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The
Puppetmaster
viewed
November 6, 2000 at Brooklyn Academy of Music  Full
Details
Secothe
puppetmaster they are not films that rush you through
the story but seem fervently committed to portray life
as it was. the political commentary is never shown outright,
but it's there. such as one scene when the taiwanese
villagers are offered free tickets to the opera if they
agree to cut off their pigtails. the next scene is one
of the watching the performance. our perspective is
the same as that of the audience: we are viewing the
performance, as well as the backsides of the spectators
sitting in front of our viewpoint. the colorful, noisy
opera performance vies for our attention while in the
foreground japanese soldiers silently cut off the pigtails
of the spectators. the effect is one of devastating
disgrace, especially considering how the Japanese use
one aspect of chinese culture in order to dispose of
another. Regardless of what one thinks of pigtails,
there is much aggression and in the image of japanese
soldiers cutting them off the heads of chinese. three
formats: it has a dreamlike quality about it that would
be more fully realized in flowers of shanghai. utilizes
three narrative forms: performances, lee's direct addresses
to the camera, and reenactments of key moment's in the
first half of Lee's life. story of 96 year old Lee tien-lu's
life from his birth in the midst of the japanese occupation
of taiwan, until 1947 when the japanese leave the island.
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