Yesterday I went to watch this movie with a bunch of people, and I honestly don't think it's worth 10 dollars. It's an okay movie, and it has the message that the director wants to send, but he mixed in too many things and the movie becomes really confusing.
The story plot is about this FBI guy going to Taiwan to investigate for a murder in 1983. The professor is found dead in Chicago, and the murderers seem to flee to Taiwan. When he gets to Taiwan, he gradually discover the corruption within the government. Eventually he sees the conflict between people who migrated to Taiwan before 1947 and after. The entire island is under marshall law. It's pretty much if you mess up in any way they'll shoot you, that kind of situation. The FBI guy tried to fight with the government but never worked. At the end he smuggled some of the evidences of what the government has done to the US, and the movie pretty much end here.
The movie tries to mix in action, story, and history all together. I can't say they did a horrible job, but the movie is actually pretty confusing, especially when you have no taiwanese history background. In the movie, they tried to explain it briefly and to make the statement that the "native" taiwanese people want freedom and independence. The message at the very end shows a strong intention of persuading people to support Taiwan's independence. The message goes like this:
......there are still over 1000 missiles from China pointing at Taiwan........there are 23 nations in the world recognizing taiwan as a country, the United States is not one of them.
I gotta say this movie is too intentional, in the way that it tries so hard to show how bad the KMT was back then (well......majority of story is true though), and wants to bring up taiwanese people's emotion of fighting against uniting with China or something like that. One line in the movie says the following:
China needs Taiwan, but Taiwan does not need China.
Back then it might be true, but today.......I don't think so.
I'm not gonna go into detail about this movie. All I can say is that if you are interested in the history of Taiwan, it's good to watch this movie, but if you are seeking a movie with good plot or music or acting, this is not your movie. All in all, this is not worth 10 bucks.
wht a pity to hear that a film about taiwan wasn't done well
ReplyDeleteprobably becuz they mixed too many things in so it turned out to be really confusing
ReplyDeleteyou'll be like "is it an educational movie, a history film, or simply an action movie"