Critic Rating
(read reviews)User Rating
Director
Jiang Wen
Cast
Jiang Wen,
Jiang Hong-bo,
Teruyuki Kagawa,
David Wu,
Ding Yuan
Genre
Drama,
War
During the Japanese occupation of China, two prisoners are dumped in a peasant's home in a small town. The owner is bullied into keeping the prisoners until the next New Year, at which time they will be collected. The village leaders convene to interrogate the prisoners. The townspeople then struggle to accommodate the prisoners. One is a bellicose Japanese nationalist, the other a nervous translator. Will the townspeople manage to keep the prisoners until the New Year?
We hate to say it, but we can't find anywhere to view this film.
The A.V. Club by Scott Tobias
Though shorn of 20 minutes for its U.S. debut, the film's wry comic portrait of the Japanese Occupation during WWII hasn't lost any of its incendiary brilliance, both as a political provocation and as a brusquely humane take on the horrors and absurdity of war.
The New York Times by Stephen Holden
In its dry and forceful way, it delivers the same message as Jiri Menzel's "Closely Watched Trains" and Danis Tanovic's "No Man's Land." While acknowledging that war is hell, it goes further to suggest it is ludicrous.
TV Guide Magazine by Ken Fox
Jiang draws a great deal of humor from the situation, but the film inevitably explodes in terrible violence.
New York Daily News by Elizabeth Weitzman
Jiang's razor-sharp conclusions are less about the Japanese army or the Chinese government than about simple human nature.
New York Post by V.A. Musetto
A wild ride that effortlessly combines devilish dark humor, slapstick comedy, extreme violence and bitter satire.
Village Voice by Dennis Lim
By the final shot, which assumes the viewpoint of a decapitated head, its appalled comedy has swelled, beyond outrage, to a pitch of punch-drunk hysteria.
Variety by Derek Elley
Has all the classic faults of a picture not only directed by an actor but by an actor who is his own producer.
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