Film Review

[Anonymous]

This a 45 minute documentary that narrates the life of Confucius without getting deep into his teachings. The documentary provides a lot of important basic information. It starts by focusing on the fact that his mother was a teenager and that his father was a warrior, who died when Confucius was three years old. It also explained that the father's family(3 daughters and older wives) did not accept him or his mother, so they had to managed on their own. Being very poor, mom found ways to provide a nurturing learning environment that his drive or knowledge required. eventually, he ended up opening his own school, which made him the greatest teacher, for his school accepted all classes. According to him, education is the meaning of life, for people became better if educated. Later in his life he was seen as dangerous and had to be stopped. His dream was to save China. At the end, according to the documentary, he died thinking he had failed.
I found the information very interesting, and good to be used as introduction to Confucius or the Chinese philosophies; however, caption on Chinese names and places would have been helpful.

[Anonymous]

This film is directed by Sijie Dai, starting Zhou Xun (little Chinese seamstress), Chen Kun (Luo) and Liu Ye (Ma)
This film takes place during China's cultural revolution and is about what two boys, Luo and Ma, experience when they are sent to a Maoist rehabilitation camp to be purged of their westernized education. Luo and Ma are sent to the Phoenix Mountains to experience and learn the way of living and thinking according to Maoists beliefs. On the opening scene, the boys have a violin and they are ridiculed for having such a strange instrument. Then, when one of them starts playing it he almost gets in trouble for playing Mozart. To save himself, he convinces the people in the village that the music is actually from Stalin. Once he says that, they actually begin to like it.
During this time, foreign books are not allowed to be read. The two boys love reading and they manage to still the books from another boy in the village who has an illegal collection of western books, including Balzac.
The little seamstress is illiterate and likes when the boys read to her. This reading moments gives beginning to a romance between the two boys and the little seamstress. Throughout the movie, the boys find ways to get away with what was considered a crime punishable by death. This romance leads to an unwanted pregnancy which is terminated thanks to the power of desire for a foreign book. One of the doctors agrees to perform an abortion knowing that the payment would be a book.
The little seamstress is fascinated by Balzac’s ideas and, in spite of the love she feels for one of the two boys, decided to leave the village in search of herself.
The two boys go back to western society to study and pursuit their love for music. Years later, one of the boys goes back to the village in search for the little seamstress before the village is swept away by the flooding that will be caused by the construction of a damn. They never reunite.
I would use this movie for my advisory students. I would first use a powerful quote from Balzac in the movie : “ This may be the whole difference that separates natural man from civilized man,. The savage only has feelings, the civilized man has feeling and ideas.”
I would first have my students reflect on the value of education and how an oppressed society views it according to the movie. The focus of the discussion would be life in the small village and how certain political factors want them to remain ignorant. Once we discussed the movie, I would have them discuss what factors in this “free society” can keep them from getting an education. I would ask them to identify 3 factors in society or their lives that may keep them from going to college to get an education and write a five paragraph essay.

[Rob_Hugo@PortNW]

The film The Flowers of War is a fictional tale that takes place during a historical event that actually happened: The Rape of Nanking. Nanking, now known as Nanjing, is a city near the delta of the Yangtze Riiver. Over the centuries it has served, off and on, as China's capital. The Rape of Nanking refers to an event during WWII when Japan conquered China's capital city. It is referred to as a "rape," because Japanese soldiers literally raped and pillaged the city, raping/killing, by some accounts, tens of thousands of women, and murdering hundreds of thousands of the cities' citizens.

The film stars a British actor, Christian Bale, who plays American John Miller, a mortician, who, during the rape of the city, ends up seeking refuge in a large Cathedral. He is also joined by 12 convent girls (ages 12-13), 14 prostitutes, and the adopted son of the deceased priest of the cathedral. Initially, the character of John Miller is portrayed as a selfish drunk who cares little for others. But soon it becomes clear that Japanese soldiers will overrun the cathedral, and rape the women inside if he doesn't play the part of a priest trying to protect them. This idea works, although the Japanese have no knowledge of the prostitutes hiding in the cellar underneath the church. Later, the Japanese ask the school girls to sing at a party celebrating the conquest of the city. The prostitutes (and the boy) sacrifice themselves by going in their place, and the school girls and John Miller escape from the city.

I enjoyed watching this film. The photography was beautiful and it was very well acted. Additionally, the film gives the viewer a very real feel for how incredibly brutal the Rape of Nanking was. My one criticism of the film would be that it was a bit melodramatic and contrived at times. Otherwise, a very solid and enjoyable film to watch. The director of the film, Zhang Yimou, is China's most famous director, and the man responsible for the spectacular opening ceremonies show at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Although the film is a fiction, there actually was a Westerner (German) who protected/harbored hundreds of Chinese citizens from the onslaught of Japanese soldiers. His name was John Rabe.

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