Film Festival

[Anonymous]

Treeless Mountain
Directed and written by So Yong Kim

Treeless Mountain takes place in Seoul, Korea. It tells the story of two young girls, ages 4 and 6, whose mother abandons them to find her estranged husband. The mothers leaves them with their alcoholic aunt who doesn’t really look after the girls but has the girls fending for themselves. The mom leaves them with a piggy bank and the girls get the notion that their mom will return once the bank is filled. The girls end up selling roasted grasshopper for money and once it is filled, their mom doesn’t return. The mom doesn’t return, she sends a letter to the aunt and the girls are taken to their grandparents who reluctantly keep them. It is very heart breaking
to see the sadness on the girls face. The end.

This movie could be used in the classroom so that students could compare rural and urban Seoul. The movie could also be used to show the inner working of a Korean family. Treeless Mountain is neither a historical nor political film. It would be used purely for entertainment purposes and to show family interactions. I would use it in a social studies class.

[Anonymous]

In my quest to find good history based movies I found Black Sun: The Nanking Massacre on Netflix. As teachers we need access to easy to reach items, I’m so thankful for Netflix.
The following is the description based from Netflix
Black Sun: The Nanking Massacre
(Hei tai yang Nan Jing da tu sha / Men Behind the Sun 4)
1995NR90 minutes
The invading Japanese army's "rape of Nanking" in 1937 China gained global infamy for its horrific brutality as more than 100,000 civilians and fugitive soldiers were indiscriminately killed. This powerful docudrama conveys that ordeal via two brothers who get separated during the upheaval after witnessing their parents' execution. The film is unflinching in its shocking exposé of the occupying forces' atrocities against the vanquished Chinese.
Cast:
Liang Zhang, Yung Pan, Shao-tien Hsiung, Wen-ting Chiang, Wen-tu Pan, Hua Shao
Director:
Tun Fei Mou
Genres:
Foreign, Foreign Dramas, China, Cantonese Language
Language:
Cantonese
This movie is:
Violent

My Film Review
First this movie is violent, gross and gory, but generally a good movie. I would maybe show part of the film only to 11th and 12th graders. I would make sure to select certain scenes such as: images of the important military officers, massive execution pits, and Nanking burning down. The images are very powerful and can help students visualize and connect military figures to the historical events. The other scenes I would include are the original pictures and film that is incorporated into the movie. The director makes a powerful statement by reminding the audience through the use of the actual images that the massacre of Nanking did occur.
Another great aspect about movie is the family that experiences all the horrible incidents of violence. First, I believe Japanese soldiers murder the husband-in-law in front of the children, wife, older brother and grandmother. The other brother is able to escape and hide the younger kids in the rubbles of the burning town. The same older brother is captured and taken to a massive holding room. Slowly small groups of Chinese men are separated and marched to the shooting pits. The question of fighting back arises between those who remain in the holding room, but uncertainty and hope keeps them from taking any action. The older brother asks if he could receive permission to use the restroom, which is granted by the Japanese soldiers. On his way to the restroom, he discovers the shooting pits and ends up being selected to server one of the Japanese generals. As the destruction of Nanking continues the film shows how Chinese women are raped, men are forced to work, how women, children and the elderly are killed and how the city is ransacked and burned down. Also present in the movie is the struggle by foreigners who try to secure and maintain a safe refugee camp. The Japanese soldiers constantly ignore requests by the German man, American man and woman who try to provide safety to the Chinese.
The climax to the story occurs as the two the older brother finds the younger children and return to their home only to discover that the grandmother is the only survivor and is preparing the dead relatives’ bodies to be burned. As the families cry, two Japanese soldiers overhear and begin to attack the family, try to rape the little sister in the struggle the older brother is killed and the grandmother yells and hits the grandson to escape, to the point that she kicks him out the house and closes the doors. The grandmother realizes that the only way she can stop all the suffering and attack the Japanese soldier is by burning her house, granddaughter being raped and herself. The grandmother by taking one last stance—she burns down her home which represents five generations of Chinese culture, the family honor and hopefully the survival of one family member (the little brother that was kicked out from the home).
Throughout the movie historical reference are made such as: the comfort women, Japanese as the powerhouse to “protect” Asia from the British and Americans, opium as means of funding the war, reference to the Samurai and sword, WWII, Hitler, and Jewish concentration camps. Although the movie might be “bloody” the audience does learn and understand the horrors of the Nanking massacre. One imagine that will stay with me is how the Monks were one by one executed—no regard to the goodness, religion, culture and history they represent.

[Anonymous]

I watched part of Golden Slumber on a flight from Taipei to Hong Kong. Unfortunately, the flight was too short to complete the filem. But it had me laughing and in suspense for what was to happen next.

I have added it to my Netflix queue.

Love films about the everyman who is in the wrong place at the wrong time.

[Anonymous]

I viewed the film, TO LIVE, which followed a Chinese family during a 40 year period of history beginning with the Nationalist and Communist struggle for control of China and concluding with the aftermath of the Mao-inspired Cultural Revolution. I enjoyed the film and was taken in by characters created by author Yu Hua. The suffering experienced by Fugui and his wife was emotionally draining. Having "to bear" the loss of their home, their stature in the community and their children were difficult hurdles to overcome. I was particularly moved by the scene where their daughter died from complications due to childbirth. The inexperienced student doctors were poor substitutes for the seasoned doctors who had been purged during the Cultural Revolution.
I feel this film would be useful in the classroom. It's duration, roughly two and a half hours, might make it difficult to show during these times of state testing and pacing schedules. TO LIVE does give insight into periods such as Nationalist-Communist struggle for control of China, the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. The students could note the impacts of these events on the Chinese people and get a better understanding of the changes China was going through. The film could provide a starting point for a creative writing assignment where the students continue the story of the surviving characters by writing accounts of their lives in the years after the Cultural Revolution. For example, how the economic reforms of Deng Xiaopeng would have effected the life of "Little Bun." I would recommend this film. Rob

[Anonymous]

I happened upon this documentary and its attendant curriculum at a Spice professional development and could not be happier. It can easily be used in world and US history classes, depending on how much time you have to cover the Pacific theater. I have used this in world, after covering the first few years of the war in the Pacific, and after island hopping. My students already had done a map activity about Japanese expansion in the Pacific, Pearl Harbor, and read short excerpts about the Baatan March, and from the Flyboys. I also stop the video at a certain point and show clips from the Fog of War about the fire bombing of Tokyo.

Wings of Defeat is told from the perspective of a Japanese-American woman who, in the not too distant past, found out that one of her uncles was trained as a tokkotai pilot. Her goal was to return to Japan to uncover the history of the kamikaze pilots to figure out why her uncle would have joined such a corps of pilots. Moreover, she wanted to know why she only learned about her uncle’s WWII past only recently- why did surviving kamikaze fighters—those that did not actually engage in battle—not want to tell their family members even today that they were a part of the tokkotai?

Along the way, she meets up with a small handful of former tokkotai, many of whom are just hams in front of the camera and keep the students’ attention. She visits former kamikaze training sites, museums, and interviews family members as well. Students clearly see how nationalism enveloped Japanese society, with excellent footage as well from the time period.

I ask students during the film to take notes on evidence (via the attached document) that demonstrates that the Japanese were ready to give up versus the opposite. The question that frames the film revolves around the necessity of the atomic bomb. So in a way, the documentary sums up what they learned before about the Pacific theatre and closes out the war as well.

http://spice.stanford.edu/catalog/teachers_guide_for_wings_of_defeat/

[Anonymous]

My review is on the Chinese film "To Live" directed by Zhang Yimou. I wasn't sure if I would be able to forget the subtitles and get into the story, but within minutes I wasn't even aware I was reading.
I really enjoyed this film. The characters were believable, and the circumstances they encountered were right out of history and the lectures from our seminar.
Since I teach 4th grade, I'm limited on how much of the film I can use, but there is one part I definitely will. I plan to teach about Chinese culture prior to our unit on the California Gold Rush, which involves the experiences of Chinese immigrants. We will look at language, calligraphy, music and the arts among other things. I will play a clip of the performance of the shadow puppets.
I now look forward to viewing more sub-titled foreign films in the future.
Suzanne Lopez[Edit by="slopez10 on Aug 13, 4:53:40 PM"][/Edit]
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[Anonymous]

Joint Security Area (JSA)

This film concerning the border region between North and South Korea has a variety of items to offer in the classroom. I feel as though there would be two items worth offering to students in a high school classroom: The sense of Korean nationalism, and the portrayal of political differences between the North and the South.

Nationalism
An important item for students to know in the 19th and 20th centuries is the idea of nationalism, or pride in your country. In this film, the differences in politics between North and South Korea are overshadowed by a sense of nationalism among the troops. As soldiers from the North interact and befriend soldiers from the South, the idea of a unified Korea seems to be the goal of both sides. A part in the movies that displayed this idea was when the Northern soldier tells the Southern soldier to get out of the way so they can get to the "Yankees," or Americans. Just as you get the feel for the common goal of unification, political differences get in the way as well.

Portrayal of political differences
I was raised to think that capitalism is good and communism is bad. In the movie, the Northern soldiers had their share of opportunities to defect to the South, but spoke of not wanting to become "Yankee Puppets." Southerners love their freedom, but Northerners seem to be appalled at the idea of being subject to an outside power of the United States.

Don't show the whole thing in class
Despite the story portraying real issues that exist in Korea, I would not recommend this movie for a high school classroom. There is a decent amount of profanity, and if that is not enough, the adult magazine scene may be enough to want to avoid showing this to minors. I am sure that if students are mature enough to handle the language and you can fast forward at the right points, you may have something.

Great Movie!

[Anonymous]

"To Live" is a great movie to show Chinese history, cultures, and language. In the movie, Fugui's puppet show demonstrates one of Chinese beautiful art. The film covered Chinese Civil War, introducing two political parties, Kuomintang and Communist Party of China. It also shows the trafic ending of landowner's sabotaging the revolution. At the time of the Great Leap Forward, how people gather together all their scrap iron to produce steel and make weapon is prescribed. In the end, it is proved failure by the tragic death of Youqing. The movie continues to move forward to the Cultural Revolution which gives out the idea that traditional cultural elements are counter-revolutionary and how red guard are in charge. I was also moved by the part when Jiazhen finally reconciles with Chunsheng who accidentally killed her son Youqing and encouragingly tells him to keep living. I believe her forgiveness will be a great lesson for my students, too. As to the language part, all the actors speak clearly and choose good words. It should help Mandarin learning students with listening comprehension.

[Anonymous]

Like Rob, I also chose to review the film "To Live." First of all. it is a wonderful story. I have used it now for about six years in my AP World History course and I have yet to show it when somebody doesn't cry. The problem I have as an AP teacher is that the only time available for showing a feature length film is AFTER the AP exam in May. I make periodic references to it during the year whenever we discuss China during the Civil War/Maoist years but I just can't sacrifice two or three days of class time to show a movie. This year, I have decided to do a monthly film festival in one of our school auditoriums where I plan to show content related movies that my students can earn extra credit for viewing.

The action in the story is set in China from roughly the 1940's through the 1960's. We find the lead male character, Fugui at a gambling house engaging in his addiction, a dice game of some sort. He displays a unique talent of entertaining the folks in the gambling hall with shadow puppets. He returns home, drunk and disorderly, to a disgruntled wife and extended family. His wife, Jiazhen, explains to her husband that she plans to leave him with her two children if he doesn't control his gambling habit. To make a long story short, Fugui chooses gambling over family and eventually loses the family fortune including the house. Jiazhen does in fact leave Fugui and moves herself and her two children in with her parents. Fugui, having lost everything turns to peddling thread from a pull-cart on the streets of China.

Later, Fugui gets conscripted first into the Chinese Nationalist army and later, into the Chinese Communist Party. When the revolution subsides, Fugui returns to his home village where he is reunited with Jiazhen, who by this time has given birth to their third child. The family then experiences a whirlwind of events in Chinese history. Having served in the Communist army, Fugui manages to escape the purging of Nationalists in the early period of Communist rule. Later, the family loses a son during Mao's Great Leap Forward in an industrial accident. This is the first major tragedy that you are exposed to as a viewer and it is a real tear-jerker.

The movie progresses into the 1950's when Mao implements the Great Leap Forward. Fugui and Jiazhen's daughter is ready to give birth and the family is eagerly anticipating their first grandchild. Tragically, since all of the intellectuals have been purged, there is not a competent doctor around to make sure that the birth goes smoothly and Fengxia dies in childbirth after successfully delivering the baby (major tragedy #2).

The concept of the the movie as stated by Jiazhen, "I only want a simple life" comes through brilliantly at the end as the remaining family gathers around the graves of the son and daughter.

As a film, To Live supports the AP curriculum extremely well. My students rarely are exposed to Chinese history at all much less the three decades following the Civil War. It gives the viewer an entertaining window of what life in China must have been like complete with the sorrow and tragedy that often befell China's citizens. This movie receives my most hardy recommendation.

[Anonymous]

Twilight Samurai Film Review

There are many valuable scenes in Twilight Samurai which will enhance students’ knowledge regarding feudalism in Japan and the historical samurai. Concerning Japanese feudalism and the historical samurai, the movie portrays samurai in a manner we don’t typically associate them with—bean-counter. Seibei is not the stereotypical sword-wielding samurai we have romanticized in western literary forms, but an accountant. He is also a farmer and insect cage maker which supplements his meager 50 roku salary. Seibei possesses one servant and a modest gate, more indicators of his lowered status. He is also heavily indebted because of his wife’s extravagant funeral. Any of these scenes that portray the un-glorious aspects of a Samurai’s life will help our students have a better understanding of what difficulties the historical samurai encountered at the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate.

[Anonymous]

During the film, "To Live," the film focused on the family of Fugui and Jiaz'hen. It shows their lives through different moments throughout Chinese history. It showed the economic tormoil, politicial upheaval, and transitions during the Mao era. The story of the family was the most engaging aspect of the film. Seeing how being under different challenging circumstances made it more of what truly grabbed my interest and attention.

The film showed the transition into Mao's era. It showed the war and how it affected different types of people. It was really interesting to see how it affected the wife and her subsequent children. It also exemplified the way that specifically women, children, and rural folk were affected. It showed the familial bonds, the idea of roles in life, and the way in which people maintained/reiterated the principles of the government.

Id use this to exemplify the concept of familial bonds and roles in the culture. If at a later date, I teach History in high school, I'd be able to use this film more. I could use it in my present day course assignment of 7th grade English by teaching a thinking map of sequential, cause and effect, or any other thinking map. I think the character development, plot, compare/contrast, hierarchy, government response, or class status discussions would all be great topics to work on in my seventh grade class.

[Anonymous]

Twilight Samurai

It follows the life of a low-ranking samurai named Seibei Iguchi. Even though he is poor, he manages to lead a content and happy life with his daughters and senile mother. The film is different from many other samurai-themed films in that it concertrates on showing the main character's everyday struggles, instead of fucusing on action-oriented battles.

This upcoming school year I will be teaching the sixth grade at Solano Middle. My class will consist of a mixed race group of kids who come from a poor family. In all likely-hood the students will be African-American, Hispanic, and a few Asians, with low reading levels, who get into trouble and have a low interest in school. I believe that they will see a bit of their own lives in the Iguchi family thus keeping their attention and interest a bit longer than normal. I know that my students will love viewing the movie. I will use the movie to educate my class on various aspects of Japanese culture, geography, vocabulary, art, writing and history. But, more importantly, I can teach the importance of the bond and respect one should have for self and family.

To ensure that I have had success at teaching the students about the subject, I willl hold discussions that will allow me to assess my students' prior knowledge of Japan and the Samurai era. Once the movie has been shown and i have delivered my lesson I will reassess to determine how much knowledge the students have gained.

[Anonymous]

Twilight Samurai
Wood, smoke, no clocks and the chaotic retreat from what was ethical then.
There was a pace to this movie that was peaceful and slow, not boring, but bucolic, prosaic and truly a proper unhurried glimpse at a time now past. A picture of Japan at the end of an era; en macro, of a Japan before the great technological changes quick to come and a Japan still at a pace of an age soon to rapidly exit. The older samauri’s distraught reality of the future of a potential life for himself beyond the hill, as he knew it might be available and swiftly coming was not a chimera, “if you would just let me go”. And as real, the adhesion to the principals the of the samurai “knight” and the request/order of those in charge was just as real. To me, both of principle characters in the battle were men of there age, caught in an in-between-time. The clumsy, sad and pathetic nature of their obligatory standoff was a ragged edge.

The beautiful scene of conversation while fly-fishing in the world before, without clocks, but of other importances associated with progress, like love and our earthly continuance as whole people with the support of those that care for us always, our closest friends, was my favorite scene.
Kelly[Edit by="khoover on Aug 25, 10:54:56 PM"][/Edit]

[Anonymous]

After watching this movie and seeing the power of persuasion at its best, I was thinking about how I could possibly use the type of blind allegiance seen in "To Live" to relate to American Literature. The extent to which the children, adults, leaders believed and followed and the mantra of giving to the government because it is for the better of the Party is strikingly similar to that of women being prosecuted and persecuted for behaving wildly and unruly during the Salem Witch Hunt event.

On another note, the way in which Fugui loves his daughter though she is mute is contrary to common belief that Chinese men do not like daughters. It was clearly obvious that Fugui cared deeply for his daughter. This could be used to discern the popular belief of Chinese men and their treatment of their daughters.

[Anonymous]

Movie Review Jon Morgan-Wilson
Perris High School
USC/China Institute Aug. 2010

To Live / Huozhe (China - original title)

Director Yimou Zhang (b. 14 Nov. 1951)

Release Date: December 1994, USA
Starring: Ge You as Xu Fugui and Gong Li as Xu Jiashen

Film Awards:
1994 Cannes Film Festival
Best Actor – Ge You
Grand Prize of the Jury
Prize of Ecumenical Jury

1995 BAFTA Awards
Best Film not in English Language

If you want to watch a Chinese movie that is a dramatic representation of life in China from the late 1950’s to the early 1970’s this is it! If you want non-stop action with little human emotion, watch “House of Flying Daggers” or “Curse of the Golden Flower” instead!

I enjoyed this film and will use it to enhance my AP World History class because it is the story of a rather common and endearing Chinese man named Fugui (which stands for luck/fortune) who struggles to deal with sometimes funny but more often tragic events that occur in his life during the Chinese Civil War, the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. The movie provides an insiders view of how things happened from the 50’s to the 70’s in China, a period where in America Elvis was king, the Beatles later arrived and life was great! Director Zhang Yimou was born in 1951 and survived the period himself. When you realize that the film is banned in China, it makes the content even more intriguing!

The movie features two of China’s most famous movie stars, Ge You and Gong Li. Their performances are definitely star quality and after viewing this movie I purchased my own copy and have watched it about once a week. The cinematography is beautiful and gives the viewer a sense of the sights, sounds and lives of the average Chinese person who lived through that tumultuous period in Chinese history.

Advanced students should appreciate this film and as probably one of their first experiences with a foreign film it should keep them captivated! Discussions about the Chinese film industry could also be engaging and provide students with the opportunity to investigate more about the culture of Asia today!
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