I haven't seen this, but would like to as it has had good reviews and is only £3.99 on CDWOW. Can anybody tell me what happens in the missing 2 minutes of animal cruelty in the British release - If its really mank, I might give it a miss.
shareA crime boss catches a fish and cuts off some of the meat from its side, eats it, and releases it back into the lake commenting on how it will survive despite its loss of flesh. It really isn't that disturbing and lends a forshadowing tone to the film about loss, pain, and survival.
shareHmm I think that scene is still mildly disturbing compared to the scene where her lover catches the fishes and chop them up alive just to relieve his anger. I was shocked and thought it was uncessarily cruel. There're a couple more of animal cruelty scenes in the movie such as catching a frog in the beginning and electrocution of a fish. I really wish these scenes were not real but they sure look real to me.
share[deleted]
"They're merely Machines, and their cries of pain are mere mechanisms, as René Descrates would say. "
How do you know?
In Descartes' time, they nailed dogs down and cut them open alive, to see how they worked, dismissing the constant whining and sounds of pain the animals would make as the noises of machinery. What makes you think the people of that time frame were right about one group of animals, and wrong about another?
Clearly some wires were crossed during the design of your machinery, billymda.
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Why is it cruel? It's a damn fish! It was gonna be eaten anyway!
shareThe film has many anaimal cruelty scenes such as rough handling of the dog, drowing a bird (was it real? HMMM) the fish scenes, frog, and the polluting from all the peeing and pooing in the lake
shareYeah, I was pretty amazed by all the *beep* they did to animals. There was that one scene where she just threw the bird into the lake looked pretty realistic. Then there was the part when she took a car battery to that fish...yeah. Still a really good movie though.
shareFor the UK release the BBFC cut 1:44 minutes of footage to remove the animal cruelty scenes mentioned here, to comply with the 1937 Cinematograph (Animals) Act.
sharepersonally i found the cruelty scenes disturbing and unnecessary, but what amazes me is how many imdb users complain of cruelty to animals in films but happily eat them! the cruelty and abuse commited in slaughterhouses is far,far worse than that in the film. and yes it is the same thing as killing them for 'food' (when you could eat something else instead, especiallyas it is healthier to be vegetarian, or vegan)
shareShut up.
No other animal on the god damn planet gives two sh*ts about how sad it is that they are eating another animal. Its food, we all need it. Pushy vegans/vegetarians are possibly the most irritating people on the face of this planet.
"Its food, we all need it."
Even when its purely for the making of a movie?
You dont have to be a vegan or vegetarian to have some decency towards animals.
Did the actor not eat the meat or was that CGI?
shareBefore he put the mutilated fish back in the sea? or was that CGI too?
shareThat was real. The actor got food from the animal and the animal was most likely finished off by a predator in the water. Its the same thing as if the predator got to it first except there was a camera rolling. Please tell me why that camera should make me care.
share[deleted]
It was the manner of killing that caused the scene to be cut.
shareHere is a full list of such scenes from Melon Farmers
Candidate scenes for the BBFC cuts from Sam:
* filleting of a fish for sushi while the fish is still alive, as noted
* a shot of a fish being jolted with electrodes
* there is one short shot [about 1s] of a dog being hit
* various shots of fish being hacked up whilst clearly still alive
* a few shots of fish swimming around with large chunks missing from
them
* a shot of a bird flapping about in a cage whilst underwater
* some shots of a frog being hit with a stick and skinned
http://www.melonfarmers.co.uk/hitsi.htm
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Give a tiger or many other of Gods creatures a chance and IT will.
shareI think you know nothing about korean history.
Please Shut up, otherwise give some evidence about you said.
I'm afraid to say that he does know quite a lot about Korean history. There is a lot of Korean animosity towards the Japanese and Chinese after centuries of occupation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korea#Japanese_Occupation
I don't think they are particularly cruel, but perhaps a little more pragmatic than most!
www.breheny.com
I would have liked this film if it wasn't for the animal cruelty which is absolutely horrendous. They obvouisly have no respect for life at all, as it is clear that the animals where alive for the filming, and to kill living beings just for a film is absurd. I was shocked that they have no laws to protect animals from cruelty in the industry. I would hope the fishing hooks in the vagina and throat was real too, since humans are animals too.
sharecries of pain are cries of pain, humand are animals, and animals can feel pain too.
shareA couple of hours ago I watched the film in a film festival in Athens,Greece and Kim Ki Duk was present. Afterwards he received a few questions. One of them was about all the animal cruelty, whether it was real and how he felt about it. He said that all of it was real and he went on to say that he has many regrets about it and will have until the last moment of his life. Of course he said that he hasn’t done and will never do anything similar (as in really torturing and killing animals on film). He also said that man shouldn’t destroy something in order to create something else especially when it is something helpless like animals.
In my opinion Kim Ki Duk has been crueler and harsher in the past but maybe through directing has become more sensitive not that he ever was a bad person (he said himself before the film :your about to see some very cruel and inhuman things so don’t thing I am a bad person because I am not) .I think that this change is also visible in the evolution of his films,at least those that i have watched.
I am sorry that my English isn’t very good. I hope you can understand what I mean!
I will do my best to appreciate the film, but I'll chalk up the cruelty -- if real and not faked -- to ignorance.
Those who argue the meaninglessness of cruelty to lower animals might "consider the lobster":
http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2004/08/consider_the_lobster
[seriously, read this -- an extremely thoughtful and elegant essay by David Foster Wallace]
I do not condone such torture of animals yet I thought I might add to the conversation that such things happen pretty commonly. Consider shark fin soup.
It's an expensive delicacy, a large majority of those that live in HK (or any other developed Asian country) eat it somewhat regularly, despite the fact that it doesn't have any good particular taste just texture. Yet the shark populations around Asia are nosediving while the practice of catching a shark, cutting off the dorsal fin, and throwing it back in the water is pretty commonplace. Enough so that Disney HK was forced by HQ in the US to no longer offer shark fin soup in their restaurants. Yell at the next person you see eating shark fin soup!
roy-gilham, you have a good point, but please don't say that being a vegetarian is healthier than a "regular" diet because it's not, and vegans are the taliban of vegetarianism, it's another form of fanaticism and it has been proven countless times that it's bad for your health to be a vegan(to a lesser extent, it's also bad for your health to be a vegetarian, you should at least eat dairy products and eggs).
Anyway, as good as the film was, I won't be recommending it to anyone because of the horrible animal cruelty.
Still, they DID kill that cow at the end of Apocalypse now, and even though I don't approve of it, that's a film that I do recommend to everyone...what a conundrum...
"vegans are the taliban of vegetarianism"
With a comment like that, you're gonna be first up against the wall when we go jihad on meat-eaters, matey!
So you're a vegan who condones killing people then? Isn't that like being pro-life and for the death penalty?
share"Isn't that like being pro-life and for the death penalty?"
In a word: no!
I don't really understand your comparison because I draw a distinction between humans and animals! A great number of humans (mostly Hollywood film-makers) deserve death much more than poor animals!
(By the way, I wasn't being 100% serious in my original comment: I'm also a pacifist, damn it all!)
I agree that being vegan and vegetarian is not healthier. You need iron as you its the main source for your bloodstream to carry oxygen and best source is in meat. It's in beans as well but not as much. Also, being vegan and vegetarian is a choice which is luxury for some cultures since they don't have such choice. Enough about this stuff which is not about the movie.
I agree that the movie could have been made without the violence on animals or cruelty on fish and amphibians. I think in the director's next film, "Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring", you can get a glimpse that he regrets it by the content of the movie and by him actually being the actor to carry the stone.
I liked it but it can be done in same manner without the cruelty. I really liked the characters and how two characters an wrapped in each other's pain.
I must say that I enjoyed "SSWF...S" a lot; although, it did make me ponder where a child would learn to enjoy torturing animals that way. i have not seen Seom yet, and have mixed feelings about whether or not i'd like to now. do i need to offer facts about the links between animal abuse and domestic violence?
Er, I just have to chime in here to clear up a couple misconceptions about veg(etari)ans and the such: as for iron, it is found abundantly in vegetarian food. i have been mostly vegan for years now, don't eat pills, don't eat any "weirdo-strange-hard-to-find" foods, and have a perfectly normal and healthy iron level. i can cite sources for you, if you wish. it is the truth that the USA (as an example) would be healthier for eating less meat. furthermore, eating MEAT has long been a luxury to much of the world. Only recent "factory-farming" practices that churn out billions of animals a year have dropped the price of flesh to a "cheaper" level. All-in-all, vegetarian diets are still cheaper than meat. I do recognize that there are some places in the world where a healthy vegetarian diet is not possible -- though this is most often because a healthy diet AT ALL is not possible.
secondly, to the person that said veganism is "the taliban of vegetarianism": it is not "fanatical" to decide not to contribute to the production of animal products. it is as simple as this: why contribute to the suffering of non-human sentient beings when one doesn't need to? egg and dairy production most often involve just as much suffering and torture as meat production. anyone who seriously objects to such treatment of animals ought to stop eating animal products (or, at least, raise their own or trade with a friend who does). anyone (including meat-eaters) that wants to better understand veg(etari)anism might check out "101 Reasons Why I'm a Vegetarian" by Pamela Rice from their local library. Or read Mylan Engel Jr.
being vegan and vegetarian is not healthier.
"... and vegans are the taliban of vegetarianism, it's another form of fanaticism..."
(lol) really nice to be called "taliban" for a change. usuelly (means: before taliban became popular bogey) we were compared to hitler -- propaganda´s zeitgeisty (dictionary gave that word)..... (grin).
and: if you know, what about milk, eggs, honey, wool, silk... it´s only CONSEQUENT to avoid those things; and that´s very different from fanatism!!
"...and it has been proven countless times that it's bad for your health to be a vegan(to a lesser extent, it's also bad for your health to be a vegetarian, you should at least eat dairy products and eggs)."
don´t believe that *beep* that´s told by interest- groups (is that the word?)
i don´t eat birds + mammalians since 35 or 36 years, no fish, mussel, lobster, snail... since 25/26 years and i´m vegan since 15 or 16 ... and my blood is ok! my organs are ok! (i know that 100%, because i´m in a medical checkup these days for clearing orthopedic problems - arthrose? arthritis? fibromyalgy? SURELY not gout!!)) and i don´t even look for what i´m eating (only for vegan). my lover is vegetarian since 20, vegan since 10 years: he´s a runner, he´s a (very quickly) soccer. i saw vegan "moby" on stage: that guy´s a live wire (maybe yet he´s a bit calmer, he became older; but vegetarian tina turner is full of life + energy though she´s even older than me; there are so much!
(but i´m NOT because of health, i´m for ethical + political reasons and when i began, i thought i would become ill because of vegetarian food, but i COULDN`T eat that anymore!)
wave
m.
ALL LIFE IS EQUAL
I must respond to all vegans and alike. You are all pretentious to think you know how plant life feels. Are you GOD to know plants have no feelings as they are being killed. The only thing a plant does is create oxygen for living things and you have to kill them. Just because one does not bleed or you can not figure out why it lives takes nothing off its real value as life.
Well not really, they taste good too, but get the point. We are all here to live and die and it aint all pretty.
...and therefore i prefer fruits (progenies? not only apples, cherries etc, about all tomatoes, cucumber, pepper...).
i also have "herbal asylum seekers", got from garbage.
and i´m not alone with that: it´s a discussion? argument? controversial subject? among vegans.
i know that we cannot exist without any harming - but we can minimize it.
(and torturing/murdering animals for a film is - besides all other - so needless!)
it´s hard to explain those things in a strange language; i hope you understand what i mean.
wave
m.
ALL LIFE IS EQUAL
Hope you dont wear any leather shoes, handbags, have leather seats in your car, etc. etc. Because I would imagine that with this logic, killing animals for fashion rather than food would probably be even less ethical.
share(lol) i wear no leather, no fur, no silk, no wool. and i don´t have a car - i could not even drive it.
wave
m.
ALL LIFE IS EQUAL
Did you know that in many banana plantations in countries like ivory coast, they kill local wildlife in order to ensure the bananas dont get eaten?
I hope you dont eat bananas!
i love bananas, but only if they are bio AND fair trade - "ordinary" banana - plantation is crime against all and everything: workers + their families (they become ill from the poison), flora and fauna. until i found a shop with fair trade- bio- bananas i didn´t eat them since i found out what happens there.
but a question: are you trying to help me minimizing harm?
then thank you.
or are you just looking for a "mistake"?
then think about that: we all can only do our best and people which not even try to do, have no right to animadvert those who do, for mistakes/failures, okay?
wave
m.
ALL LIFE IS EQUAL
Well I was teasing, but you seem so nice and polite :-)
If you want my honest opinion, I would have to agree that we overdo it. People eat way more meat than recommended or necessary, and as a result of this excessive consumption, the conditions in which animals are kept or killed are often appalling.
But on the other hand I feel that those that claim to be vegetarians or vegans are often just using it as an excuse to feel morally superior. Hiding from the problem does in no way solve it. I have a lot more respect for farmers that take good care of their cattle and give them a good life before their potential slaughter than somebody who goes around claiming that they respect life and throwing around the usual 5-6 points, such as: we import huge amounts of corn to feed livestock from third-world countries that could have been used to feed the population (even though technically stopping these imports would in no way help anybody).
The reality is that it simply does not mean that because one stops buying meat from their local supermarket, they respect animal life more than I do. As you say, all our hands are dirty: excessive farming has meant less space for wildlife, pollution due to driving, etc. and in order to claim the morally superior branch a lot of work needs to be done.
Out of all the vegetarians I've met, I have not met a single one who would take the time to actually do something as simple as bringing an abandonned kitten to a shelter, but yet I've had to sit there and listen to how much they love life more than I do.
This is not a personal attack! I do not know you, but you're obviously a nice person with your own beliefs and you appear to put a lot of effort into making sure your actions are consistent with these beliefs which is admirable. But for me this general notion that vegetarianism automatically equals respect for life is a very big misconception.
OK I'm done.
it´s a pity that you only met such strange "fashion- veggies"; in my life i met some, too; but most are seriously with their efforts to minimize harms.
i know much which give home for as much homeless animals as possible, though they don´t have much money (but i also know some carnivores which do that). also virtuelly all hunt-sabs and liberators are vegan, and they risk their freedom.
friendly wave
m.
p.s.: the cause for my (very slowly) becoming vegan (all in all i needed 20 years, step by step) was a hand- feeded pig that came along with to shopping and then was slaughtered. i felt that such a great, shocking betrayal of trust - it still hurts a bit when i remember it (after ca 36 years!)
ALL LIFE IS EQUAL
Out of all the vegetarians I've met, I have not met a single one who would take the time to actually do something as simple as bringing an abandonned kitten to a shelter, but yet I've had to sit there and listen to how much they love life more than I do.
I don't normally post here, I'm a lurker, but I have to chime in on this. Here's the deal: Being a vegetarian or a vegan or whatever the hell name you want to put on it is fine. I don't care what you eat. But to say that you're doing for ethical reasons is putting yourself on a pedestal that I, the common meat eater, can't reach. I'm underneath you because I prey on flesh. To that I say *beep* you. Whether it's healthier or not doesn't matter. If I want to kill animals to eat them, I should be able to do that. No animal has more rights than any human. Is a dog aware its a dog? It's not. It's aware it feels pain and doesn't like that, but beyond that it has no idea what is happening to it, it's an animal. I would rather watch 1000 puppies die than 1 human. Because I have emotions, like a human I know that when I see a creature dying he is suffering and I feel bad, but when a wolf is ripping out my throat, he doesn't care about my suffering nor does he feel bad. There's a difference between human and animals, and if that difference is not as clear to you, then don't eat them. But I will continue aiding the suffering of animals because I can make that distinction. One thing is certain, all life is not equal.
share"But to say that you're doing for ethical reasons is putting yourself on a pedestal ..."
??? *beep* most people do anything (aught?) because of ethical reasons, pretty sure you, too.
and even if you only refrain from doing "bad" things because you´re afraid of being punished: if you attack me because i don´t eat animals because of ethical reasons, well - then also attack bertha von suttner, mahatma ghandi, leo tolstoi, pythagoras, isaac singer, elias canetti etc, etc; or present living: joaquin phoenix, daryl hannah, toby maguire, moby, morrissey, the beatles, jared leto, brigitte bardot, prince, angela bassett, josh hartnett, annie lennox, boy george, carl lewis, bryan adams, john cleese, forest whitaker, eric stoltz, little richard, kim basinger, fiona apple, rhada mitchell, chris lambert ... (the list is long!)
"No animal has more rights than any human."
no more & no less.
"Is a dog aware its a dog? It's not. It's aware it feels pain and doesn't like that, but beyond that it has no idea what is happening to it..."
and it´s exactly the same with babies and the same with mentally handicapped people and maybe with dementia- people, and therefore, because they can´t understand + mentally handle (? accept?) the pain, they need MORE protection + regard, not less!
"I would rather watch 1000 puppies die than 1 human."
if human life´s really as valuable for you as you say: what´s about the people, starving to death, mostly in THAT countries, where the food for your "steaks" and "hamburgers" come from? if you eat meat, you´re stealing the corn from starving people´s plaid, in result. the corn that is needed to feed 1 people with dead animal, would be enough to feed 5 - 7(!) people if they eat it in the form of corn (that´s an ethical reason, too ...)
(not to speak about the results (effects?) for environment: water (consumption + pollution) and air (acid rain), spending energy, killing woods, "contagion" with antibiotics -> drug-resistant germs -> dying humans; you can find details in internet if you even want to (grin))
"Because I have emotions, like a human I know that when I see a creature dying he is suffering and I feel bad"
... and little children, mentally handicapped etc. DON`T know; and very much mentally NOT handicapped adults DON`T feel bad (search only on this board! or think of torture, of cruelty in war + ethnical/ religious conflicts, of all the terrible things HUMAN people do to other (non-)humans; or people watching cruelty, feeling more fascinated than horrofied!). are they human or are they animals?
when i feel sick or i am sad, dog + cat feel that and show me; how much "humans" are ignorant or insensible in such situations?
animals help one another, they have love + friendship and lament.
" when a wolf is ripping out my throat, he doesn't care about my suffering nor does he feel bad."
if he does, it´s because you menaced him or his family (or he thinks that you do). wolfes are shy...
"There's a difference between human and animals, and if that difference is not as clear to you, then don't eat them. But I will continue aiding the suffering of animals because I can make that distinction.One thing is certain, all life is not equal."
There's a difference between whites and blacks, and if that difference is not as clear to you, then don't enslave them. But I will continue aiding the suffering of blacks because I can make that distinction. One thing is certain, all life is not equal.
one thing is certain: racists, sexists and speciecists use exactly the same arguments. who really wonders? they all are the same. they all are supremacists, blind for other´s interests.
m.
ALL LIFE IS EQUAL
Hi i looked on here as i am looking to buy it from cdwow also :) and im afraid they have the asian version meaning any of the scenes you are worried about will be intact if that helps at all. i personally would prefer to have it in its original state
share[deleted]
Very interesting reading. I'm a vegetarian myself and am proud to try to do as little damage as I can in my daily life. It isn't easy in society though, but a good cause.
I applaud you.
Eating meat is the best, i'd kill my own animals if i could.
shareI'd kill you if i could.
No i wouldn't,i am only jokeing...couldn't resist posting this...
"Kinski always says it's full of erotic elements. I dont see it so much erotic, I see it more full of obscenity. Nature here is vile and base, I wouldnt see anything erotical here. I would see fornication, and esfixiation, and choking, and fighting for survival, and growing, and just rotting away. Of course there is a lot of misery, but it is the same misery that is all around us. The trees here are in misery, the birds are in misery, I dont think they sing, they just screech in pain." -Werner Herzog on the jungle.
I agree with Herzog here quite a bit. The world we live in is surrounded by misery. As much as the animal cruelty scenes bothered me, I don't think anyone should waste a second of their life grieving about it. Wake up already, the society we live in causes much more cruelty than what was done in this film. People are murdered and raped every day, war rages through poor countries killing innocent people every day, factories slaughter animals every minute of the day seven days a week, animals are put through absolute pain and torture to experiment the latest drug about to hit the market. That sort of stuff has nothing on a frog, fish, or birds life.
What's the problem with being against ALL cruelty? I hate all that you mentioned, AND this film for misusing life. You can be against all cruelty you know. No reason to agree to something on order to be against something else. All is bad I say. Art can never involve mistreating others without their permission, it's just plain murder and torture, and for nothing. Not for fighting in a war, not for medicine, not for food, but for entertainment and art. I can't think of any more stupid a reason. Even when people rape, they usually do it because they're sick, not call it art.
sharesomeday the sun will die, destroy everything, and the cycle of planet formation will reset, and everything you think of as reality will not exist. of course, noone will ever witness this, nor will any "intelligent life" that comes after be able to comprehend our existance either. everything you think of, as life/death, living/nonliving, human/animal, right/wrong, everything is merely a temporary blip in an infinite span of time, it is only real for the flicker of time that the physical properties of the current universal system allows. even if humans kill off the whole planet, eventually it will heal itself and start over. so dont fret over anything, its all going to reset over and over and over and over.
CAHNSIHDAHDITDAH DIVOARCE (BAHLAM IN DAH FAYKE WHYFES FAEC)
Its interesting; when it comes to animal cruelty everyone has an opinion. There was this norwegian author who has killed over 300 persons in her books, but the only thing she regretted was killing a cat.
You dirty hippies, you claim you are trying to save the world but all you do is smoke pot and smell bad.
<I have never seen a puppy I didn't want to steal>
Yup! And I love eating snails... and sea food, too... Do you know they are cooked alive? I don't think a lobster or a snail will ever cook me alive :)
shareThe removal of scenes from this great movie for whatever reason is government censorship. Yep, just plain good old fashioned Stalinist censorship of art. Thank God that I live in a free country that doesnt censor art, the US trusts its citizens to make informed decisions about the art they purchase, we dont have some government beurocrat cutting up our movies.
Best movie website in the world
http://www.capalert.com/capreports/index.htm