7.5 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
The most expensive production in Taiwanese history (budgeted at approximately $25 million), Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale chronicles the true story of Taiwan's aboriginal people and their revolt against the Japanese colonizers in the 1930s.
Starring: Nolay Piho, Umin Boya, Masanobu Andô, Sabu Kawahara, Vivian HsuForeign | 100% |
War | 40% |
History | 39% |
Drama | 6% |
Comic book | Insignificant |
Action | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.34:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Seediq: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Seediq: Dolby Digital 2.0
Audio is primarily Seediq with some Japanese mixed in.
English
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Slipcover in original pressing
Region free
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Update as of 8/2/12: the review of the longer International Version of Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale has been posted.
Note: This review is for the so-called Domestic American Version of Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq
Bale. This is
an edited version of the original two part film. The original two part version is being released as an International
Version on Blu-ray, replete with additional supplemental features (not to mention around an hour and a half of
extra running time).
China has had a world of problems with its outlying territories, with Hong Kong and Taiwan both creating different sort
of headaches for the massive nation at various times throughout its history. If the current Communist Chinese regime
is still coming to grips with the rampant capitalism that is a major legacy of the century long British rule of Hong Kong,
the Communist Party itself is wrapped up in the history of Taiwan even more strongly in a way, as it was to Taiwan (or
Formosa as it was often called) that the anti-Communist forces fled once Mao came to power. The struggle between
Taiwan and Mainland China was a decades long political ping pong match (so to speak), and it became increasingly
absurd in a way that many Western nations (the United States among them) continued to recognize only Taiwan and
not Mainland China, despite the fact that the population of China itself so completely dwarfed that of Taiwan as to make
any comparison between the two “nations” ludicrous on its face. But Taiwan had another skirmish on the international
stage a generation or more before Mao and his rebels sought to remake China in their own image, and few if any
Westerners are overly familiar with this chapter. Many Westerners will know that Japan and China had a
tempestuous relationship throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, with several skirmishes and a couple of
outright wars with each other, but probably few other than specialists are aware that Taiwan was actually ceded to the
Japanese in the late 19th century and the Japanese then ruled over the island for several ensuing decades.
Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale is a massive 2011 Taiwanese epic that takes several real life people and
events surrounding the Japanese occupation of Taiwan and gussies them up into a spectacular piece of nationalist
propaganda, one that is sure to make Chinese hearts beat with pride, but which may leave Westerners feeling at least
a little more conflicted about it all.
Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.34:1. This is a huge, expansive film that glories in the jungles of Taiwan and it retains a suitably lush, even spectacular, look in this high definition presentation. The DI has been tweaked in post per the usual contemporary practice, with lots of color grading and filtering that alternately cast warm golden or cool blue hues on entire segments. Fine object detail is extremely sharp and pleasing and fine grain levels are also consistent. The one recurrent problem in this transfer is unsightly flicker and instability in many of the jungle scenes. It's quite normal for some reason that many transfers just can't quite seem to handle heavy foliage very well, with a resultant breakdown in resolution, but in this case the entire frame flickers rather badly in several sequences. The only other niggling process is some less than consistent CGI, including several rainbows that arch across the sky and look like they were ported in from some ancient Hanna-Barbera enterprise.
Though both the lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and standard Dolby Digital 2.0 mixes included on Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale are labeled with the generic "Chinese" (not even Mandarin or Cantonese), some cursory research seems to indicate that the actual languages being spoken in the film are the native Seediq tongue and Japanese. Since I am certainly no expert in Eastern languages, I have set the specs above to mirror what the labeling on the disc states. One way or the other, the 5.1 sound mix here is unusually impressive, with beautifully nuanced ambient environmental sounds creating a near continual sense of immersion (sometimes literally, when the camera delves beneath the water). The battle scenes are appropriately bombastic, and rather interestingly we get a variety of nice foley effects, from gunshots to the slice and dice of heads being removed from bodies. Dialogue is clear and well prioritized. The very Western sounding score, which some may find anachronistic but which I personally found quite moving at times, also spills into the surrounds during virtually every cue. Dynamic range is exceedingly wide.
Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale isn't especially grisly (a lot of the beheadings and other violence is only hinted at, though we do get quite a few shots of skulls and, in one sequence, actual heads), but its tone is kind of disturbing nonetheless. It's hard to really root for a tribe that is so intent on murdering other tribesmen even before the Japanese enter the picture, and the self immolation of another group in the film leaves their parenting skills in serious question (no matter how noble their supposed intentions). But putting those very real qualms aside, this is an absolutely fascinating epic that details a page out of Chinese-Japanese history that evidently even a lot of Easterners aren't that familiar with. Director Wei Te-Sheng has made a gigantic film here which has some breathtakingly gorgeous shots mixed in with an overall feeling of absolute brutality. It makes for a somewhat odd mix, something that is perhaps exacerbated by this edited version's quick cuts (no pun intended). Personally, I can't wait to watch the International Version to see what I've missed, but in the meantime even in this truncated version, Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale comes Recommended.
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