The Bird People in China (199 Chgoku no chjin

Directed by Takashi Miike

Starring Masahiro Motoki (Shall we dansu?) Renji Ishibashi (DOA) Mako 

A film of two very distinctive halves, the first part being the journey.

Wada, a Japanese businessman is travelling to the Chinese province of Yun Nan to check out an area rich in Jade, at first he is stalked but then accompanied by a psychotic Yakuza, Ujiie. Wadas Company happens to be in debt to his gang and hes come to collect.

The first part of the journey is from plane to overpacked train, once off the train Wada contacts the man who will guide him on the next stage. This is also where Ujiie makes his bullish entrance; he comes across as a caricature of a "Yakuza Heavy" and provides some moments of comic relief. 

They continue the journey in a dilapidated rickety van that starts falling apart until it eventually collapses, from there a comical looking truck is put into use, even more ramshackle than their previous transport, the handheld camera gives a good idea of how genuinely bumpy the ride is. Having reached a flooded river, they have to continue on foot.

Some will scoff at this but whereas previously it felt like some sort of wacky race with the assortment of collapsing wrecks they had to use, now it feels more and more like a Japanese/Chinese Aguirre. From the arduous trekking up mountains totally at the mercy of nature to the journey by raft up river with a psycho in tow (there is the fantasy element of the raft being pulled by several large turtles).

The journey is full of incident and they eventually end up lost in the middle of nowhere, luckily they spot people in the distance who turn out to be from the village that has found the rich vein of Jade, thus their journey ends.

The second part, the village.

Set high in the mountains, amidst breath taking scenery the travellers set up camp. They are intrigued on seeing a large group of children running around with wings on and even more intrigued on hearing the legend of Bird People. Ujiie in particular takes an interest in this legend and they watch the children being taught the movements by one of the young women from the village. There is something strange about her as well, despite the obvious fact that she is Chinese, she has blue eyes, along with which she sings a song that turns out to be in a form of English. All these strange mysteries, the simplicity of rural life and the heady atmosphere alter the reasoning of the Japanese, Ujiie in particular.

They are about to head back to Tokyo when Ujiie intentionally sabotages their transportation. He has found something that has given him purpose in his life apart from the idea of hurting other people. He wants to keep the land free from the industrialisation and development that would surely follow once they took news of the Jade back. Wada makes a deal with him that could guarantee peace for the village, they will attempt to fly following the training methods of legend, if they can fly, Ujiie will get his peace, if not, well theyll probably end up dead so no matter anyway.

The pacing of the journey is fun and frenetic unfortunately the same cant be said for the time spent in the village, the change in pace is too much and the second half of the film lags. The message of the film is obvious in the fact that we need to be more ecologically minded and not turn the mystery and beauty of the world into an industrial wasteland. 

A worthy effort, very different from the films that Miike is renowned for and just a shame that the pacing couldnt have been better, cutting 10-15 minutes off would have made a huge difference. So not a failure but not quite the success it could have been either.

Worthy of a rental just to see a different side to Miikes work.

Cheers Trev.

No BBFC rating but probably 12.

R1 ntsc dvd available from Artsmagic. Various R3 ntsc dvds available.