To Live - Zhang Yimou - 1994 - Starring Li Gong, You Ge

There have been many accolades for this film, and you can watch it and judge for yourself, but I think this film is too heavy-handed, melodramatic and argumentative. It beats you over the head with lessons it wants to teach you (historical and moral) and it is a highly political film fostering one viewpoint.

It is also filled with totally improbable and far-fetched situations in order to manipulate your emotions in the most obvious and mawkish manner. The ending, for instance, where Red Guard doctors allow a woman to bleed to death, is farcical and not tragic.

The film uses the horrific abuses of the Cultural Revolution to attack and mock the dedication of many of China's poor to Mao, without appreciating that there was a sincere devotion to Mao at that time. Without Mao the Peoples Liberation Army would not have defeated Chiang Kai Chek's Kuomintang Army, and there can be no doubt about the corruption and cruelty which followed Chiang and his army around.

Please remember 1927, in Shanghai, when Chiang betrayed his Communist allies in the war against Chinese warlords, and slaughtered thousands of innocent people.

So if you want to see a badly flawed film that the Western critics loved (for some reason) click below. The film was a financial and critical flop among audiences.   

 

Sansho the Bailiff - Mizoguchi Kenji - 1954

This is an epic film based on a Japanese folk tale. It is a gut-wrenching film, much hopeless suffering, a difficult film to watch at times due to the emotional intensity.

It is a film that deals with some themes that have been present in Japanese films from the silent era, especially the theme of the honest and honorable person who suffers unjustly and has little recourse. It is also a film about the difficulties of maintaining one's humanity in adverse situations and the struggle to live up to the highest ideals when the world around you has abandoned all sense of ethics or morality and lapses into barbarism.