women's roles in China are addressed as well. I always use a media guide for students to complete while watching films. A good link is available at http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/5082/culture.html.
I just watched "Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles” directed by Zhang Yimou. He directed “Raise the Red Lantern” which I have not seen but hear about often. Riding Alone takes place in Japan (urban and northern rural coastline) and in Yunnan Province in China with some scenes of urban China. The psychological growth of a Japanese traveler as he tries to complete his estranged dying son’s documentary about Chinese Folk Drama is reminiscent of Ingmar Bergman films. The technical filming is cast in a blue solar lens making the colors very rich. There is a moving subplot about an orphaned boy being cared for by committee in the village. This is a rich tapestry of ideas, gestalt, color, and art and parent-child relations. It is PG and I highly recommend this film.
I like the idea of being able to show different topographies and scenes in east Asia. The story may move a little slow for my middle school students but I will try it since it shows modern Japan and China and also has some universal father and son themes. I would expect a lot of questions and since I am TRYING to get my students to write down questions as they think of them to teach them inquiry skills and hypothesis in history this might work as a good vehicle. There's one scene outdoors where the boy defecates and it might be a little too much information but it's brief.
I sent this email to Clay and am posting his answer:
Do you know of any films that represent either the Tang, Song, Yuen, or Ming? I know the Tang dynasty is becoming very popular in China. I know "Hero" reflects the Qin which is representative of Imperial periods. Just wondered if there was anything else you know about.
from Clay:
There are many mini-series about some of these periods but few films. One that is set in the Tang, but based on a Ming novel, is Journey to the West. Another novel turned into a mini-series is Outlaws of the Marsh. It’s set in the Song, but was also written in the Ming. The Chinese name is Shuihu zhuan. Pearl Buck translated it as All Men are Brothers. I am not certain these are available with sub-titles, but I think they might be. Neither of the films are really historical epics though both have some basis in China’s past. A Chinese monk did travel to India to study Buddhism in the land where it was born (this is part of premise of Journey to the West, a novel full of magic, translated and abridged by Arthur Waley as Monkey) and there were bandit gangs who sometimes built local followings by defending farmers and antagonizing rapacious officials (one of the themes of Outlaws of the Marsh, which is heavy on martial arts).
Of course, documentaries about these periods are more plentiful. You can locate some of these in the film index that Miranda and I worked on years ago:
I have not seen Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles but I definitely like Zhang Yimou's films. In fact, I have seen his The Road Home and find it a good film to teach culture, tradition in China's inner village, perhaps, even in some cosmopolitan societies about marriage arrangements. Nonetheless, I plan to use this film to teach social skills to my students, aside from those reasons already stated in the foregoing. I also intend to show on the significance of teacher's respect and how successful obedient students can be. I have attached my review which I did on a separate Word page document.
Film: Red Beard, (1965); Black and White film Director: Akira Kurosawa Starring: Toshiro Mifune (As Red Beard) and Yuzo Kayama (as Noboru Yasumoto, the young apprentice doctor)
The story takes place at the end of the Tokugawa period where a young resident doctor named Noburo Yasumoto returns to the city of Edo after having completed his medical studies at a Dutch medical school in Nagasaki. From the beginning, Yasumoto shows his unbridled ambition and arrogance by his gait and his gruff way of speaking to others. He pays his respects to the Koishikawa Public Clinic where he meets Kyojio Niide (Red Beard) who is the head of the facility. It is one of the classic themes of the rash and unpredictable apprentice meeting his wise and reticent master. As a recent graduate from a prestigious Dutch program, Yasumoto is expecting to garner apprenticeship in the Royal Court. However, he learns that he is to serve in the public clinic, an appointment that greatly flabbergasts and infuriates him. In response, Yasumoto does everything in his power to rebel against his present circumstance; not wearing the mandated medical uniform, refusing to attend to patients, and the like. Meanwhile, Red Beard calmly waits for his apprentice's steam to wear off, always the foreboding Confucian master.
Like many of Kurosawa's films during this time, the hero is confronted with situations where his convictions are truly tested. He finally realizes his own limitation and humbly undergoes a transformative experience, via life and death circumstances, that leads to his self-actualization and a new outlook on life. Through Red Beard's careful guidance and brute honesty, Yasumoto transcends from a book learned doctor to that of a true hero. That he realized the schooling he had received in a controlled, insulated environment did nothing to adequately prepare him for the gruesome realities of life. Only through submitting his own ego for the betterment of others did Yasumoto receive a real education.
This is my favorite film by Kurosawa. All the characters are flawed but relatable. I was particularly impressed by Toshiro Mifune’s (interestingly, his last film with Kurosawa) portrayal of a master, whose mercurial temperament, vacillates between his vanity and the need to serve others. Even as an instructor, he is not above reproach.
This film covers a variety of topics including Confucian Ethics, master-student relationship as well as a history lesson on a changing Japan from that of a Samurai society to a modern, industrial one. For my present first and second graders, I would focus on the master-student relationship by showing clips of the hero’s beginning and how he changed at the end. It would be a great compare and contrast exercise for the students—Venn Diagram or a T-chart will be used to show the evolvement of the main character as he undergoes a significant internal change. The protagonist’s character development will be described by making a list of descriptive words (adjectives and the like) to express what he is in the beginning, middle and the end. Moreover, the students could also write about what they would do if they were in the protagonist’s place: would they stay with the master? Would they rebel and cause more havoc in the lives of many? What kind of life connection can they make with their experiences as students in a classroom? Did the master seem fair or not? Their replies would be quite interesting.
Film: Early Summer, "Bakushu", (1951, black and white) Director: Yasujiro Ozu Starring: Setsuko Hara (as Noriko Mamiya) and Chishu Ryu (as Koichi Mamiya) Setting: Kamakura, Japan
Early summer is a story of an extended family, the Mamiya's, living under one roof and their different tribulations in dealing with generational, personality, and group/verses individuality conflicts. Ozu is famous for making films about ordinary family life; he is versed in peeling the layers of his subjects to reveal the true internal motivations that is universal to film viewers. Unlike Kurosawa's themes of rapid movement, grandeur, heroism and extroversion, Ozu's film permeates exactly the opposite--quiet, reflective, introspective and nostalgic. Interestingly like Kurosawa, Ozu retains the same actors/actresses for most of his films.
What's interesting about Ozu's movie is that the vantage point from the camera does not have much movement. Ozu was famous for setting his camera angle at a low position, as if one is looking at the charters from sitting. Most of the shots are full-frontal, rather than manipulated angles to illicit emotion from the audience.
The Mamiya family lives under one roof, where politics emerge as each generation grapples with their place in the family's infrastructure. The conflict of traditional vs. modern becomes apparent as each character tries their best to merge one with the other--there are other issues as well: Working women, group vs. individualism, modernization, and country vs. city. It is a story of one's ability to compromise and resigning oneself to the notion that the only constancy in life is change.
I recommend using this film as a comparative study of family life or exploration of any of the issues mentioned above. It's a must see.
The review sounds interesting. I had just finished viewing the The Road Home and posted my review here in the Film Festival forum. I was trying to find a DVD of Hero and that funny movie Eat Drink Man Woman but could not find one. I like this movie even though I just show a brief part of it during one of our sessions last Dec. I plan to use this film in teaching families in East Asia. Is the movie Earlu Summer also a good one to show to my 8 graders for introduction to my planned lesson about families in East Asia? If so, please advise as to where I can get a copy. Also, the Eat Drink Man Woman. Thanks.
The film deals with family dynamics and how modernity changes the politics within the members of one's family. Each member grapples with living under the patriarch system and adjusting their own life-perception to make it work for them. Also, you can visibly see the changing Japan during that time--for example, women no longer wear kimonos but skirts and curl their hair in a modern chignon. Gender expectations changes as women start contributing to the economic prosperity of the family. It's a film with multi-layers, worth watching. You can purchase it in Little Tokyo at the Kinokuniya Book Store. I'm not sure if they would have this movie in a regular rental place -- I hope you find it. (It's a wonderful movie to have as a collection, though.)
Another film that I recommend that deals with issues of family is "Yi Yi", a film by Edward Yang. The story follows the lives of a Taiwanese family and dealing with issues of life in a Confucian world: taking care of one's elderly parents, dealing with kids who are too modernized, and financial woes that come into everyone's life, in one shape of another. It is part comedy and drama--the themes are universal and I believe it is one of the greatest film epitomizing the life of a family in Taiwan. [Edit by="seun on Jan 15, 1:27:56 PM"][/Edit] [Edit by="seun on Jan 15, 9:13:26 PM"][/Edit]
The film follows the lives of a Taiwanese family -- NJ Jian, his wife, Min-Min, and their two kids. Life issues are explored: Mid-life crises, taking care of the elderly, dealing with generational differences, and second romances. It is both drama and comedy as each character goes from one disastrous situation and another. It's a film about acceptance and tolerance of one's situation, that not everything works out the way you want it to be. This is a great film to use in class dealing with exploring the lives of families--their dynamics, belief system, and hierarchy.
There was a controversy about this film, specifically the age of the actors who portrayed each of these characters. Some critics believed that the sexual content of the film was too mature for the actors to express, particularly the girl who played Chunhyang. I've only watched clips of the film so I do not know too much about it. Any thoughts?
Film: Cafe Lumiere Director: Hou Hsiao-Hsien Starring: Yo Hitoto and Tadanobu Asano
As a tribute to Yasujiro Ozu, director Hou Hsiao-Hsien immediately takes us to a scene where Yoko (Yo Hitoto), a young freelance writer, is hanging laundry while talking on a phone. Already, you see Ozu's influence in having the first shot be that of hanging laundry, a particular theme he is famous for. (Trains are another theme, also explored in this film). Yoko contends with her traditional parents by announcing her pregnancy and that she will not marry the baby's father. Her stoic acceptance of her situation is keenly felt by the audience. Feelings are kept hidden or deeply buried--this film is an interesting exploration into the inner lives of the Japanese whose culture promotes ambivalence and promoting the group over the individual. It is a meditative film about how one comes to terms with solitude. Like his predecessor, Hsien focuses on an ordinary life of a person. Rather than sensationalism or epic sagas, the reflective nature of this movie presents a fresh perspective on life and how one comes to terms with being lonely and alone.
I just finished watching "The First Emperor of China" film produced in 1989 by the National Film Board of Canada and China Xi'an Film Studio. I found it in Borders but it is also available through Amazon and razordigitalent.com. It is 42 minutes long and I also found a good lesson/media guide (www.dcmp.org/guides/3608.pdf) with a good parallel time line on world history. This is most appropriate for 6th grade history standards on China but is a good review for 7th grade history standards to review the challenges of imperial rule. The narration is in English and the actors speak Mandarin which lends authenticity. It is a little dated but is not gory or overly violent. It covers the difficulties of unification, Qin's ruthlessness and his ability to coordinate the building of the Great Wall. There are casts of thousands for battles and pageants. It covers the new reforms he put in place regarding the standardization of language, weights and measures. And although Shi Huang-di was a great believer in literacy, he burns books that do not ascribe to his legalistic beliefs. The building of his tomb and his obsession with immortality is described. The clothing and other decorative arts are beautifully displayed lending to the sense of grandeur. In the end of the film, there is a modern day portion about the discovery of his tomb and how the history of this emperor lives on. This may not be as modern as the more recent Discovery Channel program about Shi Huang-di but it covers the essentials in under an hour. Since my students have just finished studying the geography of China, I will be using this to stimulate prior knowledge about ancient China and introduction of continued imperial rule through the "middle ages".
Update: In preparing for lesson plan I went into the class CD which we were given at the end of the course and accessed dube-qin-han-dynasties.pdf and found it be a great intro for the film (with shots from the film) and overview of the period.[Edit by="eamador on Feb 3, 9:39:51 AM"][/Edit] [Edit by="eamador on Feb 3, 4:44:28 PM"][/Edit]
According to this Canadian Press story, three US films will be released in China this March. They are National Treasure: Book of Secrets, The Golden Compass, and 10,000 BC. Will Smith's The Pursuit of Happyness was released in January. Only 20 foreign films are officially released in China each year, though people routinely watch a large variety of films via pirated DVD copies.
I rented the 2 Asian movies recommended in our syllabus this weekend: "Hero" and "Farewell my Concubine". Of the two, I enjoyed "Hero" the most. It was produced by Quentin Tarantino, whose movies I really like, but this film will surprise you if you are familiar with his work. "Hero" demonstrates restraint when it comes to the use of violence but is a true action film. Lots of really good historical references in this film, and I can see how you could use this film to good effect in the classroom. It is set in the time of the Qin Unification and makes reference to such historical facts as the standardization of the writing system, tied together strips of bamboo that served as books, the use of horses and chariot riding, the crossbow, and iron weaponry in warfare. The movie has a great deal of depth to it and the reading that we are currently doing is ideal for interpreting various aspects of the film. The director states that it took him 2 years to write the script and you can see why. The basic storyline is told repeatedly within the film but from different perspectives and interpretations of the events. These multiple perspectives give reference to the legalist school of thought as exemplified by the ruler, the confucist stress on disciplining one's behavior as exemplified by the assassin's code, and the discusssion amongst the various assassins that makes reference to the Daoist ideals of having the goverment work for the good of the people. There is a strong female role in this film with plenty of exploration of the ideas of yin and yang, feminine and masculine, receptive and assertive, weak and strong. There is also a stark use of color throughout the film which may be reference to the "six gi "(see page 38 in our text: East Asia; A Cultural, Social, and Political History. All together I would highly recommend the film to the members of our class. I can also say that this film, or segments from it, would really help to bring the curriculum to life in the classroom. [Edit by="dkelly on Feb 24, 4:21:55 PM"][/Edit] [Edit by="dkelly on Feb 24, 4:23:02 PM"][/Edit] [Edit by="dkelly on Jul 28, 3:04:18 PM"][/Edit]
The film I am reviewing is called "1000 Pieces of Gold." This is an American film released in 1991 staring Chris Cooper and Rosalind Chao, both of whom are excellent. The film is about a Chinese girl who is sold by her father to a marriage broker who sends her to San Francisco where she is sold to Chinese saloonkeeper in a gold mining town. The saloonkeeper wants the girl to work as a prostitute in his saloon, and not as a wife. The girl refuses and ends up a kind of slave to the saloonkeeper. She is eventually lost in a pocker game to the saloonkeeper's white business partner who takes her away from the saloon. At first the girl hates her new white owner, but over time they eventually fall in love.
This summary might sound like a really bad soap-opera, and it certainly could have been. But actually the film is a very good historical drama and shows in great detail the life of Chinese immigrants to California in the later 19th century. I teach 8th grade US history and for me the film provides a really good way to make the Chinese immigrant experience come alive for my students. It has lead to some excellent class discussions about immigration, race prejudice, gender issues and many others topics. The vast majority of my students are Latino who are themselves either immigrants, or the children of immigrants, and the film really hits home with them. The girls are very attracted to Rosalind Chao's character and are particularly impressed by the way she never gives up and constrantly displays a very strong will in the face of some really terrible things that happen to her.
I used the film as the basis for an essay in which students are asked to write a review of the film based on a number of promts I give them, or a comparision of the Chinese immigration experience with that of themselves or their own families. Many of the essays were really good for this project.
BTW, the film is rated PG13 so I don't have too much trouble showing it to my 8th graders, but the content may be a bit too adult for younger students.
Rise of the Feathered Dragon (2006); documentary (great title!) This is an excellent movie for middle and high school science students studying topics such as fossils, dinosaurs, birds, evolution, and geology. It documents the recent work of a young paleontologist from U of Pennsylvania, Dr. Matt Lamanna and his friend and colleague from the Chinese Academy of Geologic Sciences, Dr. You Hailu.
The movie focuses on excavation work in the rugged desert-like Changma Basin in northwest China where the scientists find a 110 million year old bird fossil of Gansus yumenensis. The scientists use these findings to support their theory that birds are direct descendants of dinosaurs. The movie also highlights the 1996 discovery in the Liaoning Province of the first non-avian feathered dinosaur, found by a farmer named Li Yumin. The farmer invites the scientists to a homecooked feast and they discuss his breakthrough finding of the rare 125 million year old fossil that provided evidence of a direct evolutionary link between dinosaurs and birds.
Besides the scientific findings, the movie allows viewers to see China’s varied landscapes from city to farmland to desert; there is mention of the Silk Road; it shows a funeral procession in a rural village; scientists show their fossil findings to local children in Changma who are very curious and interested and then they build origami paper dragons with them; and a fun scene is when Lamanna promises to eat a duck foot if they unearth a rare bird fossil (which they do!); behind the visuals is a soundtrack playing beautiful traditional Chinese music.
Besides the exciting content, one additional thing teachers can discuss with students is how scientists from all parts of the world often work collaboratively for the common goal of adding to scientific understanding of various topics – in this case in the evolutionary link of dinosaurs and birds. Teachers can also use this movie to discuss how China is rich in a wide variety of other archaeological findings (humans, plants, etc).
After reading the book Wild Swans: 3 Daughters of China, the movie "To Live" provided a terrific recap of that era in China. The movie highlights the struggles of one family from the 40's through the 60's. One image that stuck with me was the period where doctors were put into detention while young medical students with very little training were put in charge at hospitals and the obvious damage and destruction this caused to many people's health and lives. The struggle of people to survive the conditions brought on by the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, and to rise above them, was both heartbreaking and inspiring. It seems so sad that so much of some people's lifetimes was spent on needless struggle. I highly recommend this movie, and it is probably the best depiction of that time period of any Chinese film I have seen so far.
In the film, Eat, Drink, Man, Woman the character of chef Chen asks the question, ‘is this all there is to life?’ Throughout the movie, each of the characters struggles with this question; however, the real struggle seems to be between what is expected of them and what they desire. The answer to the central question seems to be, yes: eat, drink, man, woman is more than enough for a life—if, in fulfilling those basic needs, you also follow the desires of your heart.
Another key comment comes from Second Sister as Oldest Sister is complaining about the neighbors who loudly sing every night. Second Sister says, ‘we communicate through food, why shouldn’t they through song?’ Although she is saying it with sarcasm, it is a truth that is carried through the film. It is through food that the father shows his affection for his family, and it is through cooking that Second Sister expresses herself and her need to also give care and affection. The preparation and serving of food is the legacy of the father to the Second Daughter and it is the art that they both practice. Also, it is over food that the family comes together for all major discussions and announcements. Just as the kitchen table is centrally placed in the house, the meals are central to all the drama of the family, all imbalances (emotional and physical) are reflected in the meals, who prepares them and who is present to eat them.
Trav's Travels in China is a wonderful 20-minute kids' video about the different regions of China. It goes into the history, geography, clothing, foods, architecture, famous structures, and economy of each region. I found it appropriate for my third graders as it fit in with our curriculum, including studying economics and why communities grow and change. For example when they highlight the western region they talk about the harsh terrain and climate, droughts, and short growing season as being contributors to there being a smaller population there than in other areas. There is also a section on Tibet and Buddism which would fit in with recent news events. This is a great film for the elementary level, however I was only able to see it because a friend had a copy. I couldn't find it on Netflix, but I did find it for sale at amazon http://www.amazon.com/Travs-Travels-China-Geography-Kids/dp/1563456362 but there was only one available.
This is a repost for the film review requirement. I posted it in the wrong forum initially.
I love that there is finally something related to us primary teachers! It's very frustrating when everything is related to upper grades. You said that this video is appropriate for 3rd graders. I'm wondering if you think that this video would also be appropriate for students in first or second grade.
Wow, what a fantastic film. I think that I liked "Crouching Tiger" more, but "Hero" was fantastic.
I really liked how the story was told from several different perspectives. The use of color from one perspective to another was great. I was a little disappointed by the ending because I am a happy ending kind of guy, but overall the film was special.
I love how the film deals with history in a way that is accessable to this generation of movie-goers. Jet Li is a very popular film star, and I could show this film to my Humanities classes and give a history lesson while my students will feel like they are watching a karate film.
Very impressive. Rivals many of the other films that I have seen by other Chinese and Japanese directors.
Lynae, I absolutely feel your frustration with trying to relate these videos to primary grades and I'm glad that you mentioned it. Maybe if it is feasible they should have a recommended section for primary in which we just can post to each other and then offer it to upper grades if applicable. It takes a lot of extra time searching and weeding through reviews to find anything appropriate for our kids. Sue Smith and I are going to watch Trav's Travels and make up worksheets this week if you want to preview it with us and do the same. Let's talk and work together on it. Kiley
I'm very interested in seeing this video. Sue's description of the film was very positive. It's short enough for younger students to stay tuned into it, too! It will be nice to be able to view and discuss the video and how we can use it at our different grade levels. I'm in, just tell me when you are planning on watching it. In addition, maybe we can even compare notes on the literature we have been looking at for inclusion in our curriculum units. If nothing else, it will be nice to just bounce ideas off eachother. Maybe we can even come up with a multi-grade unit that progresses from grade level to grade level. Great idea!
Being an American female in 2008, this movie awakened every empathetic bone in my body. This movie takes place in a rural village in China during the 1920's. It is about the customs and right of a patriarchal society in which women are enslaved to men, especially since they are purchased and literally a posession. The old, rich man has already tortured to death 2 former wives when he marries Ju Dou, whom is not able to mother a child from him either. She goes on to fall for the nephew and does end up pregnant with his child and obviously raises it as if it were the old man's. He finds out and though the nephew does have a chance to kill him, he is so loyal to tradition, he does not, though he knows he will be condemed and tormented by him. The old man turns the little boy against the parents and they have to deal with this contention. Later, by accident, the old man dies in the dye shop that he owns and the city blames Ju Dou and she is not allowed to marry again (I'm sure she has no problem with that!) and the nephew is to leave the dye mill.
This film awakens one's soul to the tragedies and horrors inflicted to Chinese women during these times. The torture is horrendous and would be a great way for modern civ classes or world history to compare and contrast women's status and rights in other countries throughout history. What a wonderful way to study history and the catalysts for change.
A friend of mine lend me this and, as it is a classic, I figured I'd take a look. The film was made in 1958 and is based on the lifed of a British missionary named Gladys Aylward who, though she was told she was unqualified and was not endorsed by the missionary society, struggled to earn her train ticket on her own and found her own way to a Northern Provice of China. There she did many remarkable things including taking almost 100 war orphans (on foot and through the Japanese lines) to the town of Shien to have them evacuated to a safe house in China's interior.
Because it is Hollywood, there is an added romance and slight commentary on the social injustice of racism involving a Dutch-Chinese Colonel. Though there was such a relationship in her life, the real Gladys did not marry the Colonel, choosing instead to continue her missionary work.
Again, because it is Hollywood, the film actually tones down the intense faith in Christianity that drove Gladys Aylward's actions. Instead, the film focuses on her humanitarian efforts during the WWII period in Northern China. It is an inspiring film and one well-worth watching.
I have watched very few Asian films, and after watching this one, I don't know why! This was a fabulous film that touched my heart, and made me hungry! The father was my favorite here in how he was a chef, but had lost his sense of taste. There is such an important metaphor here- that I think could be easily used in writing class. The women are all very real and they come to their own decisions with wariness, just as any young person does. Jia-Chien was my favorite character who seems so quiet and unable to reach out to her father and older sister. It breaks your heart. A great discussion on women in China. I think that the story translates as one that is worldwide and it could be shown in most upper grade classrooms. Students learning the language could enjoy it on a variety of levels. It is valuable as a study of the culture, especially the women. It says a lot about the time, and I think that most young people will see how they are all the same. I think that I will grab a copy of the book to see if it is appropriate for high schoolers.
The film “Seven Samurai” was over three hours long! After the second hour, I was anxiously expecting to see the bandits enter the village. It was too long for me, but the film was enjoyable. The story is set in Japan in the 16th century when the central authority collapses, war lords control the land, and farmers face severe hardships. I viewed the film with the commentary device on. The insights into the film were provided by Michael Jeck. He lectures and distributes Japanese films. Jecks interjections throughout the movie helped me stay focused during the long film, but mostly importantly he emphasized the nuisances that I would have surely missed.
The conflict confronting the villagers is a group of troublesome bandits. The villagers decided to hire several samurai to deal with them. Two hours of the movie are spent presenting the quandary of the village, the recruitment of the samurai, and then the training of the villagers by the samurai. The last hour and thirty minutes deal with the attack of the village by the bandits.
The film is truly a work of art. Michael Jeck stated that most of the film was shot in a lot. You could not have guessed that. The actors in the movie did an incredible job. I was memorized by each character’s unique personality and how their interactions advanced the plot. Of course, the best character was the comical Kikuchiyo. He is an endearing fellow with some major inner demons. Kikuchiyo is better understood at the end of the film.
I would definitely use the film in my classroom to discuss the tension between the samurai and the peasants, to discuss the political climate in Japan in the 16th century, and the values of the samurai.
Even though the film was long, I highly recommend it.
I viewed The Last Emperor. It was a wonderful film about the last Manchurian emperor of China. I was captivated with the story that was pretty much historically accurate. The story was presented from a very personal and human perspective. I came to feel sympathy toward young P’u Yi who since the age of three was like a prisoner in the Forbidden City. The young actors portraying P’u Yi were extremely artistic in presenting a young Emperor who was callow, naive, and manipulated throughout his life. The movie presents the major events of the Emperor’s life, such as the selection of his wife, the troops of a warlord entering the City to remove him, life in Tientsin, a puppet Emperor in Manchuria, and finally as a prisoner of war.
I wonder if any scenes were actually filmed in the Forbidden City. The sacredness of the City as a symbol of imperial grandeur and China’s glorious past are well presented in this film.
I would definitely use this movie in the classroom to explore the question: “What is the role of the monarchy today?” The movie is also useful in showing the changes in China during the period of life of Emperor P’u Yi. A teacher could use this movie as a spring board to explore world events or those specific to Asia, such as the Japanese invasion into Manchuria, the attack on Pearl Harbor, or Communism in China.
It is a great movie to see.
ENTER THE DRAGON
This section certainly has some interesting reviews of films that I hope to check out at some point. Here is my two cents. I was debating which film to review, when a friend of mine who is, among other things, a certified Bruce Lee nut, loaned me the 30th Anniversary DVD edition. I remember seeing the film as a teenager, but the only thing that really registered was Bruce Lee's ability to kick some serious butt.
Having explored the film a little further, it soon became apparent to me that this is a very important film on some levels. Filmed in 1973, it was the first martial arts movie that was designed for a worldwide audience, and was the first co-production between an American film company (Warner's) and Golden Harvest films, which was owned by Raymond Chow in Hong Kong. The film was written by an American (with input from Lee himself), boasted an ethnically diverse cast, was filmed in and around Hong Kong using many up-and-coming martial arts stars like Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung, and was the first attempt to really sell an Asian actor to an American audience. It was filmed on a budget of $850,000, and went on to make a substantial return worldwide. In fact, it is on several lists of most profitable films of all time. It launched Lee as a bona fide superstar and cultural icon, which only compounded the tragedy of his death at 32 a month before the film premiered in Los Angeles. Ironically, it was the least popular of Lee's films in the Asian market, but it did very well in the US and Europe.
Lee is a Shaolin monk who is recruited by the British to investigate a notorious ex-monk named Han. Han holds a martial arts tournament every three years on his private island, which just happens to be in international waters and outside the jurisdiction of the British. The Brits are convinced that Han is responsible for running a drug and prostitution ring, and they need someone who can infiltrate the tournament to snoop around. Lee is at first reluctant, until of course the Brits tell him that Han is a former member of his temple and is also directly responsible for the death of Lee's sister. The tournament is nothing more than an elaborate ruse, as Han uses it to recruit new talent for his nefarious organization. Thus motivated, Lee travels to the island and meets up with a colorful cast of characters, including: Roper, the cynical-yet-warmhearted gambling addict/karate expert who is on the run from the mob; and Jim Kelly, the African-American karate champ who has escaped relentless persecution at the hands of the police in the deep south. The tournament begins and there are many explosive and original fight scenes during the day, and at night Lee snoops around the island to gather the evidence that the Brits require. Eventually, Han is tipped to the fact that Lee is an agent and they have a fight to the death, while the whole island simultaneously brawls. The troops arrive, order is restored, good has triumphed against evil, and personal scores have been settled.
This is pretty standard fare and is certainly a product of its time. A cheesy 'Shaft'-like theme, replete with crazed wah-wah pedal stomping floats through the entire movie, the dialogue is loaded with dated slang, Jim Kelley sports the quintessential afro and the black militant angle is alluded to at points, the fighters- especially Lee- feel the need to wax poetic about the fighting itself, the adversary is a Dr.No clone, and the story has its share of holes. The movie saves itself on the strength of the fighting scenes, which happen frequently and escalate to the all out brawl that concludes the film. The star of the movie and the reason for the movie is Lee himself. He was a magnetic performer who exudes a cocky confidence and inner anger that is asonishing to witness. What a great physical actor. Basically, the movie is James Bond meets "Shaft".
What is interesting about the film is that Lee is not your typical Asian actor of that time. He is strong, clever, opinionated, stubborn, brave, incredibly gifted, but he also follows a strict code of ethics. Let's face it, he is also the real deal. Remember that many Americans exposure to an "Asian" actor was during "Kung-Fu", starring David Carradine- a westerner dressed up to appear more Asian (Ironically, Lee never got over his anger at being turned down for that role). Flash back a few years prior to that, and Bruce Lee makes his appearance in the seldom seen action series "The Green Lantern" as Kato, the loyal and somewhat quirky sidekick to his American boss. Lee is nobody's sidekick anymore, and he establishes this in the first minute of the film. He is not only a superbly gifted martial artist, but also a teacher, a philosopher, and a man of great morality. Interestingly, the Americans are portrayed in a noble light as well, but they are not without their flaws. Jim Kelly is portrayed as a good man, but he is not adverse to partying and loves to 'get down with the ladies', while O'Harra, one of Han's American thugs, dishonors the tournament by attacking Lee with broken bottles, thereby causing Han and his team to "lose face". Roper refuses to join Han's enterprise, but he is also gambling on the outcome of the fights. The Americans are also not portrayed as physically intimidating, despite their larger frames, but the camera lovingly rolls over Lee, sans shirt throughout a good portion of the film, as he flexes his considerable physique. He is the Asian superman who can do things that other mortals can't even conceive.
The film is problematic for many of the reasons listed above. It would be a hard sell to show this movie in my classroom full of 8th graders (especially with our ridiculous LAUSD Policy). However, and more realistically, most of my students openly talk about seeing such fare as "Saw II", "Hostel" and other excessively gory flicks, so this would be rather tame. But, is is educational? I would argue that it is in certain ways. It does demonstrate the Asian method of combining philosophical thought with physical action, and demonstrates that they are not mutually exclusive. Some of Lee's philosophic utterirngs could be examined and would be an excellent hook to introduce a unit on Zen writing etc. However, I think the greatest value of this film is that it is the first joint US-Chinese cultural enterprise designed at infiltrating American culture and that it spawned an entire genre- big budget action films with Asian actors (Jet Li, Jackie Chan, and many of the 'Hard-Boiled" films from Hong Kong in the 80's). Also, the film was a concerted effort to change the average American's perception of Asian people. After "Enter the Dragon", there was no need to dress up a westerner in exotic clothing and pass him off as Asian (ala 'Kung-Fu'), the stereotypical Asian character was undermined by Lee's adoption of more accessible, but no less authentic, character traits that an American audience could relate to, and even admire (imagine Gary Cooper dispatching the bad guys in "High Noon" with Kung-Fu). The film is an interesting example of cross-cultural pollination, and the students would benefit from being shown how this character came to be, and the great distance travelled to arrive before them on the screen. Placed in the context of China's emergence in the American consciousness in the early 70's (Nixon's overtures to China), and during the end phase of the conflict of Vietnam, this film signalled the beginning of a new era. Asia was nobody's afterthought anymore.
"Tokyo Story" was made in 1953 by Ozu. It is unanimously recognized as a masterpiece. It may be a slow go for most of you in the first thirty minutes but hang in there. Sometimes the camera will hold as long as ten seconds on one scene. Ozu's primary subjects are the rituals and processes of middle class life. It you wish ato peak into middle class life see "Tokyo Story". It is an unvarnished look at Japenese life with the unit of observation being the family and extended family.
The shots are very unconventional. For instance, the train opens the scene as it is traveling off the screen and reappears in the last scene traveling the other direction. The film is about an elderly couple and their children and in-laws, and how they are treated on a vacation. The mother's health takes a turn for the worst at the resort and they travel to the small town to comfort the father. I won't tell you more--- other than to be aware of the use of symmetry by the director. There are no loose ends in this film and all scenes exercise efficiency and sparse resources to deliver a heart wrenching climax. You walk away thinking simpliciy is truly beauty.
For good news, reviews, entertainment, resources, and screening events on Asian-American Films check out the following website:
www.asianamerican.film.com
The site provides links for screening events all around the USA, In-depth articles about Asian films and film-makers, Reviews of the good and bad movies, community message boards where members could share news and comments around the area, Resources on film-makers, films, a database, and even casting calls, and Minute Movies.
Log on www.asianamerican.film.com and check out this excellent resource for Asian-American Films.
Comic book meets the action film, the comedy, the musical, drama, and the didactic story;"Kung-Fu Hustle" by Stephen Chow is the movie that has it ALL!
"In a time of social unrest and disorder the gangs run amuck. The most feared of them all is the Axe Gang. Only in the poorest districts, which hold no interest for the gangs can people live in peace" (Kung-Fu Hustle Prologue)
I love-love-love this film! It is one of my ultimate favorites and this is the first time I have ever thought of the possibility of using it in the classroom to teach/review Elements of Literature (Exposition, plot, setting, conflict, complication, climax, denouement, and resolution) as well as, Narrative, and Theme. YES, it is rated R, but I would use it to teach enrichment in an after school or saturday class, AND of course I would get adminstrative and parental consent.
If I could get it approved , I will use this action-packed, fun-filled, great story-line to help my students understand the concepts I mentioned above.
How?
Well, teaching 1st and 3rd-person Narrative can be challenging if you have reluctant and/or low-level readers. Because I have a class with 11 resource students (all with different learning disabilities, and low-low reading skills), I would love to use "Kung-Fu Hustle" to draw the students in. If you think about it, I could hit a lot of the 7th AND 8th grade California English Standards doing this.
See..
The movie is like a cartoon! The characters run, act, fight, and behave like the Road-Runner, Wile E. Coyote, Tom and Jerry, and so forth. The students will definitely be into it. It's funny! Yes, it's in Chinese, and they will HAVE to follow the subtitles, but if they can't, they will be able to follow the action nonetheless.
With the students drawn in, and therefore paying CLOSE attention to the story, I can use it as a jumping base to talk about HOW the characters are depicted and introduced. What are their characteristics? Strengths? Flaws?
Then, we could talk about setting? When and where does the story take place? How do you know? Give examples, explain.
What is the conflict of the story? How do you know? Examples from the film? Do we see the conflict get worse? What are the complications? Discuss, explain.
The students will not have a problem telling me what the Climax is because it is evident. And although there are A LOT of exciting parts in the movie, they will know which scene was the most critical.
After the Climax, students will be asked to discuss the denouement...how are things winding down? What is the resolution? Was the conflict solved? How? Explain and give examples from the movie.
Once we discuss all of these elements (1week), I can always assign the students to rewatch the movie outside of school--and they will and do have access to the film. If I get approval,, they can even watch it in the school's auditorium for the second time during lunch time in 3 days! During their second viewing I will ask them to pay attention to the order of events (plot). What happened first, sencond, third, last? And have them create a flow chart the plot.
Once students have watched "Kung-Fu Hustle" at least twice, we can review the above mentioned elements and begin talking about theme. This film has soo many positive messages! World peace, redemption, kindness, love, etc.
Finally, we could discuss the characteristics of narrative by examining short stories. As a culminating task students will have the option to write a narrative assuming the persona of a character from the film or from one of the stories studied, and retell one event of the story in the 1st or 3rd-person point of view.
This of course will take about 2-3 weeks, 2-5 if we want to discuss the symbolism within the film.
I know the use of this film in the teaching of middle-school students is HIGHLY unlikely, but it is an exciting idea...maybe it be better for high-school or college students in basic English classes. Who knows! But I know I would get great results if it could be done.
What do you think?
On Oct. 1, 2007, the USC U.S.-China Institute will screen a dramatic documentary. My Dream is about a performing arts troupe where all the performers have overcome some disability in order to express themselves through music or dance. The troupe has performed at Carnegie Hall and Kennedy Center. Prior to the screening, we'll feature a discussion among specialists about the perceptions toward the disabled in China and efforts to meet their needs.
To be sure that you get reminders about this screening, please go to the USC U.S.-China Institute website (http://china.usc.edu) and sign up for the newsletter. You can also sign up by sending your contact information to mailto:uschina@usc.edu
I have lefft this posting until last because it is the one I did not want to do. I do not watch movies unless forced to because I simply do not enjoy them. I know this makes me an enemy of many people, especially in Los Angeles and all it's film glory, but I would rather read.
Since I had to watch and review a film I decided to see one that many of my friends had urged me to see. I rented Memoirs of a Geisha. I knew that there was probably very little useful footage for use in my elementary classroom, but I had hoped for a couple of 2 minute clips I could use in relation to other topics. I am not sure that I got any clips out of watching this film, but it certainly was beautiful cinematography. I did not know anything about the story line and so I was a bit confused at times but overall I thought it was a tolerable movie. I may even read the book to get a better grasp of the story line (in my opinion, a better way to spend 145 minutes).
Despite not being able to use this film in my classroom, I feel that it equipped me with more knowledge of East Asia and an aspect of Japan's history. I recall having once learned all about the Kimono and think I have been inspired to do more research on the meaning behind them. This may lead to a useful lesson. I also want to know more about the Japanese perspective on WWII and am going to seek out books on the topic. Again, I am sure the inspiration the film gave me to research other topics will lead to another useful lesson.
One thing I did like about the film was the presentation of Geisha as being almost like a competative sport. This is an angle I had not previously considered. The competition and jealousy between the girls was fierce and they strategically planned each of their moves to out-do the other. They were also simultaneously striving to be the best Geisha while questioning if they really wanted that life... and interesting juxtaposition.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is an adventurous story of noble warriors in feudal China. It's also the story of a love between one warrior and the fiancée of a fallen comrade, a woman in which it would be dishonorable for him to pursue. It follows the life of a beautiful teenage daughter (Zhang Ziyi) of a governor, who longs desperately for freedom in the face of an impending arranged marriage. This movie is filled both with action packed sequences as well as a great storyline.
Although I couldn’t really show this movie in its entirety to my sixth grade class (because of the rating), I would love to use some clips for my history class. Especially notable are the themes of thievery, loyalty, duty and unrequited love that unfold in this movie. These values are very much part of Asian culture. In today’s world of reality tv, I think it would be interesting for my students to see a culture where you cannot think of yourself first. It would be great to use to show them the core values held in ancient China, and how those values affcted their daily lives. In addition, if I were to get permission slips or taught an older age, I would love to use this during my narrative unit. It follows the basic plot line well. While most movies do, this would be a good way to tie Chinese culture in my class, discussing with the students the conflict, subplots, climax, resolution, and of course theme, all the while learning Chinese culture.
.
ANCIENT CHINA: THE ROOTS OF AGRICULTURE is a film created by The History Channel as part of the Where Did It Come From? series. I showed this film to my sixth grade students when learning about Ancient China. This film can be purchased from TheHistoryChannel.com as a DVD entitled Where Did It Come From?: Ancient China: Agriculture for $24.95. The film is 50 minutes long.
This is a great film to show students about the ingenuity of the ancient Chinese civilization who faced problems of maintaining a stable food supply that would need to a feed a large population of people. This film traces the origins of modern agricultural technology that was influenced by many ancient Chinese inventions such as the wheelbarrow, the hoe, cast iron plow, seed drill, and chain pump. Host Michael Cuillen travels back to 22 centuries back in time and reveals how Chinese farmers increase productivity and made numerous contributions to modern agriculture as well.
What was great about this film was that students got to see the ancient farming inventions created by the Chinese in the past and the modern farming equipment that was influenced by the Chinese. There was also a segment that recreated some of the early Chinese inventions such as the seed drill and the chain pump that pumps water uphill.
After watching the video, my students were really impressed with the ingenuity of the Chinese and can connect modern agriculture to Chinese history.
Akira Kurosawa is, quite simply, the greatest film director of the twentieth century. The early Orson Welles (Citizen Kane and, far less successfully, The Magnificent Ambersons) and Ingmar Bergman (his entire oeuvre) in their best moments equal Kurosawa. But no one exceeds him for startling originality, technical virtuosity and the sheer force of his stunning visual and dramatic presentations. New directors may emerge in the future, of course, to challenge Kurosawa's mastery. But the American and international films I have seen since Kurosawa's death--especially the epic attempts, such as the later Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and their many clones--continue to convince me that Kurosawa's supremacy remains secure.
Kurosawa in his long career produced what his most astute critic, Donald Richie, calls "a relentless succession of masterpieces." To single out one as the best is invidious. But if we have to do this, as I am doing here, then the obvious choice is the brilliant battle epic known in Engllish as The Seven Samurai. (I hedge my choice by calling it his greatest epic film, thereby eliminating from consideration astonishing mini-epics like Hidden Fortress and Yojimbo and contemporary masterpieces such as Ikiru.) Schininin no Samurai was first released in Japan in 1954 at 207 minutes and two years later in the US as The Seven Samurai in a drastically cut version that runs a little over two hours. Even in its truncated version the film is overwhelming in its visual power and narrative sweep and precision. I first saw it back in the '60s on television, and even with the small black-and-white screen and the heavy cutting and the unspeakable intrusion of commercials, I was stunned and humbled. No first viewing of any film has ever affected me as powerfully, not even my first encounter with Citizen Kane (which I first saw under similar deplorable conditions). Now that the full running time of almost three and a half hours has been available in the US in restored editions for the past several decades, it is easy to compare the cut and original versions and see that what the American editors excised back in the '50s were the deliberate repetitions of events and actions, the formal frozen kata that precede the sword duels and the abundance of details, in closeups and long shots, that contribute to the Zen-like intensity and almost meditative mindfulness of the full viewing experience. However, like any incomparable work of art, The Seven Samura is not to all tastes. Posts to this thread have criticized the film as overlong, boring or generally alienating. In no way does it conform to the venerable American pacing tradition best exemplified in Billy Wilder's ironic anecdote. (Wilder once complained that a European director could open his film with three shots of clouds, just clouds, and the audience would sit still for it; but while an American audience would sit still for the first shot of clouds, in the second there had better be an airplane, and in the third shot it had better explode.) Like any truly great and groundbreaking film, The Seven Samurai forces us to reconsider and redefine our sense of films, how they work and what they mean.
The film opens with a long shot of a gang of bandits on horseback attaining the ridge of a low mountain that overlooks a small village and its meager rice fields. In a terse bit of dialogue the bandit chieftain announces that this will be their next target, but a subordinate reminds him that they pillaged this place last year and had better give it a while longer to recover before they hit it again. The bandit chieftain agrees and the bandits ride off, to return on a later day when the time, and the rice, is ripe. A terrified villager, who has been hiding and has overheard this grim discourse, emerges from the undergrowth with a look of sick horror on his face and hurries down the mountainside to alert the other villagers of the peril they will soon face. So far, so basic. It could have come from a number of the great John Ford westerns that inspired Kurosawa (such as the sinister Walter Brennan at the beginning of My Darling Clementine). But Kurosawa looks nothing like Ford. The bandits are shot in extreme closeups from below, their horses' heads twitching violently back and forth, as if they would throw off these ragged and desperate men on their backs, desperate almost as the starving villagers they plan to rob and rape on another day. The village is brought to agitated life in scenes of angry discussions about what to do and how the farmers can defend themselves against the bandits. In one breathtaking sequence Manzo (Kamatari Fujiwara) approaches his teenage daughter Shino (Keiko Tsushima) with knife in hand. The terrified girl, knowing well, as the audience does not, what is in store for her, flees desperately, pursued by her frantic father, who cuts off her long, shining dark hair as she weeps helplessly, the father hoping to disguise her as a boy and spare her from rape and abduction at the hands of the bandits. A later sequence, even more startling in its intensity of action and revelation, occurs when Katsushiro (Isao Kimura), a young disciple of the head samurai Kambei Shimada (Takashi Shimura), chases after what he thinks is a disobedient boy until he catches Shino and, attempting to subdue him (her), pulls open her tunic and realizes, to his embarrassment and dismay, that she is a young woman. The scene ends with a shot characteristic of Kurosawa: an extreme long shot with the two characters at opposite ends of the frame, in a field of bright flowers, panting for breath, embarrassed, exhausted and excited, a perfect stillness charged with furious erotic energy.
Toshiro Mifune, who plays Kikuchiyo, the peasant who would become a samurai, is a great actor with a range that extends from broad comic slapstick to the heights of tragic anger and desolation, and Western audiences understandably see him as the "star" of The Seven Samurai, but that role belongs to Takashi Shimura, a magisterial actor who has played many parts, leading and supporting, for Kurosawa (who, like his model John Ford, knew the value of a versatile stock company). Shimura plays Kambei Shimada, the ronin, or masterless samurai, who recruits the other six and becomes their unofficial leader. We first see Shimada as an accidental savior called upon by a poor family to save their young child, who has been captured and is being held hostage inside a small house by a psychotic criminal who threatens to kill her. Shimada asks for the peasants to bring him a bowl of water, with which he wets his head then calmly shaves it, using a straightedge razor. Then he enters the house with a begging bowl, in the guise of a Buddhist monk, as the criminal screams at him, threatening to kill the child. Seconds later we see the criminal stagger out and fall to his death in subtle, exquisite slow motion (a device first employed by Kurosawa and later exploited and vulgarized by Sam Peckinpah, Sam Raimi, the Wachowski brothers and hack action directors too numerous to mention). Shimada comes out with the child in his arms, having performed this act of salvation as a matter of honor and skill. He continues to be the moral focus of the film, the man who recruits six other poor, masterless samurai to undertake the defense of a starving village for the payment of a few bowls of rice. He is not the most skillfull of the samurai. That honor belongs to Kyuzo (Seiji Miyaguchi)), the ultimate swordsman who goes out by himself in the rain to practice his technique, only to fall in the end, in one of the most ironic moments in world cinema, before a bullet fired from a Portuguese musket possessed by the bandits, a dark foreshadowing of the fate of Tokugawa Japan as a consequence of its first contact with the West. Kambei Shimada is the lesser warior but the wiser and the one who survives, along with his young disciple Katsushiro, to stand before the heaped-up graves of the other five in a shot that consciously echoes the conclusion of John Ford's The Lost Patrol. It is Shimada who announces, to the confusion of his disciple Katsushiro, that, once again, they have lost, that the farmers are the ones who have won, not the samurai who lie buried beneath the heaped-up graves. As magnificent as the battle scenes are, nothing in the film feels quite as magnificent as this subdued ending, quiet and powerful as anything in Milton, in which Kurosawa expresses visually and emotionally the great, dark theme of Homer's Iliad: that warfare brings no honor or glory to its warriors, nothing of value except the bleak fact of their survival, for those fortunate enough to survive.
If you love film, you must see The Seven Samurai. It is an obligation, not a choice. But don't see it when you're tired or pressed for time or with a crowd hungry for some fast martial-arts action. See it alone, or with someone who loves film as much as you do. Open yourself to it and let it do its work on you and, at the end of almost three and a half hours, it will have changed the way you look at film and film-making and, most probably, yourself.
Leigh Clark
Monroe High School
Jia Hongsheng was a rising actor who had roles in films and television series when he began to experience psychological problems. His family sticks with him despite his many difficulties and his sometimes abusive behavior. Jia recovers his ability to function and wrote and stars in this film. The Chinese name of the film is Zuotian 昨天 or Yesterday. Jia becomes addicted to the Beatles and is especially fascinated by John Lennon.
This is a great film exploring obligations among family members.
Quitting will screen at 5:30 am on 11/13/07 on IFC (Direct TV 550), so set your recorder up.
I took the opportunity to go to the last day of the AFI film festival at the Arclight this weekend to see Please Vote For Me. This film is a documentary about democratic class elections at an elementary school in Wuhan. The director, Weijun Chen, is a TV producer in Wuhan, who attended a documentary film workshop, let by Don Edlers and the people at WhyDemocracy.net. This organization set out, with lots of funding, to make 12 films from all around the world, on the topic of democracy. Given that in China you, A) don't talk about democracy and B) don't usually get a bunch of Chinese doumentary filmmakers all together to write proposals for films about democracy, the WhyDemocracy.net people held a workshop to explain what the purpose of the project was and to elicit ideas from Chinese filmmakers.
Weijun Chen had footage of a colleague's son boasting about why he wanted to be the next primer of China. This film, eventually led to the idea of holding democratic elections for class monitor in a 3rd class in Wuhan. The child on the original video, Cheng Cheng, is one of three children in the 3rd grade class chosen by the teacher to run for class monitor. The other children are Luo Lei (the incumbent, bully, child of a police officer and polica captain), and Xiafei Xo (daughter to a divorced school administrative assistant).
The documentary follows the children home and sees the parents coaching each one in the ways of elections, debating, and dirty fighting. Bribery, taunting, and bullying all have their place in the election. The winner is announced after bringing gifts for the entire class for mid-autumn festival.
The film is both a fascinating look at how democracy plays out in its purest form with children who have few preconceived notions of voting, fairplay, and winning by merit alone. It's also a fascinating look at Chinese culture and how children are treated (and treat) their parents.
It was a hysterical and sometimes shocking view of democracy![Edit by="aronan on Nov 19, 7:29:13 AM"][/Edit]
Not loo long I saw the Chinese Bicycle Thief. It was a wonderfully beautiful mvie. It reminded me of the Italian movie by Vittorio De Sica with Aldo Fabrizi by the same name: The Bicycle Thief. The Chinese movie does not seem to provide a time period when it is taking place. The Italian movie takes place after WWII and one its important messages relates to the phenomenal utilitarian use of the bicycle in post-war Italy: it replaced, in a certain sense, the donkey and the mule for transportation purposes both of people and goods. I believe the Chinese movie could easily be taking place within the last 10-20 years. It too shows then importance of the bicycle as a means of transportation in a society changing from an agrarian culture to a manufacturing based economy. I enjoy viewing and analyzing movies from various cultural backgrounds and observe the way in which cultures view themselvels ... and then come to my own conclusions. The Bicycle provides the means of supporting one's family and its loss can be devasting to the point of sacrificing ones' own life to protect it and to keep it running safely and efficiently. It is a beautiful movie and I would recomment=d the viewing of bothe the Italian and the Chinese movie.
Not loo long I saw the Chinese Bicycle Thief. It was a wonderfully beautiful mvie. It reminded me of the Italian movie by Vittorio De Sica with Aldo Fabrizi by the same name: The Bicycle Thief. The Chinese movie does not seem to provide a time period when it is taking place. The Italian movie takes place after WWII and one its important messages relates to the phenomenal utilitarian use of the bicycle in post-war Italy: it replaced, in a certain sense, the donkey and the mule for transportation purposes both of people and goods. I believe the Chinese movie could easily be taking place within the last 10-20 years. It too shows then importance of the bicycle as a means of transportation in a society changing from an agrarian culture to a manufacturing based economy. I enjoy viewing and analyzing movies from various cultural backgrounds and observe the way in which cultures view themselvels ... and then come to my own conclusions. The Bicycle provides the means of supporting one's family and its loss can be devasting to the point of sacrificing ones' own life to protect it and to keep it running safely and efficiently. It is a beautiful movie and I would recomment=d the viewing of bothe the Italian and the Chinese movie.
I am in full agreement that the Seven Samurai is one of the greatest films produced by the human mind. I also agree that Kurosawa is one of the best film directors. I do not agree with the statement that, and think it too closed minded, Kurosawa is the by fsr the greatest film director of the 20th century... further, much the less would I place Star Wars in the same category as Kurosawa's films. We have had, in the 1940's, '60's, 70's excellent film directors of the highest caliber representing pressing and universal human issus on an individual and on a social context perspective. The problem with mentioning names is that it automatically becomes and "excluding" list.. therefore, in order to avoid this exclusion deficiency of my statement, I will end the statement with .... These directors are Burnel, Almador, Bergman (whom you mentioned), Pasolini, Fellini, DeSica, Polanski, Méliès, Melville, Jean Renoir,François Truffaut, Agnès Varda, Alfonso Cuaron, )Guillermo del Toro, Antonio Banderas, Pedro Almodovar, Luis Bunuel, Robert Rodriguez, Carlos Saura .....
All of these and plenty more directors are true artists performing a universal service to humanity by representing art in such a way that it exilerates emotions and passions of a sensitivity not easily aroused. Alas, however, the Hollywood cinematographic conglomerate builds gargantual walls around the US markets preventing any incursion into its super-controlled movie-theatre markets... all to the continuing poverty and regressive, conservative forces of our population.
There's a 1996 film called "The Pillow Book" that uses Sei Shonangon's book of the same title as both inpsiration and segue. The main character, Nagiko, is played by Vivian Wu. She's close to her father, who is a writer. Every year on her birthday, he paints calligraphy on her face, while telling her the story of creation. As a young girl, Nagiko's aunt reads to her from the Pillow Book, and she decides to being a Pillow Book of her own. The story follows her through her life as a model and writer, searching for men to write on. While much of the story is very sexy, and possibly not appropriate for even older students, there are segues in the film that show "Sei Shonangon" writing the Pillow Book. At the beginning of the film there's an spoke excerpt from the book, with visual pictures of duck eggs, ice cream in silver bowls, young children eating strawberries, etc. These parts of the film could be shown in conjunction with lessons on the Pillow Book.
Wow.
I came into this movie with absolutely no expectations. All I knew was that is was a story about revenge and was hugely popular in Korea and loved by American critics. To call it a revenge movie is too simplistic and doesn't give the filmmakers enough credit. It is based on a Japanese manga of the same name.
Personally, I was surprised to see this type of movie come out of Korea. I've always thought of Korea as a bit more repressed and conservative than America. I've seen quite a few Korean dramas, and the raciest those get are when the leads kiss. To see a movie with simulated sex scenes, torture, and knives in people's backs was shocking.
Oldboy is a story about Oh Daesu, a man who has been locked up in a prison-like hotel room for 15 years. He is suddenly released by his captor, Lee Woojin, and given the assignment of finding out why he was locked in there. This gives Daesu a chance get revenge on the man who kept him in a prison for those 15 years. Without giving too much away, Woojin is exacting his own revenge on Daesu for something that Daesu did to him years ago.
This is definitely not a movie to show to students! It is very violent, has coarse language, and female frontal nudity and sex scenes. That being said, I would recommend this movie to adults. It is a modern noir movie, with ambiguous heroes and villains, complete with a femme fatale (sorta). The director, Park Chan-wook, did a wonderful job of telling a story with so many twists and turns (especially the final cringeworthy twist) and leaving it up to the audience to decide who is the hero and who is the villain. However, I think the real star of the movie is Jeong Jeong-hun, the cinematographer. The whole movie is exquisitely shot, and is really one of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen. Even at its most violent scenes, I couldn't get over how beautiful the movie was. Watching this movie has made me want to see all of Park's and Jeong's movies.
There was talk of an American remake, but it's been put on hold, which I think is a good thing. Inevitably, I think an American filmmaker or film company would try to make it more appealing to a mass audience by watering down the story and violence.
One correction about "The Bicycle Thief": the correct name is "Beijing Bicycle" ... it's a fantastic movie with loads of realism. I very highly recommend it not only for us as teachers but also for students to learn how young Chinese kids live in China and how responsible they are.
there are several films that I highly recommend.
Shower- this is an excellent film where one can compare and contrast "new Beijing" and "old Beijing." Aside from the great acting one sees society changing in very new ways. In the old days people lives in Hutongs that had been turned into communes. People used public toilets and public showers, now however all that has changed. Now people live in apartments and people no longer "know" each other.
The elderly are trying to come to grips with this fact, since places where they socialized are being torn down. the young folks see modernization as something important for their society. Like the old saying, "get rid of the old to bring in the new."
The film can be used to show that china is not static, and that it is changing fast, but with change also comes loss. One can talk about how drastic change can people's like. For example a kid growing up in the city suddenly moving to the country side of Mexico. BUt not taking it as a societal shift.
the film is not about politics or whatever it is about peoples lives.
The Big Potato- this is a really cool film that i saw while in china. It talks about how regular city people live. Not those that have money or the dirt poor people, just common people who work in a factory. the funny thing though is that it is somewhat about politics and the democratization of china. If you pay close attention the main character is a really good guy, although he might be clumsy and mess up often. In the film his position is that of manage, and he utilises that position to lord it over people. However as the film progresses it revealed that he is a good guy. To make things nice and short. At the end all the workers exercise democracy and elect him to head manager.
To Live- this film ranks in my top ten list of all time. This film can be used to show the change that china underwent from the 50s all the way to the 80s. The film puts a human face to the suffering and senseless chaos. It is good to show clips to students in conjunction to topics about Mao's china, but also how people have a will to survive.
Beijing Bicycle- this is a good film because it shows the life of peasant workers in the city and the life of city people. A bicycle is used to show the different levels of society that are mixed in all the chaos of the city. There is a joke in Beijing, "if your bike has not been stolen more than 6 times then you are not a Beijinger." (or something along those lines)
"Shower"
This comedy shows lovingly how alike the people of world are.Movie depicts the efforts made by a sucessful grown son to settle the differences of his elderly father & his mildly retarded younger brother.At the same time movie raises the many core questions to changing china society.Movie has 3 main characters Da-Ming,Master Liu, & Er Ming accompanied by many small but strong relevent characters.
The basic plot of movie is Master Liu is running a traditional bathhouse which is a meeting place of neighbourhood elders .Here deals got made,disputes are settled,&community is knit together.He is helped by his son Er Ming .His other son Da Ming is urbanite ,living away from his father but came after receiving a postcard about bad health of his father.He falls into old rythum of bathhouse& start loving & enjoying it.Neighbourhood welcome him & slowly he became unofficial wise man of his father.Then came a modernisation plan with lot of questions.
The questions are very deep. What will happen to elderly father ,the retarded son,the wayward son&the community that has grown around bathhouse.A question not only to characters but for society as they remove old &embrace the modern .It could be a question to any developed country not having any such natural community gatherings.shower raises all such issues besides being warm ,wet pleasure to watch.[Edit by="aagarwal on Dec 27, 3:18:24 PM"][/Edit]
I saw this movie in the theater and the scenery alone was worth watching it. The story was a bit far out though.
I'm glad to hear that someone else has used the story of Mulan. Since I teach many English Language Development students (Latino from Central and South America, Persian, Korean, Cambodian, Philippino) I have found that animated movies are well-received and serve to inform students that require multiple intelligences approach to scaffolding historical thinking. In particular, I show Mulan after making connections to their prior knowledge relating to invasions of the Roman Empire causing weakness. Are the Huns the Mongols, is another topic. We talk about Geography first and the Great Wall. We talk about myth and historical evidence. In particular how new information can change history. Women's roles in China are addressed as well. I always use a media guide for students to complete while watching films. A good link is available at http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/5082/culture.html.
I just watched "Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles” directed by Zhang Yimou. He directed “Raise the Red Lantern” which I have not seen but hear about often. Riding Alone takes place in Japan (urban and northern rural coastline) and in Yunnan Province in China with some scenes of urban China. The psychological growth of a Japanese traveler as he tries to complete his estranged dying son’s documentary about Chinese Folk Drama is reminiscent of Ingmar Bergman films. The technical filming is cast in a blue solar lens making the colors very rich. There is a moving subplot about an orphaned boy being cared for by committee in the village. This is a rich tapestry of ideas, gestalt, color, and art and parent-child relations. It is PG and I highly recommend this film.
I like the idea of being able to show different topographies and scenes in east Asia. The story may move a little slow for my middle school students but I will try it since it shows modern Japan and China and also has some universal father and son themes. I would expect a lot of questions and since I am TRYING to get my students to write down questions as they think of them to teach them inquiry skills and hypothesis in history this might work as a good vehicle. There's one scene outdoors where the boy defecates and it might be a little too much information but it's brief.
I sent this email to Clay and am posting his answer:
Do you know of any films that represent either the Tang, Song, Yuen, or Ming? I know the Tang dynasty is becoming very popular in China. I know "Hero" reflects the Qin which is representative of Imperial periods. Just wondered if there was anything else you know about.
from Clay:
There are many mini-series about some of these periods but few films. One that is set in the Tang, but based on a Ming novel, is Journey to the West. Another novel turned into a mini-series is Outlaws of the Marsh. It’s set in the Song, but was also written in the Ming. The Chinese name is Shuihu zhuan. Pearl Buck translated it as All Men are Brothers. I am not certain these are available with sub-titles, but I think they might be. Neither of the films are really historical epics though both have some basis in China’s past. A Chinese monk did travel to India to study Buddhism in the land where it was born (this is part of premise of Journey to the West, a novel full of magic, translated and abridged by Arthur Waley as Monkey) and there were bandit gangs who sometimes built local followings by defending farmers and antagonizing rapacious officials (one of the themes of Outlaws of the Marsh, which is heavy on martial arts).
Of course, documentaries about these periods are more plentiful. You can locate some of these in the film index that Miranda and I worked on years ago:
http://www.international.ucla.edu/eas/web/asiafilm-web.htm
An even richer database now exists at the University of Illinois:
http://www.aems.uiuc.edu/
[Edit by="eamador on Jan 11, 4:48:48 PM"][/Edit]
I have not seen Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles but I definitely like Zhang Yimou's films. In fact, I have seen his The Road Home and find it a good film to teach culture, tradition in China's inner village, perhaps, even in some cosmopolitan societies about marriage arrangements. Nonetheless, I plan to use this film to teach social skills to my students, aside from those reasons already stated in the foregoing. I also intend to show on the significance of teacher's respect and how successful obedient students can be. I have attached my review which I did on a separate Word page document.
Thanks.
Noel
Film: Red Beard, (1965); Black and White film
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Starring: Toshiro Mifune (As Red Beard) and Yuzo Kayama (as Noboru Yasumoto, the young apprentice doctor)
The story takes place at the end of the Tokugawa period where a young resident doctor named Noburo Yasumoto returns to the city of Edo after having completed his medical studies at a Dutch medical school in Nagasaki. From the beginning, Yasumoto shows his unbridled ambition and arrogance by his gait and his gruff way of speaking to others. He pays his respects to the Koishikawa Public Clinic where he meets Kyojio Niide (Red Beard) who is the head of the facility. It is one of the classic themes of the rash and unpredictable apprentice meeting his wise and reticent master. As a recent graduate from a prestigious Dutch program, Yasumoto is expecting to garner apprenticeship in the Royal Court. However, he learns that he is to serve in the public clinic, an appointment that greatly flabbergasts and infuriates him. In response, Yasumoto does everything in his power to rebel against his present circumstance; not wearing the mandated medical uniform, refusing to attend to patients, and the like. Meanwhile, Red Beard calmly waits for his apprentice's steam to wear off, always the foreboding Confucian master.
Like many of Kurosawa's films during this time, the hero is confronted with situations where his convictions are truly tested. He finally realizes his own limitation and humbly undergoes a transformative experience, via life and death circumstances, that leads to his self-actualization and a new outlook on life. Through Red Beard's careful guidance and brute honesty, Yasumoto transcends from a book learned doctor to that of a true hero. That he realized the schooling he had received in a controlled, insulated environment did nothing to adequately prepare him for the gruesome realities of life. Only through submitting his own ego for the betterment of others did Yasumoto receive a real education.
This is my favorite film by Kurosawa. All the characters are flawed but relatable. I was particularly impressed by Toshiro Mifune’s (interestingly, his last film with Kurosawa) portrayal of a master, whose mercurial temperament, vacillates between his vanity and the need to serve others. Even as an instructor, he is not above reproach.
This film covers a variety of topics including Confucian Ethics, master-student relationship as well as a history lesson on a changing Japan from that of a Samurai society to a modern, industrial one. For my present first and second graders, I would focus on the master-student relationship by showing clips of the hero’s beginning and how he changed at the end. It would be a great compare and contrast exercise for the students—Venn Diagram or a T-chart will be used to show the evolvement of the main character as he undergoes a significant internal change. The protagonist’s character development will be described by making a list of descriptive words (adjectives and the like) to express what he is in the beginning, middle and the end. Moreover, the students could also write about what they would do if they were in the protagonist’s place: would they stay with the master? Would they rebel and cause more havoc in the lives of many? What kind of life connection can they make with their experiences as students in a classroom? Did the master seem fair or not? Their replies would be quite interesting.
Film: Early Summer, "Bakushu", (1951, black and white)
Director: Yasujiro Ozu
Starring: Setsuko Hara (as Noriko Mamiya) and Chishu Ryu (as Koichi Mamiya)
Setting: Kamakura, Japan
Early summer is a story of an extended family, the Mamiya's, living under one roof and their different tribulations in dealing with generational, personality, and group/verses individuality conflicts. Ozu is famous for making films about ordinary family life; he is versed in peeling the layers of his subjects to reveal the true internal motivations that is universal to film viewers. Unlike Kurosawa's themes of rapid movement, grandeur, heroism and extroversion, Ozu's film permeates exactly the opposite--quiet, reflective, introspective and nostalgic. Interestingly like Kurosawa, Ozu retains the same actors/actresses for most of his films.
What's interesting about Ozu's movie is that the vantage point from the camera does not have much movement. Ozu was famous for setting his camera angle at a low position, as if one is looking at the charters from sitting. Most of the shots are full-frontal, rather than manipulated angles to illicit emotion from the audience.
The Mamiya family lives under one roof, where politics emerge as each generation grapples with their place in the family's infrastructure. The conflict of traditional vs. modern becomes apparent as each character tries their best to merge one with the other--there are other issues as well: Working women, group vs. individualism, modernization, and country vs. city. It is a story of one's ability to compromise and resigning oneself to the notion that the only constancy in life is change.
I recommend using this film as a comparative study of family life or exploration of any of the issues mentioned above. It's a must see.
The review sounds interesting. I had just finished viewing the The Road Home and posted my review here in the Film Festival forum. I was trying to find a DVD of Hero and that funny movie Eat Drink Man Woman but could not find one. I like this movie even though I just show a brief part of it during one of our sessions last Dec. I plan to use this film in teaching families in East Asia. Is the movie Earlu Summer also a good one to show to my 8 graders for introduction to my planned lesson about families in East Asia? If so, please advise as to where I can get a copy. Also, the Eat Drink Man Woman. Thanks.
The film deals with family dynamics and how modernity changes the politics within the members of one's family. Each member grapples with living under the patriarch system and adjusting their own life-perception to make it work for them. Also, you can visibly see the changing Japan during that time--for example, women no longer wear kimonos but skirts and curl their hair in a modern chignon. Gender expectations changes as women start contributing to the economic prosperity of the family. It's a film with multi-layers, worth watching. You can purchase it in Little Tokyo at the Kinokuniya Book Store. I'm not sure if they would have this movie in a regular rental place -- I hope you find it. (It's a wonderful movie to have as a collection, though.)
Another film that I recommend that deals with issues of family is "Yi Yi", a film by Edward Yang.
The story follows the lives of a Taiwanese family and dealing with issues of life in a Confucian world: taking care of one's elderly parents, dealing with kids who are too modernized, and financial woes that come into everyone's life, in one shape of another. It is part comedy and drama--the themes are universal and I believe it is one of the greatest film epitomizing the life of a family in Taiwan. [Edit by="seun on Jan 15, 1:27:56 PM"][/Edit]
[Edit by="seun on Jan 15, 9:13:26 PM"][/Edit]
Film: Yi Yi
Director: Edward Yang
The film follows the lives of a Taiwanese family -- NJ Jian, his wife, Min-Min, and their two kids. Life issues are explored: Mid-life crises, taking care of the elderly, dealing with generational differences, and second romances. It is both drama and comedy as each character goes from one disastrous situation and another. It's a film about acceptance and tolerance of one's situation, that not everything works out the way you want it to be. This is a great film to use in class dealing with exploring the lives of families--their dynamics, belief system, and hierarchy.
There was a controversy about this film, specifically the age of the actors who portrayed each of these characters. Some critics believed that the sexual content of the film was too mature for the actors to express, particularly the girl who played Chunhyang. I've only watched clips of the film so I do not know too much about it. Any thoughts?
Film: Cafe Lumiere
Director: Hou Hsiao-Hsien
Starring: Yo Hitoto and Tadanobu Asano
As a tribute to Yasujiro Ozu, director Hou Hsiao-Hsien immediately takes us to a scene where Yoko (Yo Hitoto), a young freelance writer, is hanging laundry while talking on a phone. Already, you see Ozu's influence in having the first shot be that of hanging laundry, a particular theme he is famous for. (Trains are another theme, also explored in this film). Yoko contends with her traditional parents by announcing her pregnancy and that she will not marry the baby's father. Her stoic acceptance of her situation is keenly felt by the audience. Feelings are kept hidden or deeply buried--this film is an interesting exploration into the inner lives of the Japanese whose culture promotes ambivalence and promoting the group over the individual. It is a meditative film about how one comes to terms with solitude. Like his predecessor, Hsien focuses on an ordinary life of a person. Rather than sensationalism or epic sagas, the reflective nature of this movie presents a fresh perspective on life and how one comes to terms with being lonely and alone.
I just finished watching "The First Emperor of China" film produced in 1989 by the National Film Board of Canada and China Xi'an Film Studio. I found it in Borders but it is also available through Amazon and razordigitalent.com. It is 42 minutes long and I also found a good lesson/media guide (www.dcmp.org/guides/3608.pdf) with a good parallel time line on world history. This is most appropriate for 6th grade history standards on China but is a good review for 7th grade history standards to review the challenges of imperial rule. The narration is in English and the actors speak Mandarin which lends authenticity. It is a little dated but is not gory or overly violent. It covers the difficulties of unification, Qin's ruthlessness and his ability to coordinate the building of the Great Wall. There are casts of thousands for battles and pageants. It covers the new reforms he put in place regarding the standardization of language, weights and measures. And although Shi Huang-di was a great believer in literacy, he burns books that do not ascribe to his legalistic beliefs. The building of his tomb and his obsession with immortality is described. The clothing and other decorative arts are beautifully displayed lending to the sense of grandeur. In the end of the film, there is a modern day portion about the discovery of his tomb and how the history of this emperor lives on. This may not be as modern as the more recent Discovery Channel program about Shi Huang-di but it covers the essentials in under an hour. Since my students have just finished studying the geography of China, I will be using this to stimulate prior knowledge about ancient China and introduction of continued imperial rule through the "middle ages".
Update: In preparing for lesson plan I went into the class CD which we were given at the end of the course and accessed dube-qin-han-dynasties.pdf and found it be a great intro for the film (with shots from the film) and overview of the period.[Edit by="eamador on Feb 3, 9:39:51 AM"][/Edit]
[Edit by="eamador on Feb 3, 4:44:28 PM"][/Edit]
According to this Canadian Press story, three US films will be released in China this March. They are National Treasure: Book of Secrets, The Golden Compass, and 10,000 BC. Will Smith's The Pursuit of Happyness was released in January. Only 20 foreign films are officially released in China each year, though people routinely watch a large variety of films via pirated DVD copies.
I rented the 2 Asian movies recommended in our syllabus this weekend: "Hero" and "Farewell my Concubine". Of the two, I enjoyed "Hero" the most. It was produced by Quentin Tarantino, whose movies I really like, but this film will surprise you if you are familiar with his work. "Hero" demonstrates restraint when it comes to the use of violence but is a true action film.
Lots of really good historical references in this film, and I can see how you could use this film to good effect in the classroom. It is set in the time of the Qin Unification and makes reference to such historical facts as the standardization of the writing system, tied together strips of bamboo that served as books, the use of horses and chariot riding, the crossbow, and iron weaponry in warfare.
The movie has a great deal of depth to it and the reading that we are currently doing is ideal for interpreting various aspects of the film. The director states that it took him 2 years to write the script and you can see why. The basic storyline is told repeatedly within the film but from different perspectives and interpretations of the events. These multiple perspectives give reference to the legalist school of thought as exemplified by the ruler, the confucist stress on disciplining one's behavior as exemplified by the assassin's code, and the discusssion amongst the various assassins that makes reference to the Daoist ideals of having the goverment work for the good of the people.
There is a strong female role in this film with plenty of exploration of the ideas of yin and yang, feminine and masculine, receptive and assertive, weak and strong. There is also a stark use of color throughout the film which may be reference to the "six gi "(see page 38 in our text: East Asia; A Cultural, Social, and Political History.
All together I would highly recommend the film to the members of our class. I can also say that this film, or segments from it, would really help to bring the curriculum to life in the classroom. [Edit by="dkelly on Feb 24, 4:21:55 PM"][/Edit]
[Edit by="dkelly on Feb 24, 4:23:02 PM"][/Edit]
[Edit by="dkelly on Jul 28, 3:04:18 PM"][/Edit]
The film I am reviewing is called "1000 Pieces of Gold." This is an American film released in 1991 staring Chris Cooper and Rosalind Chao, both of whom are excellent. The film is about a Chinese girl who is sold by her father to a marriage broker who sends her to San Francisco where she is sold to Chinese saloonkeeper in a gold mining town. The saloonkeeper wants the girl to work as a prostitute in his saloon, and not as a wife. The girl refuses and ends up a kind of slave to the saloonkeeper. She is eventually lost in a pocker game to the saloonkeeper's white business partner who takes her away from the saloon. At first the girl hates her new white owner, but over time they eventually fall in love.
This summary might sound like a really bad soap-opera, and it certainly could have been. But actually the film is a very good historical drama and shows in great detail the life of Chinese immigrants to California in the later 19th century. I teach 8th grade US history and for me the film provides a really good way to make the Chinese immigrant experience come alive for my students. It has lead to some excellent class discussions about immigration, race prejudice, gender issues and many others topics. The vast majority of my students are Latino who are themselves either immigrants, or the children of immigrants, and the film really hits home with them. The girls are very attracted to Rosalind Chao's character and are particularly impressed by the way she never gives up and constrantly displays a very strong will in the face of some really terrible things that happen to her.
I used the film as the basis for an essay in which students are asked to write a review of the film based on a number of promts I give them, or a comparision of the Chinese immigration experience with that of themselves or their own families. Many of the essays were really good for this project.
BTW, the film is rated PG13 so I don't have too much trouble showing it to my 8th graders, but the content may be a bit too adult for younger students.
Rise of the Feathered Dragon (2006); documentary (great title!)
This is an excellent movie for middle and high school science students studying topics such as fossils, dinosaurs, birds, evolution, and geology. It documents the recent work of a young paleontologist from U of Pennsylvania, Dr. Matt Lamanna and his friend and colleague from the Chinese Academy of Geologic Sciences, Dr. You Hailu.
The movie focuses on excavation work in the rugged desert-like Changma Basin in northwest China where the scientists find a 110 million year old bird fossil of Gansus yumenensis. The scientists use these findings to support their theory that birds are direct descendants of dinosaurs. The movie also highlights the 1996 discovery in the Liaoning Province of the first non-avian feathered dinosaur, found by a farmer named Li Yumin. The farmer invites the scientists to a homecooked feast and they discuss his breakthrough finding of the rare 125 million year old fossil that provided evidence of a direct evolutionary link between dinosaurs and birds.
Besides the scientific findings, the movie allows viewers to see China’s varied landscapes from city to farmland to desert; there is mention of the Silk Road; it shows a funeral procession in a rural village; scientists show their fossil findings to local children in Changma who are very curious and interested and then they build origami paper dragons with them; and a fun scene is when Lamanna promises to eat a duck foot if they unearth a rare bird fossil (which they do!); behind the visuals is a soundtrack playing beautiful traditional Chinese music.
Besides the exciting content, one additional thing teachers can discuss with students is how scientists from all parts of the world often work collaboratively for the common goal of adding to scientific understanding of various topics – in this case in the evolutionary link of dinosaurs and birds. Teachers can also use this movie to discuss how China is rich in a wide variety of other archaeological findings (humans, plants, etc).
After reading the book Wild Swans: 3 Daughters of China, the movie "To Live" provided a terrific recap of that era in China. The movie highlights the struggles of one family from the 40's through the 60's. One image that stuck with me was the period where doctors were put into detention while young medical students with very little training were put in charge at hospitals and the obvious damage and destruction this caused to many people's health and lives. The struggle of people to survive the conditions brought on by the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, and to rise above them, was both heartbreaking and inspiring. It seems so sad that so much of some people's lifetimes was spent on needless struggle. I highly recommend this movie, and it is probably the best depiction of that time period of any Chinese film I have seen so far.
There is the Japan Film Festival Los Angeles starting this weekend, April 11-17, 18-20, 2008. It will have everything from feature films to anime.
Home page: http://www.vconline.org/index.cfm
Festival Information: http://www.vconline.org/japanff08.cfm
In the film, Eat, Drink, Man, Woman the character of chef Chen asks the question, ‘is this all there is to life?’ Throughout the movie, each of the characters struggles with this question; however, the real struggle seems to be between what is expected of them and what they desire. The answer to the central question seems to be, yes: eat, drink, man, woman is more than enough for a life—if, in fulfilling those basic needs, you also follow the desires of your heart.
Another key comment comes from Second Sister as Oldest Sister is complaining about the neighbors who loudly sing every night. Second Sister says, ‘we communicate through food, why shouldn’t they through song?’ Although she is saying it with sarcasm, it is a truth that is carried through the film. It is through food that the father shows his affection for his family, and it is through cooking that Second Sister expresses herself and her need to also give care and affection. The preparation and serving of food is the legacy of the father to the Second Daughter and it is the art that they both practice. Also, it is over food that the family comes together for all major discussions and announcements. Just as the kitchen table is centrally placed in the house, the meals are central to all the drama of the family, all imbalances (emotional and physical) are reflected in the meals, who prepares them and who is present to eat them.
Trav's Travels in China is a wonderful 20-minute kids' video about the different regions of China. It goes into the history, geography, clothing, foods, architecture, famous structures, and economy of each region. I found it appropriate for my third graders as it fit in with our curriculum, including studying economics and why communities grow and change. For example when they highlight the western region they talk about the harsh terrain and climate, droughts, and short growing season as being contributors to there being a smaller population there than in other areas. There is also a section on Tibet and Buddism which would fit in with recent news events. This is a great film for the elementary level, however I was only able to see it because a friend had a copy. I couldn't find it on Netflix, but I did find it for sale at amazon http://www.amazon.com/Travs-Travels-China-Geography-Kids/dp/1563456362 but there was only one available.
This is a repost for the film review requirement. I posted it in the wrong forum initially.
I love that there is finally something related to us primary teachers! It's very frustrating when everything is related to upper grades. You said that this video is appropriate for 3rd graders. I'm wondering if you think that this video would also be appropriate for students in first or second grade.
Wow, what a fantastic film. I think that I liked "Crouching Tiger" more, but "Hero" was fantastic.
I really liked how the story was told from several different perspectives. The use of color from one perspective to another was great. I was a little disappointed by the ending because I am a happy ending kind of guy, but overall the film was special.
I love how the film deals with history in a way that is accessable to this generation of movie-goers. Jet Li is a very popular film star, and I could show this film to my Humanities classes and give a history lesson while my students will feel like they are watching a karate film.
Very impressive. Rivals many of the other films that I have seen by other Chinese and Japanese directors.
Lynae,
I absolutely feel your frustration with trying to relate these videos to primary grades and I'm glad that you mentioned it. Maybe if it is feasible they should have a recommended section for primary in which we just can post to each other and then offer it to upper grades if applicable. It takes a lot of extra time searching and weeding through reviews to find anything appropriate for our kids. Sue Smith and I are going to watch Trav's Travels and make up worksheets this week if you want to preview it with us and do the same. Let's talk and work together on it.
Kiley
I'm very interested in seeing this video. Sue's description of the film was very positive. It's short enough for younger students to stay tuned into it, too! It will be nice to be able to view and discuss the video and how we can use it at our different grade levels. I'm in, just tell me when you are planning on watching it. In addition, maybe we can even compare notes on the literature we have been looking at for inclusion in our curriculum units. If nothing else, it will be nice to just bounce ideas off eachother. Maybe we can even come up with a multi-grade unit that progresses from grade level to grade level. Great idea!
Being an American female in 2008, this movie awakened every empathetic bone in my body. This movie takes place in a rural village in China during the 1920's. It is about the customs and right of a patriarchal society in which women are enslaved to men, especially since they are purchased and literally a posession. The old, rich man has already tortured to death 2 former wives when he marries Ju Dou, whom is not able to mother a child from him either. She goes on to fall for the nephew and does end up pregnant with his child and obviously raises it as if it were the old man's. He finds out and though the nephew does have a chance to kill him, he is so loyal to tradition, he does not, though he knows he will be condemed and tormented by him. The old man turns the little boy against the parents and they have to deal with this contention. Later, by accident, the old man dies in the dye shop that he owns and the city blames Ju Dou and she is not allowed to marry again (I'm sure she has no problem with that!) and the nephew is to leave the dye mill.
This film awakens one's soul to the tragedies and horrors inflicted to Chinese women during these times. The torture is horrendous and would be a great way for modern civ classes or world history to compare and contrast women's status and rights in other countries throughout history. What a wonderful way to study history and the catalysts for change.
A friend of mine lend me this and, as it is a classic, I figured I'd take a look. The film was made in 1958 and is based on the lifed of a British missionary named Gladys Aylward who, though she was told she was unqualified and was not endorsed by the missionary society, struggled to earn her train ticket on her own and found her own way to a Northern Provice of China. There she did many remarkable things including taking almost 100 war orphans (on foot and through the Japanese lines) to the town of Shien to have them evacuated to a safe house in China's interior.
Because it is Hollywood, there is an added romance and slight commentary on the social injustice of racism involving a Dutch-Chinese Colonel. Though there was such a relationship in her life, the real Gladys did not marry the Colonel, choosing instead to continue her missionary work.
Again, because it is Hollywood, the film actually tones down the intense faith in Christianity that drove Gladys Aylward's actions. Instead, the film focuses on her humanitarian efforts during the WWII period in Northern China. It is an inspiring film and one well-worth watching.
I have watched very few Asian films, and after watching this one, I don't know why! This was a fabulous film that touched my heart, and made me hungry! The father was my favorite here in how he was a chef, but had lost his sense of taste. There is such an important metaphor here- that I think could be easily used in writing class. The women are all very real and they come to their own decisions with wariness, just as any young person does. Jia-Chien was my favorite character who seems so quiet and unable to reach out to her father and older sister. It breaks your heart. A great discussion on women in China. I think that the story translates as one that is worldwide and it could be shown in most upper grade classrooms. Students learning the language could enjoy it on a variety of levels. It is valuable as a study of the culture, especially the women. It says a lot about the time, and I think that most young people will see how they are all the same. I think that I will grab a copy of the book to see if it is appropriate for high schoolers.
Pages