A Tale of a Formosan Hero, Mona Rudao (1882-1 December 1930), chief of the village of Mahebo, Seedeq tribe. He led his people resisting the high pressure governance of the Japanese colonial authorities, but ended up committing suicide by shooting himself to prevent the Japanese from capturing him alive. About 1200 lightly armed Seediqs joined him in 1930 to against the 1194 Japanese army and 1306 armed police along with their machine guns, canons, tear gas and poison gas canisters dropped from aircraft. 364 Seediqs were killed and 225 ones committed suicide in a honourable Seediq way - Hanging themselves beneath giant trees. Some women hanged before the rival so man could fight without fear and worries.
Whether die on the battle field or beneath the trees, there was only one believe in their minds: to be a real man, to be a seediq bale.

I was astonished by its image quality and dialects when I came across the trailer on the internet. It was director's intention to attract funds with this well-produced preview. With his permission, the English-subtitled trailer was posed onto YouTube hoping the project can be known by more. I carefully read the director's concept on how will he present the film and add some historic background into English as read above.

Unfortunately Fund-raising did not reach its goal of NTD three hundred million (appx. £ 4.8 million) in 2005 despite sweats, tears and 3,000 illustrations of storyboard. Until now. It is a wonder to find out that slight adjustment to the story, right atmosphere for Formosa film market and even more sweat blood help bring the project alive, and of course brilliant ideas and support from visionary companies and fans also do a good deal for the resurrected film.

Seediq Bale is back to the production line, and hopefully, hopefully in no time, we can all sink ourselves in a comfortable cinema seat watching the story of a group of brave people, who want nothing but to prove their ancestors that they are real men when they cross the rainbow.

Aye, Formosan Films are Good.