The Bird People in China

For the first 45 minutes, it's a sort of wacky mismatched-buddy road movie, like Midnight Run or something. But it slowly morphs into something more substantial, an interesting and heartfelt meditation on culture, progress, colonialism and living a meaningful life. It doesn't really rise above standard conventions, but it's nice.

The beautiful epilogue almost makes up for the uneven and unfocused first hour of this film.

Didn't really work for me. I found the first half pretty annoying, with bad pratfalls and dumb jokes, and the second, more "lyrical" (ugh) half to be a bit cloying and sentimental, especially towards the end. Maybe it's because I only recently saw Aguirre, but I felt like the amazing setting wasn't utilised very well, with Miike's go-to conflict contrivance of a violent Yakuza feeling completely out of place. These complaints aside, I didn't outright hate it, but it never managed to draw me in.

If you ask me to tell you what this movie is about, I don't know where to begin. It's quite difficult to place this in a certain genre or compare it with other movies. Looking at the Miike's other movies I didn't rate them high either, but somehow this got me intrigued.

Oddly touching story. Beautifully shot too.

I love Yunnan, definetely my favorite Miike movie!

The epilogue, gorgeous landscape photography, and themes are something I wouldn't expect of Miike, and much appreciated. The plot and characters are just not very well thought out or executed. Shame.

Esse tinha potencial para ser uma obra-prima, mas infelizmente se alongou mais que o necessário, Miike falhou bisonhamente em transmitir a mensagem de inocência e com isso, a beleza do filme ficou perdida...

One of Miike's best.

A little slow-moving and drawn out. Some extraneous scenes that could be cut. Beyond that, a beautifully scenic exploration of the mixed results of modern v. ancient and similar dichotomies. A very odd and interesting entry in Takashi Miike's filmography.

Great

A beautiful movie.

Film from Takashi Miike, who's known for his shock films. This one is subdued and quite beautiful, a 180 from what he's known for. The film weaves downright myth in nicely with fantasy, and it becomes a dream.

Miike couldn't help but pepper even a fairly slow, lyrical drama like this with outbursts of his trademark hyper-violence. Anyway, it's a mature and interesting film, but nothing exceptional.

Take out all the gore and it's still god damn Takashi Miike and this is a perfect example. One of my favorites from my main man.