evocating:

I overestimated the amount of work I had to accomplish – for once – so I finished my efforts to translate this
one damned interview. Here’s Parts 1-3 (00:00 to 12:00) again.

Before I start, I figured out what it was that Jiang Wen said that
insulted the CCP! This term, 航母, kept popping up, and I was so confused because it
literally means aircraft carrier. I
thought for a long time that it was some kind of slang for a big cooperation or
even the government, like ‘big brother.’ But it turns out that it really is about aircraft carriers. Kind
of, anyway.

Context: China currently has the second/third biggest military force
(they kind of tie with Russia) in the world, and a big part of why it’s lagging
behind America hugely is because China doesn’t have enough aircraft carriers. (The
difference a single aircraft carrier makes in military might is massive,
because it is a literal moving port that’s
crewed by the upward of 5000 people. If you have an aircraft carrier, you can
wage war anywhere there is a large body of water. Which is kind of everywhere.)

When I say that China doesn’t have enough aircraft carriers, I mean that
they didn’t have any until very recently – around 2011, when they launched the Liaoning.
The CCP made lots of statements full of nationalistic fervour about how it is
better than even America’s.

Jiang Wen said, and I quote directly from news articles, “中国航母比美国多一倍啥都好聊光IP有个屁用.”

“What’s the fucking use of China having an aircraft carrier twice the
quality of America’s if we don’t have some IPs to brag about it with?”

Further context: the reason why there’s a Chinese side of the Internet
is because China doesn’t actually have much of the Internet – it has something
more like an Intranet, nationwide,
because their Internet is exceedingly restricted. (To the point that some
terms, like Tiananmen 天安门, are censored, and
there’s a new thing that literally tracks people’s activities online and give
them social points that allows for greater priorities to necessities like
education and health. (Correct me if I’m wrong about any of these points. I get my news on China from translated sources.)) Mainlanders are also very infamous for their methods of
doublespeak, especially people in positions of power and influence.

Further, further context: Jiang Wen once got into massive trouble in 2001 for his movie Devils on the Doorstep, because it was a movie set during the
Sino-Japanese wars and humanised the Japanese. When I say massive trouble, I
mean that there was talk about him being banned entirely from the industry. In
fact, I’m pretty sure that he was banned from directing and writing films for
seven years afterwards. Check the dates on the filmography of his Wikipedia
article; it matches up.

Basically, I misinterpreted: he didn’t accidentally-on-purpose insult
the CCP. He did it on purpose.

This man’s balls are fucking huge and I love him. The number of fucks he simply does not give is amazing.

Anyway. On with the rest of the interview!

Parts:

4. On his critics (and also on geniuses)
5. Limitations of the film medium (and more about
geniuses)
6. Jiang Wen is a Rude Old Man
7. Acting in the future, and his new film

Keep reading

JW said a lot of things that’s ugly true but “politically incorrect” in china.

The thing about the Liaoning (遼寧) aircraft carrier is that, china’s navy is always their weakest part (even Japan’s navy is arguably more powerful), and they know that in order to be able to keep the US’s power away from the south sea, they need to have their own aircraft carrier. But they don’t have the skill and tech to make their own from scratch (only the USA and USSR have the ability to really built their own aircraft carrier, if my memory serves right), the Liaoning aircraft carrier is actually a remold from an old Soviet aircraft carrier (a retired one from the 80′s, I think). So, even if it is indeed a big progress for China to be able to maintain an aircraft carrier to expand their power in the South Sea, the ship itself is not that impressive. However, if you check china’s news forum and websites, there is this atmosphere that the official is brain-washing their people to believe that this thing is as great and powerful as the Helicarrier from the Avenger, and anyone dare to point out the fact will be branded as “you don’t love China. TRAITOR.”

This “China is the greatest” mind set is really disturbing because the chinese government use this radical patriotism (and thus the hatred for “enemy countries”) to distract their people from many social injustice in their country, which they cover-up a lot (they will ban your web account, send police to “check” you etc. I’m not even exaggerating here) and anyone who dare to criticize the government becomes a traitor™.

Anyway, JW talking about the aircraft
carrier

sounded to me is him side-way dissing

CCP and the US imperialism (if you have fucking aircraft carriers cruising worldwide, of fucking course you make everything easier, including spreading your culture) and he really got balls to say something like that in China because lol they would fucking ban your every film if the government thinks you are a “trouble maker”.

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As for the reason his Devils on the Doorstep is banned (they were vague about it but anyone can guess the real reason behind it):

Japan invaded China in WWII, but they never formally apologize about their war crime (human experiments, slaughtering, rape etc). Even worse, they even out-right denies their war crimes in their history book, so there is this strong feud between China and Japan regarding this matter.

Now, of course it is right to call out Japan’s erasure of their WWII crimes (imaging how the jewish people would feel if Germany denies the genocide in WWII), but often time the chinese people just brainlessly hate Japan because the media taught them so. They only see Japan as an icon that they must hate “because of WWII” but it’s just a superficial “they are bad” hate. It becomes a source to build up their radical patriotism and sometimes the hatred go out of hand (there were literally people cheering for the Japan nuclear plant/tsunami incident and people beating up those who have japanese car when the situation between the two countries tensed up).

And this mindset also reflects on most of the chinese “patriotic anti-japanese” WWII movies in which you see cartoon-like silly bad japanese army that got beaten up by the oh the
flawless

and brave chinese citizens.

So when JW made a realistically cruel WWII movie showing the ugly side of Japan and China’s culture, people from both China and Japan got ticked off because in Devils on the Doorstep, you don’t see “stupid and evil japanese” nor “chinese people all hate™

the japanese”, you see how the collective “obedience and honor over everything” mind set of the japanese culture made them devils capable of slaughtering a whole village (some right wing japanese were so angry that they even threaten to kill the japanese actors in that movie), and not all chinese people are “freedom fighters” but many of them are naive people who don’t really care who control them as long as they get to live their life (they never have the power of playing political game in the last 5000 years so why care). It is ugly but it is the truth.

In conclusion, JW has balls bigger than the Death Star.