The Bird People Of China (1998)
This is one of those movies that as I was watching it, I was thinking to myself, "I should really be liking this since it has a message and it looks very good, what with all its mystically mist-enshrouded mountain scenes and raging rivers." Added to those things is that this one is directed by Takashi Miike, famed for any of a variety of usually hyper-violent flicks like Full Metal Yakuza or Audition, so I probably should have also been thinking, "wow, look at how Miike is able to shift gears into a different genre and make a heartfelt piece about finding meaning in your life and there's hardly anyone getting killed."
Most of the time though I was merely thinking that I had seen it all before when it was called Lost Horizon and remember being quite underwhelmed by that tale of people finding bliss in the simple life of an isolated village.
The Bird People Of China is not nearly as preachy as Lost Horizon, but the concept is basically the same. You've got some folks from civilization tromping around in the hinterlands and ending up in a community completely cut off from the modern world. Naturally, it is the life of these unassuming folk that cause our protagonists to reexamine their own lives and ambitions.
Perhaps there's something to the fact that these people just mill around their village all day doing nothing but herding cows and building sets of wings to go flying around with. Just maybe there's wisdom in these backward hicks that can lead us to a happier, more fulfilling existence. I don't know about you, but whenever I've ever ended in up in some ass pimple of the world, it's always inhabited by a bunch of inbred Gomers whose accumulated smarts start and stop at finding the cheapest cigarettes and easiest broads.
Maybe I'm just jaded after all these years of movie watching, but frankly, I didn't find anything particularly fresh or insightful here. Well made though it was, it also was pretty much a by-the-numbers effort that didn't hold too many surprises along the way. Yes, it was dressed up in gorgeous scenery and Miike had no problems creating periodically interesting shots, but neither the story nor the lives of either of the two main characters, Wada and Ujiie, really captured my attention on any substantive level.
Wada is the business guy intent on finding out about some jade deposit in China, while Ujiie is the violent Yakuza guy haunted by nightmares who is also interested in the status of the jade deposit because Wada's company owes the Yakuza some money. Throughout the trip, Ujiie is crabby and takes it out on Wada every now and again by beating him up. Because he's a gangster. And Wada is a wuss business guy. There's an original dynamic.
We follow both of these guys as they journey to the village where the jade is located. It isn't an easy journey and involves riding on rough roads in cruddy vehicles, but does include some welcome comic relief involving a van falling apart and Ujiie having to take a dump on the side of the road only to have it start raining on him. (Fouled up public defecating sequences always loosen up a few laughs, even when I find my sense of humor a bit stopped up as was the case during this movie.)
But the comedy doesn't stop with number two! During a night of drug taking, Wada and Ujiie's guide (Shen), loses his memory when one of Ujiie's gunshots somehow causes poor Shen to hit his head on a rock! This causes some problems since Shen can't remember who he or anyone else is or where they are or going. That's a good lesson you youngsters out there. When you're munching on your magic mushrooms, you probably should keep your weapons holstered. Remember, knowing is half the battle.
Once at the village, they get mixed up with a local girl who is teaching the village kids the old time art of flying with man made wings. Wada ends up becoming obsessed with translating a diary that one of her relatives left behind when he died and to be quite honest, I never figured what the whole point of that was. It seemed to involve everyone constantly singing some old, irritating Irish or Scottish ballad.
Meanwhile, Ujiie becomes increasingly taken with life at the village, so the crisis that erupts once it's time for everyone to go back to Japan isn't exactly unexpected. And really, veterans of these "outsiders in isolated village" movies pretty much know some characters are going to want to leave, some are going to want to bring the primitive society into the modern world and some are going to want to preserve the old way of life at any cost.
To Miike's credit, things don't turn out all nice and neat for everyone, but I grow weary of these movies where the only way anyone ever comes to terms with their own lives is to have some intense experience in a far off place. Sure, I could probably snap out of my funk if I had some super sweet vacation to some beautiful place with exotic and mysterious dames lingering about. Give me a movie about someone figuring how not to kill themselves even though they're stuck in a dead end job, screwed financially, and have been knifed in the back by everyone they ever trusted. Now that's a movie I could endorse!
Another thing is that this movie is almost two hours long! Get to the freaking point! You don't need two hours for this when you've only got a gangster and a businessman to focus on! The Japanese road-trip-to-self-discovery flick 9 Souls dealt with nine guys and was just about the same length! Sorry, but this one just didn't do a hell of a lot for me. I didn't find anything life affirming about it. Quite the contrary, I found it depressing to think that the only way I could find peace is to travel to some far off land, running away from all my problems. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to run away from my problems, but do you know what a pain in the butt it is to get a passport to China?