TROUBLE MAKERS by Cao Baoping

A script so rude it took six years to be approved by China's censors,
TROUBLE MAKERS is a down and dirty, fast and furious reproach to the current
trend in Chinese movies. It's not a pretentious, faux-European artfilm and
it's not a period spectacle full of beautiful costumes and martial arts.It's more like a rough, cigarette smoking country cousin who elbows his way to the head table full of effete filmmakers like Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige, lets out an enormous belch, and starts telling dirty jokes while slamming vodka shots.

Black Well Village is stuck in the middle of nowhere and in the itchy,
twitchy opening we meet the four Xiong brothers who rule its inhabitants with vicious bullying. Brother no. 4 has been humping all the women in town and has recently kidnapped two big city beauties. Brother no. 2 is the village accountant who eats for free and steals the profits from anyone stupid enough to do a business deal within the village limits. Worst of all, Brother no. 3 is the mayor, and anyone who raises the slightest whiff of an objection to his iron rule finds their house slated for demolition and a state-approved road smashing through their fields. But like Gary Cooper in High Noon, the local Party Secretary (Wu Gang) has had enough and he's organizing a showdown. Problem is he's got all the courage of a mouse and has to conduct his revolutionary activities while crouched in a corn field, hiding from the prying eyes of Brother no. 3. If the meek shall inherit the earth, they're off to a bad start.

Bawdy, rowdy, funny and rough, this is a shaggy dog tale that revolves around the night of the revolution as everything hits the fan and everyone gets splattered with the fall-out. Even the producers of this film are punks, saying of China's recent super-expensive, super-prestigious celebration of 100 years of Chinese film, "It's mostly old people in senior positions who are celebrating their past." If that's the case, then TROUBLE MAKERS might just be the future.
中国のユンナン省辺りの田舎で作られた映画です。一昨年の中国のたびを思い出しました。優雅な風景、中国人たちの服装、がさつな雰囲気、乱暴に聞こえる中国語、そして食べ物など、懐かしい気持ちで見ました。

中国の人々はグループメンタリティーが強いんですね。団結し不平等なリーダーをやっつけるといったシンプルな話に、中華人民共和国の思想が浮かび上がってきます。出来は荒いけど話は面白おかしく、いい映画とはいえないけど、面白かった。