2. Devils On The Doorstep
Watching a lot of Chinese films, there is a familiar pattern within all the plots especially in terms of revenge and the foreign invasion. China, for as large of a country it is, went a long time being an isolationist country. Thus the usual mantra in a lot of Chinese films is how evil the foreigner is. It takes a brave man like Jiang Wen to go against the grain by making a film sympathetic, to a sense, of the Japanese during the Japanese invasion during World War 2. Take it this way; this film was so controversial that China banned Jiang Wen from directing a film in China until 2007. But, Wens satire isnt exactly about how great the Japanese were. In his beautiful black and white film, he is satirizing how media have perpetuated the notion of the evil foreigner while the Chinese simply went on as the submissive oppressed. And the fact of the matter is that this is able to carefully walk the tightrope of a horrendous tragedy with comedic slapstick moments. Think of a less optimistic opening and darker version of Life is Beautiful. He builds the relationship between Chinese peasants who captured a Japanese soldier and looks upon that dynamic with irony and it says a lot about Chinese sensibilities in this underrated classic.