I just got an open letter from Wei Te-Sheng - the director of the movie "Seediq Bale", which is in production as of now.

 

I remembered when we were working on our 4th album back in 2003, we wrote a historical fantasy story called "Takasago Empire" and started writing songs on it. Then we changed the subject and made "Seediq Bale" based on the "Wushe Incident". This change was totally influenced by Wei's short demonstration film by then.

 

Wei spend all of his savings and borrowed some more to shoot that 5-minute demonstration film. When hearing that I felt it was a very gutsy move and similar to what I would do. But what's really inspiring is that he told me Japanese has Bushido as the symbol of their philosophy. "Seediq Bale" could be the spirit that Taiwanese would try to have.

 

"Seediq Bale" means "a real man" in Seediq (a Taiwanese aboriginal people) language. Only the man that goes through the test could be called "Seediq Bale" and cross the "rainbow bridge" to meet with his ancestor's souls after death. Around 80 years ago, Mona Rudao, the chief of the Seediq tribe, was fawned upon by the Japanese and brought to Japan to visit their modern army. Back to Seediq and see his people being oppressed by Japanese and their "Seediq Bale" spirit being erased, Mona Rudao decide to lead his people to revolt even though he knew they had no chance against the Japanese armed force. They didn't succeed and were all killed but everyone became the "Seediq Bale".

 

"Seediq Bale" not only stands for a spirit of fighting, but a subjectivity as an independent person, that is, to understand why you came to this world and fight for your own being. "Seediq Bale" could not only be the Taiwanese value, but all oppressed people in the world could look at it as a model.

 

Last year Wei's movie "Cape No.7" is huge hit - in fact it is the 2nd top-selling film in Taiwan history, only behind Titanic. When we celebrated with him in a restaurant, he still had the same honesty as before. I truly believe his "Seediq Bale" will be an acclaimed and abundant movie and a big hit in box office in Taiwan and overseas. 

 

P.S. It's a coincidence that Spinefarm/Universal Music are talking with us about re-releasing our "Seediq Bale" album. When we promote this album we will definitely keep bringing up the movie!