The 11th Hall of Fame

I'm saving Embrace the Serpent for last, just to see how it plays out. That leaves me with Goodbye Lenin and a rewatch of Ronin.

That was kind of what I was getting at when I said that I was unfamiliar with this point in history. It could have happened as described here or it could be partly fictionalized. I didn't know. But you're partly right. When I red through what I'd written it did sound like I was calling BS on the movie. This was not my intent. I mearly tried to show that things are rarely this one-sided. I can't believe that there wasn't one single japaneese soldier who looked the other way when finding som kids hiding in a house rather than gun them down or one officer who stopped his soldiers from raping a deffenceless woman. I will edit my review to better show my actual intent.

__________________
Why not just kill them? I'll do it! I'll run up to Paris - bam, bam, bam, bam. I'm back before week's end. We spend the treasure. How is this a bad plan?

Please don't edit your review. We're all entitled to our own opinions. I don't want you to change it.

From what I knew about that time in history, I figured the general behaviour of the soldiers was fairly accurate, I just didn't like how the actors performed those atrocities (particularly the rape scenes). Like I said in my little review, they played it far too goofy for my taste.

They were grinning like maniacs and practically making cartoon noises. Perhaps that was done to undercut the brutality for audiences, but it was just too tonally different from the rest of the film for me. I would've preferred if they played it completely serious, because as it is it does kind of seem like the film makers were intentionally trying to depict the Japanese in a more negative matter by exaggerating their actions, but that wasn't the case at all.

Have you ever studied any history of genocidal actions in school? Sadly, there's been many such events. In Rwanda one ethnic group hated the other ethnic group so much that they murdered between 1/2 to 1 million people, just because of their ethnicity and hatred. This killing was mostly done 'up close and personal' with machetes... and many women and children were hacked to death. This wasn't a 1000 years ago either it happened in the mid 1990's.

The Japanese and Chinese had a long history of ethnic hatred for each other. The Japanese army did not adhere to western standards of humanity, but held to a belief based on their ancient Bushido code that said, that anyone who surrenders is lower than vermin and deserves to be treated with disrespect.

I know in today's world people would like to believe stuff like this never happened, but it did...and if we don't remember our history we face making the same mistakes again.

Not changing my opinion, just making it clear what I actually thought.

I did study this topic in school, as a matter of fact, we red about Rawanda and a few other event such as these throughout modern time. I'm not saying that I don't believe it happend, I'm just saying that I can't buy that every single one of them took part. We have examples of people who, in situations like this, choose to help instead of just partaking. We had Rusesabagina in Rawanda, we had Schindler in germany. They are rare, I grant you. And there are probably some we've not even heard about because what they did was very small or it didn't make any difference. What I'm talking about is just one soldier doing somthing so small as to not rape a woman or not shoot a child he comes across. If that seems childish or deluded to you, then so be it. I can't fathom a platoon or an army wherein everyone goes in for 100% raping and murdering women, men and children. Again, if that seems childish, so be it.

Why do they have to show the few Japanese soldiers that did good? I'm not disputing there was some, i just don't see how it was vital that they show the few good apples. If the director chose to show that then fine but it is a very weird thing in my opinion to complain about in a film designed to show the brutality of a historical atrocity.

Also i didn't even know this was about the rape of nanking until this discussion started. I have it ready to watch going to watch a few sci fi films first though.

I agree with you...there are always good people in any war, that's true.

But in this movie, we don't see all of the Japanese army as it's not their story, nor is it the entire story of the rape of Nanking. It's the story of the school girls and the Qin Huai River prostitutes. The few Japanese army that we see and even Christian Bale are there to move the events forward, so that the girls story can be told.

The real story is the courage of the Chinese school girls, the prostitutes and the altar boy. The prostitutes who are seen as frivolous and self center at first, learn courage and respect from the school girls, thus making their final choice a very brave one. The film is about personal courage and sacrifice for others. At least that's how I see it.

There is lot of bold talk in here but I don't know if it is all bold statements as well.

__________________
/watching movies for mark f/
MovieMeditation's Cinema Reviews // Film Diary 2015 // Letterboxd Profile // MovieMeditation's Top 50 Horror

I liked it! A very cool nomination for a HoF. I've never seen a film from Iran before...now I have...I thought it was really neat to see actual sites and people from Iran. I had no idea that they could get snow? And I was surprised to see greenery and even ferns!

The opening title credits with the planes and the moaning sounds hand me scratching me head as to what the hell kind of film I was about to watch. But...after a few minutes I warmed up to the movie and especially the woman who took care of Bashu. I thought she was a darn good actresses. I believed I was watching the real thing as if it was a documentary.

The actor who played Bashu, deserves an Iranian equivalent of an Oscar. He was really, really good at doing the hard to do emotionally scenes. I actually like all the people in the movie and I liked seeing their village and the meetings they had.

I thought the story was a good one and I have to say I didn't realize Iran was so modern in the way the woman Naii was portrayed. She was strong, she took charge, she spoke her mind. I liked that.

A hard film to find, but I'm very glad it was nominated.

Absolutley, couldn't agree more.

Hey, Camo!

You gonna clean out your inbox? I tried to PM my ballot, but the answer comes up as your inbox's full!

Glad you liked my nom Citizen. Bashu is a really special movie.

A very nice action movie! As someone already said, it's a non-typical HoF movie, which is mostly dominated by dramas, but it's a good change in genre with a lot of quality to it.
I like DeNiro's and Jean Reno's perfomances, the script is solid, the action scenes are really well executed, particularly that last big car chase, but I wished it had more content.
Also, Sean Bean's character was there doing what exactly? I thought he was going to die as usual and I spent the entire film waiting for him to appear again...

Ronin

This was a pretty mediocre film for me. I thought that Robert DeNiro did well but I wasn't at all impressed with the supporting cast, including Reno who was just a character that I didn't care for. Some of the action scenes dragged on too long for me and most of them didn't have me on the edge of my seat. There were a few solid sequences, but in total not many. The story itself almost seemed like it was a bit to simple and I felt some of it was predictable. It just didn't hold my interest well enough. Sorry Clazor. It wasn't a bad film just nothing that drew my interest.

No worries. To which his own etc. I have got a way more positive respons over all than I expected, along with opinions that made me see the movie in a new light. I'm happy either way!

I've been meaning to watch Ronin for a few days now, but since I'm trying to finish two time-sensitive projects (one for my mom's birthday this Sunday which is incredibly frustrating and I regret agreeing to do it, the other being my Halloween costume) and have also been working more hours than usual, I haven't found the time yet this week.

After that I think I'll watch Embrace the Seprent. Then it's just Bashu and Ida left, unless I've forgotten about something.

*Checking the list*

Nope, you look good, Doesn't seem to have missed anything movie related. You still have over a month left to watch the movies, so don't stress, finish the essentials and then take care of the (relativley) unimportant stuff. We'll still be here when you get back.

Guap sent the third list after Miss Vicky and Clazor. Couple of surprises so far but i expect them to change when more lists come in. Remember you have til the 10th of December, plenty of time so there's no rush.

After i watch both of these Frankenstein movies i think i'm gonna watch The Flowers of War and Good Bye Lenin! to finish mine.