For Your Consideration: Movie of the Month Feature

(Over the course of the next few weeks I'll be experimenting with various features so bear with me here)

Cue trumpets: Salutations fellow film buffs!

It's my pleasure to introduce you to the "FYC" monthly feature. In it I shall recommend lesser known movies for your viewing pleasure. As many of you know I watch a lot of movies. Not all of them good. And in so doing, I go through the trouble of sifting out the chaff so you don't have to. That said, each month I'll showcase a film from any number of genres so as to stir the pot. I draw no distinction between past or present, "high art" or "low art", classy or exploitative. Here I will attempt to provide you with the best recommendation that I can.

So, without further ado, here is this month's selection: "Devils on the Doorstep" (or in Chinese, 鬼子来了).

 Released in 2000 at Cannes by actor/writer/director Jiang Wen, "Devils" tells the story of the small rural village of Rack Armor Terrace in the Hebei Province of Southern China. The time: The Second Sino-Japanese War (e.g. World War II). The dilemma: a fearful yet moral villager, Ma Dasan,  has two sacks delivered to his home in the middle of the night by a mysterious stranger. In those sacks: two bound-and-gagged enemy prisoners; one a jingoistic Japanese sergeant and the other a Chinese collaborator and interpreter.

Threatened with death from both the partisans who captured the prisoners and the Japanese garrison in town, Dasan and his fellow villagers must concoct a plan to either rid themselves of the problem or face the consequences that will inexorably consume them all should their captives be discovered.

By equal turns exciting, suspenseful, heartfelt, poetic, violent and passionate (not to mention immensely funny), "Devils" is a jet-black dramedy the likes of which I have never seen produced here in the United States. It's in a category of films I like to refer to as "Asian Grand Tragedy". It has the cojones to plumb the depths yet retains none of the hubris or posturing that it usually takes to get there. It is not an anti-Japanese film. Nor is it an indictment of humanity's inhumanity. It is almost beyond classification in every respect.

Banned in China for "political reasons", the film's notoriety has suffered and has thus become little known outside of it's sphere of influence at Cannes. I couldn't even find the trailer on YouTube (but I know there is one so I'll keep looking)! It is, however on DVD, and not too hard to come by. At a little over two-and-a-half hours this film flies so don't feel to iffy about the run-time. You won't regret it.