2004-12-24 - 12:23 p.m.

entertaining, and educational

“It’s our job to read the newspapers then say what we’ve read like it’s our own opinion!”

I can’t remember the last time I thoroughly enjoyed two consecutive movies as much as these. Especially two that are so different. I must be maturing!

Hero was a Mandarin-language film set in feudal China with classic Tarantino-style martial arts scenes, gorgeous scenery and rich in traditional Chinese cultural nuances.

But there is more to this film than just entertainment for the sophisticated. It is a thinly disguised piece of propaganda from the Chinese government designed to inspire every ethnic-Chinese person from all countries of the world to unite behind the regime’s agenda to annex Taiwan (as they already have done to Tibet, Hong Kong and Macau), as well as to inspire anyone else that would sacrifice themselves in the name of atheism.

Team America is at the other extreme of cinema! Its message requires no subtlety. It pushes the boundaries of shock-cinema in a society where nothing really shocks us anymore. Puppet blood and guts, puppet sex scenes, extreme language, mocking Arabs, mocking Americans, all with no attempt at polishing the cinematography.

Not normally my style. Nevertheless, I emerged from the cinema with an enormous grin. How? Because the film demolishes the myth of deconstructionism in the most confronting way possible. I can’t help but think that its American release date (11 October) was intended to have a massive influence on the American election among voters for whom the thought would otherwise have been inaccessible.

And yes, I am aware that the directors have done interviews in which they appear to be anti-Bush, but that’s all part of getting people to see the film that need to, and besides, he has to say that to survive in an industry in which conservatives are ostracised.

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