#TAGS:
physical comedy

empathy and sympathy

fresh perspective
layered meaning (good for over-thinking/multiple viewing)

excellent camera work
immersive atmosphere

unexpected outcome
acceptable suspense (developments predicted minutes before)

intense action

untraceable (natural) acting

#COMMENTS:

the bystander’s story seems to be most legit. esp. since the physical events follow very closely to the bandit’s version. And he has no incentive to lie (other than omitting things like he stole the dagger) to the listener or the monk.

the bandit is lying for he want to glorify himself. and his version is closes to the bystander’s since his a repeated offender, must have tons of experiences in making up believable lies (I mean just the amount of details he gave vastly supercede others’ versions).

the wife’s version is probably very close to her own experience in that she felt so much hatred from her husband when the husband gave up on her.

the husband’s version is just probably (1) bullcrap if we held the naturalism belief that psychic can’t communicate with the deceased (esp. since the weapon of suicide is wrong), or (2) that the husband is also telling more or less his truthful experience in that he was very shocked by the experience and ain’t feelin’ no attachment to his wife no more since she did not defend her “virtue” and either suicide or kill the bandit.

All in all, you can see hints of the versions of bandit, wife, and husband in the bystander’s story. which is a great account on unreliability of human witness in a court case.

Also, you can also trace out the 围观主义,明哲保身 theme which is heavily condemned by 鲁迅。 in a sense the monk is probably feeling what 鲁迅 is feeling when he saw the 日俄战争 slides.

I literally said that the bystander took the pearl dagger as the listener said “you can fool the court but not me…” lol

is the monk the devil that they speak of who can’t stand this world and live in the temple to avoid human evil?

A side message is that always remember 贪小失大. it’s pretty, pretty idiotic for the husband to believe in the bandit in the “found treasure what to sell you cheaply” story. I mean did he not even think about why would the random guy (bandit) choose him?

#TAG SCORE: 19