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.

A beautiful movie.

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...

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.

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.

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.

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.

Oddly touching story. Beautifully shot too.

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.

One of Miike's best.

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.

Great

I love Yunnan, definetely my favorite Miike movie!

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.