MovieChat Forums > Mo gong (2006) Discussion > A black dude in the film

A black dude in the film


Yeah I thought there was no black people in China at that time? Why a black slave?

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The story explanation is that the "black slave" was in the original manga-comic to make political/ philosophical "points".

The archaelogical explanation is that the remains of slaves murdered/ buried around the First Emperor Qin's tombs has been found a few years back to include an African/ Negroid person.

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There is no black slave in the original manga/comic I already read. In the manga, the "slave" or the tunnel digger is some deformed/monster human, not black man.

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Well, that's the difficulty with making a live-action film out of a novel/ manga.

The director went for (and succeeded in?) such a "realistic" approach that many clueless viewers ignored that fact that the story/ events was completely fictional and complained that the movie was "historically inaccurate". I mean, if people have problems with a "black slave", what are they going to say about a deformed humanoid species of tunnelling creatures? Will they finally realize that it is a sort of historical fantasy-- or complain even more?

If the director had money to burn, maybe he would have gone for a really more "cartoony" and over-the-top style like Curse of the Golden Flower (which no one takes too seriously)... nah.

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the director replaced the deformed/monster human witha black man and didn't think anyone would notice

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in historial context, china and persia have trade dealings. The persian have known to use blacks from north africa as slaves.

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yeah but that happened during the tang dynasty, the film's setting is in the warring state period in china, 1000 years before tang

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yeah, i don't think there were blacks in China, not in the 200 BC.

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