Leofwine_draca WARRIORS OF THE RAINBOW: SEEDIQ BALE is a home-grown historical action epic from Taiwan, featuring the story of an Aboriginal tribe who rise up against their Japanese oppressors during the early 20th century. It starts off on a rather dodgy note, asking the viewer to be interested in and accept as protagonist a man, Mona Rudao, who is introduced to the viewer when he kills and steals from some innocent tribesmen. Thankfully things then jump forward twenty years or so, and it all becomes straightforward.The first thing to note is that I saw the international cut of this film, in which two parts are condensed down into one whole. While I enjoyed it on a superficial level, I have to say that there were too many problems with it for me to want to seek out the full version. The main issue I had is that the main tribe of characters are completely unsympathetic. They're headhunters, and when the Japanese describe them as 'savages' you tend to agree with them. I'm afraid I was on the side of the Japanese throughout in this one.Elsewhere, the film is ridiculously one-sided in showing the Japanese to be a cowardly and easily-beaten foe, except when the text comes up at the end you see that things were completely different to the fantasy portrayed here. I did like the look of the film, although it's variously influenced by the likes of APOCALYPTO, LAST OF THE MOHICANS, BRAVEHEART, THE LAST SAMURAI, and BANG RAJAN, without ever quite giving the viewer a flavour of its own.The action is quite well done, however, although marred by cheap CGI as is the case with so many eastern films these days. The scene in which the tribe rises up to attack the Japanese garrison is the highlight, really bloodthirsty and hair-raising stuff. But in the end, the lack of likable characters and the sheer ridiculousness of some moments (like the bratty kid running amok with the heavy weaponry) stopped me enjoying it too much.

KineticSeoul Wei Te-Sheng had this movie planned way before his hit movie "Cape No.7" which was a big hit. And his efforts really shows in this movie, it's basically a high budget epic from taiwan that is most definitely worth watching. On the exterior it might seem like another historical movie about Japanese occupation and invasion and how they mistreated, enslaved and also raped the people on the land they invaded. While also taking away their tradition, culture, language and freedom. Thus making the people rise up and throw a rebellion and fight the Japanese for justice, pride and freedom. But this movie has a lot of interior elements as well. It really does a good job of now going down a narrow rebellion movie but brings out the scars, the harshness and manly pride. Some scenes are uncomfortable to see but it shows the brutality and the length the rebels are willing to go. The movie takes place in taiwan during the 1895 and 1945 on a land where two tribes use to fight each other. but what happens when a more menacing enemy comes to enslave all of them? This movie is simply very well crafted with good pacing and editing. Wei Te-Sheng seems like a talented director and I am grateful that his vision his got from a comic book came to life on the big screen. This feels kind of like a taiwanese version of the movie "300" except with more substance and emotion with scars going for it. Highly recommended to anyone that enjoys historical movies with some realistic guerrilla battle tactics.8.2/10

rightwingisevil then try to watch this 'Warriors of The Rainbow', and tell me if you could spot the similarities of these two movies. The invasion of the British soldiers to north America vs the Japanese soldiers invaded Taiwan; then there's a great fighter among the Mohicans warriors on par with a ferocious fighter among the Taiwanese aboriginal tribes; then again, the Mohicans got feudal sworn enemy of another tribe to the similar feud of two Taiwanese aboriginal tribes....Then when i watched this movie, i suddenly realized that the whole picture is more like when the American forces invaded Iraq, there were tribes to become the collaborators helping Americans and using them to help killed their own feudal enemies... But this is the first time that I felt this movie was a very mature production since I never found anything like it out of Taiwan. Because usually, all movies from Taiwan, the dialogs were disgustingly embarrassing feminine, males whining like females. Yet this movie is absolutely masculine and this is first time that I felt the male population in Taiwan sounded and acted more like man, not just whiners. Furthermore, this is also the first time that I consider this movie is at a higher international level with great acting, directing and cinematographic achievement. And this is very rare to me and totally win my respect back to the Taiwanese movie industry. Salute!

kevinfunk2003 I was supposed to give a score of 7, but changed a bit after seeing the latter part of the film in theatre. Here's my own thought: It begins with Mouna being chased by another tribe's men in water and ends with almost of the dead male aboriginal characters marching together on the above, whether they're old rivalries in the woods or not. Surely the film surrounds the Wushe incident in Taiwan, but its materials are from the interviews with the remainders of Seediq and also based on a comic book...80 years have past for these people, so how many true memories can serve the elders well? At least I believed in those different men's and women's struggles posed in the film, because they are too real to make up. I was anticipating why and how the main character, Mouna Roudo, would find himself fighting the Japanese with no chance to win, and the director and plot writer, Te-Sheng Wei, did not disappoint me in the first part of the movie (namely 'The Sun Flag' of local theatrical release). But then the "comical-like" scenes start to be annoying...especially Mouna (performed by Chin-Tai Lin) always started to dance and sing before the big confrontations with the enemy, and near the end he and a little few men of his were fired by Japanese cannons on a drawbridge without any serious damages afterwards.I discovered that the film lose some parts for a successful typical blockbuster in terms of war movies, yet more than of just that. Unfortunately I think the latter part 'The Rainbow Bridge' dwelled upon the outcome for Seediq people's belief of Gaya too much. What's worse, it really became a mess when Seediq, non-Seediq aborigines and Japanese had the fights 'within the fights' altogether during the final 30 minutes or so. You have to be very cool to follow them. I have to admit that these factors overall killed some numbers in my final rating of the film, and that's a pity for the 'biggest ever movie production cost of Taiwan'; Meaningless killings and stirring suicides may be seen within a comment of a certain number of viewers which the film tries to target with, mostly due to the vagueness of right and wrong the filmmaker wanted to convey. It's not a welcomed cliché that should be used in commercial films...only who knows how it is knows how.The computer CG scenes I can promise you, on par with some war drama like 'Tae Guk Gi' and 'Letters from Iwo Jima'. Interestingly, they are all not the type of cinema that is all about unfolding the historical events, but with some extent of thinking of humanity mixed. However, like I said before, the comical-like scenes may not harm the authenticity of the real history for too much, but some of the untimely ones that stop me from hyperbolize how good the movie is like many locals do. Would it be a commercial success overseas? The title of this review implied a mixed, 'no answer'.