Devils on the Doorstep (2002)

Just perfect...

Absolutely brilliant

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

I think I'm lost in the translation, being American. I'm aware of the atrocities that the Japanese occupation of China brought with it, though.I found it very long and repetitive, despite the fact there was some very good filmmaking and acting going on. And the ending was very interesting, suggesting the futility of life. (I would have sworn the Japanese soldier was going to kill his commander.)But very repetitive. Just several scenarios on what would happen to these people in this situation. No real growth of the characters. Sure, there was a change in the Japanese soldier. But not really anybody else. Just some well done scenes but still a lot of talking and running around.And the last act was agitating as it was clear that the plan would never work. As was in the movie, the commander brought up why the soldier didn't contact the garrison. Not for me.

OK, it is obvious to Chinese people who "me" is: the Maoist, Communist resistance force: Communist Eighth Route Army (Ba Lu Jun).It is even more obvious "what" "me" is: an irresponsible, cowardly team of individuals who dumped the extremely dangerous load upon the innocent villagers, and bailed on them, never came back, and eventually led to the death of the entire village (who were so good-hearted that fed and bathed invader, save food for them..) There is so much to be said about this film, it is smartly made, has a message about every side involved in the conflict: Japanese Military, Chinese villagers, Chinese Communists, Chinese Nationalists... Messages that requires digesting to get..

This is the second time I see this film. As a Chinese, I feel a strong urge as well as an obligation to write some comment about it. I can safely conclude that the film vividly showed what the real situation was during the Japanese occupation in China back in WW2.It is totally different from those main-stream anti-Japanese war films we can see throughout our early life, which still can be seen being replayed in CCTV (China Central Television) over and again again. In those films, almost all Chinese, young or old, men or women, were all warriors fighting against the Japanese invaders. We all know that it wasn't true. From this film, we can see how ignorant and stupid those Chinese peasants were. It gives us a chance to review what was really going on during that time. It is a history we cannot deny. As a matter of fact, this film was banned in mainland China by some kind of a "censorship" mainly because it revealed so much truth.The director of the film, Jiangwen, is my only favorite director from China. You can say he is ambitious, a genius or whatever. But i say that he is a director with a sense of responsibility to our nation, to our people, to those heroes and civilians died in the war. He is not afraid to dig up the less-bright side of the history and present it to us, to those younger generation who never go through the war. It reminds us never to forget history.

Although the movie has been released in the year 2000 and shot little before that, it does have the feeling of "older" movies. What do I mean by that? Pacing wise it takes the route classic war movies have taken before it and doesn't opt for the MTV Generation cuts/pace (I watched the nearly 3 hour version).I called this a war movie, but don't get excited about fight scenes, it's more a drama! Saying more than that, might spoil something so I leave it at that! Just be aware of that fact, before you watch the movie! It's very well acted and you're unaware of where this will go! Which I think is great! Although it changes kind of "direction" near the end, it fits the movie (imo).