Much has been said of the great film Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale. This writer has just seen the long, two-part version at Greater Kaohsiung’s marvelous Shrchiuan Theatre. Through the writing and direction of Wei Te-sheng (魏德聖) and the vivid techniques of John Woo (吳宇森) and Jimmy Huang (黃志明), combined with the astounding acting of a great array of brilliant yet non-professional ethnic actors, about five hours of film serve to depict the background and incidents of the Wushe Incident in central Taiwan in 1930.
It is true that I have a professional interest in Taiwanese history, that my wife is a teacher and that the doctoral student who accompanied us is researching the field of the Aborigine experience in Formosa from the early 19th century. Nevertheless, there is no doubt of the aesthetic and entertainment value of this film. It is brilliant in its depiction of mountain and forest Formosa, wonderful in its capacity to thrill and shock an audience and genuine in its determination to rescue Aboriginal history.
The film has been loved as well as critiqued by many people, none of whose arguments I wish to rehearse here, except to add my voice to those who say “go see this film now” before it is swallowed up by its own short version produced for Western consumption, which has yet to be released commercially.
However, I do want to revisit the notion that the film presents a clear and overt political message. This is history and the past is strange and subtle.
Critics have somewhat neglected some problematic features of the manner in which key Taiwanese identities are characterized. The film might give an impression of Aboriginal cultural and physical decline under the Japanese that is somewhat false in that the 1930 conflict occurred at the end of a long, intermittent yet effective Aboriginal opposition to the Japanese, this itself preceded by an even longer armed resistance against the West (especially the 17th-century Dutch colonists) and the Chinese.
Again, the position of women is somewhat simplified. Assuming some accuracy in the scenes of suicide and the abject subjugation of the starving womenfolk, it should at least be noted that there is much evidence of independence and the high status of women in Atayal — whom the Sediq had previously been classified as — and related Aboriginal cultures, and early evidence of women engaged in fighting to the death, and at times using firearms. Unlike many Malay indigenous societies of that time, they were often chiefs and priestesses and were fully equal to their menfolk in celebration of victory through dance, in feasting, drinking and smoking.
More importantly in terms of political meanings, a repeated note has been struck concerning the film’s seeming celebration of Taiwanese nationalism. Let me question this. The few Chinese depicted in the film come off almost as badly as the stylized Japanese. It is perfectly proper to portray the Japanese as rather stupid and ineffective, for through Atayal eyes and voice around 1930 that is precisely what they were. However, the rather dismissive depiction of Taiwanese Chinese at the frontier of west and east is another matter; it is fairly accurate and it throws wholesale doubt on Taiwanese nationalist claims to this story and to this film.
The previous masters of Formosa, the Qing Empire, had only in the later stages of their rule made any attempt to bring in the Aborigines of the island in a manner at once efficient and humane. It might be argued that by 1895, when Japan humiliated the Qing Empire in warfare, the Qing were no longer in any position to support Taiwanese Aborigines. However, this can hardly be claimed for the many years since the time of Dutch colonization (1624-1661).
From that time onwards, the Chinese settlers in the west of the island, with the possible exception of the great Hakka groups along the central ranges and on the hill-slopes, had pushed Aborigines eastward, defined the Atayal groups of the northeast in particular as violent barbarians with no land rights of any consequence, ignored the diseases and the alcohol and new diets that destroyed native health and decimated populations. Qing officials had allowed and at times positively encouraged Chinese, Western and official encroachments into the east, had tricked native groups out of their lands and their hunting grounds, and had persuaded native womenfolk into multiple marriages for very selfish ends.
Unlike their poor Chinese equivalents, Aboriginal women in Taiwan did not have their feet bound and were thus active as work partners to their husbands. They often exerted great influence over medicine and magic and therefore village power, and — more particularly in this case — such marriage to an Aboriginal woman protected the Chinese male from direct retribution as he invaded eastern territories. Easier access to the interior was gained and the property of each wife could be absorbed into his.
As the Japanese were themselves able to claim loudly and triumphantly by 1905, the Chinese had willfully “plundered the native tribes, stealing their lands, wasting their farms and cheating them out of their crops ... since their contact with the Formosan Chinese they have undergone a lamentable mental and moral deterioration.” Somewhat biased and written by Takekoshi Yosaburo, who was undoubtedly seeking the favor of his masters in Tokyo, the statement captures some truth.
So, although it would be easy and rather neat, this film should not be seen as an unproblematic vehicle for Taiwanese nationalism. It might be better valued as a memory, a reminder of the truly great history of the eastern half of Taiwan, a history that not only has left us with colorful costume and delightful music, but one that represents the right of resistance, the determination of a variety of peoples to remain independent and with coherent identities amid wholesale destruction of their environs and their bodies.
Of course, this much more general lesson might well be a useful one to boast of in the face of China’s historical claims to Taiwan. Not that Chinese in Taiwan resisted foreign intrusion, but that personal and community identities are always of great importance; they are always an asset that may be relied on to counter the claims of outsiders over an island territory.
Ian Inkster is professor of international history at Nottingham Trent University in the UK and professor of global history at Wenzao Ursuline College of Languages in Greater Kaohsiung.
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