Chapter 153: Wu Xiang's Version of "Devils on the Doorstep" (106)

The movie *Devils on the Doorstep* primarily tells the story of a village of farmers who hide a Japanese soldier. They do not hide this soldier of their own accord; rather, a person named "I" threatens them, leaving them with no other choice but to conceal him.

Not daring to kill the soldier, they treat him well and feed him with the best food they have. However, the soldier wants to escape, but the farmers prevent him from doing so, continuing to keep him captive and fed. Later, they want to kill him, but they simply lack the courage. After more than half a year of feeding him, it becomes an ongoing burden. Eventually, the Japanese army returns, having previously promised to reward the villagers for sparing the soldier's life. Yet, in the end, driven by a fit of petty resentment, a band of Japanese soldiers mercilessly slaughters the entire village, even though the Japanese had already surrendered by that time.

There is a subsequent plot where Jiang Wen goes to exact revenge, but he fails, gets captured by the Kuomintang, and is ultimately beheaded by that very same Japanese soldier.

Essentially, this is a tale of the farmer and the snake, except the farmer does not harbor the snake out of kindness, but out of desperate compulsion. Yet, it is based on true events; the film crew visited many local elders during production, though artistic embellishments were added for the movie.

So, what is Wu Xiang's version like? It is guaranteed to be even more astonishing!

In a dark, cellar-like room, two Japanese soldiers are chatting idly.

"Jiro, what are you sneaking around doing lately? You aren't thinking of deserting, are you? Beware of the Major's sword—that thing has already taken several heads!"

"Fukuda! What are you talking about? When have I ever been sneaky? I am a soldier of the Great Japanese Imperial Army! How could I ever desert?!"

"Yoshi! Jiro, have you heard? Someone recently traded his rifle to the Eighth Route Army in exchange for liquor, and upon returning, he was beheaded by the Major!"

"Baka! How could anyone be that idiotic? It's a complete disgrace to the Great Japanese Imperial Army!"

"Exactly! No matter how hard things get now, you just can't do something like that!"

...Among the two chatting soldiers, Jiro is naturally played by Koji Yano, and Fukuda is played by Da Shi Dan, one of the overseas student actors. However, their conversation does not last long before the scene cuts.

Yet, once the camera shifts, Jiro's image becomes truly unacceptable to look at.

It turns out to be Koji Yano still, but his military uniform is gone. He is now wearing an ordinary peasant tunic, with a white towel tied around his head—a quintessential farmer's disguise. What's more, this fellow is actually doing hard labor!

And it's no easy job either; he is carrying burlap sacks!

That's right, he is working as a coolie. The contrast is simply too jarring.

As if that isn't enough, once he finishes the grueling task, the landlord who hired him appears.

"Not bad, young man. You've got some real muscle. Here, your wages for today." The landlord doesn't pay him in currency, but hands him a few corn-flour buns—though they don't even seem to be made of pure cornmeal, as wild herbs are mixed in.

"Thank you! Thank you!" Jiro says while ravenously biting into one, clearly starved.

"I must say, you're a fine-looking young fellow. Even though you're a Jap, you're not a bad sort. Let me tell you, there's the old Li family at the east end of the village. Their daughter is a bit simple-minded, but she's a good person, and they own a few acres of land. It's a pity they lack a man in the house. They're looking to take in a resident son-in-law. Would you be interested? A resident son-in-law inherits their land and house in the future. What do you think?" The landlord is moonlighting as a matchmaker.

"Um, no, no!" Naturally, Jiro cannot agree and shakes his head frantically. He only came out to do odd jobs just to get enough to eat. If he became a resident son-in-law, what on earth would become of him?

"Sigh, you silly boy!" The landlord doesn't press the matter further, simply concluding that this Japanese soldier is an idiot.

A Japanese soldier working as a coolie?!

That's right, if you told this to people, few would believe it, but it is absolute historical fact.

In actual history, after 1940, the Japanese supply lines grew increasingly stretched. To support their frontline combat, they began to neglect the areas in between, issuing orders that units must sustain themselves.

This is precisely why they constantly came out to plunder grain, chickens, ducks, cattle, and sheep. They had to plunder; without such provisions, weapons were easy enough to handle, but food had to be locally sourced.

Initially, this tactic worked quite effectively, but gradually, the Eighth Route Army grew too formidable, making raiding exceedingly difficult. Later on, the activities of the Japanese garrison were confined to the immediate vicinity of their watchtowers. Venturing out even once without leaving behind several corpses would be a miracle.

Thus, having run out of options, they even began farming near the watchtowers. To be frank, their plight was truly miserable.

By the late stage of the war, especially in 1945, they were reduced to a state so wretched as to be unrecognizable.

Trading their own rifles for liquor was no longer an isolated incident. Some simply fled to work as long-term laborers for landlords—anything for a bite to eat. Some even sold their weapons outright; not just individuals, but entire watchtower garrisons.

Not only that, but due to manpower shortages, their home country had almost run out of able-bodied men, particularly adults. Consequently, many boys under sixteen were forcibly conscripted.

Growing boys eat their fathers out of house and home!

The story of Jiro continues to unfold. He goes every day to carry burdens for the landlord, all for the sake of a few vegetable buns. But such a secret is bound to be discovered sooner or later.

"Baka! Jiro! You have completely disgraced the Great Japanese Imperial Army!" This is the legendary Major, played by overseas student actor Youji Yuhisa.

"Hai!" At this point, the Japanese soldier utters nothing else, repeating only this single word.

"Where on earth have you been working for them?!" the Major demands.

"Hai!" He says nothing else.

"Where?!" The Major naturally grows impatient.

"Hai!"

*Crack!* A slap across the face. "Where?!"

"At, at..." Jiro is done for; a single slap breaks his resolve, and he blurts everything out.

The scene shifts to the entrance of the landlord's estate where Jiro has been working. Upon seeing so many "Taijuns," the landlord remains completely unfazed, greeting them with a smiling face.

"Ah, Taijun, are you here for grain again?"

"This man! Has he been working for you?!" The Major shoves Jiro forward.

"You mean this young fellow? Yes, indeed, he's been working for me."

"Baka!" Furious, the Major's eyes bulge as if they might pop out of his head.

Yet the landlord is no fool and immediately flatters him with a smile, "Taijun, are you here looking for food? If it's food you want, I still have some here. Does everyone want some?"
The Major has brought quite a few men with him, and the landlord sensed trouble long ago.

Even so, it seems...

"Hahaha..." The Major laughs, a rather chilling sound. "You! Die!"

Drawing his sword, he strikes, and the landlord collapses to the ground, though he does not die immediately.

"You little Jap! Damn your ancestors! You eat my food, and now you come to slash me!"

"Kill them all!..." The Major yells backward, signaling the total extermination of everyone present!

"No! Please don't!" Jiro panics. In truth, he has never actually witnessed a real slaughter. He tries to stop the Major, but how could that possibly work?

"Jiro, you bastard! You aren't fit to be a soldier of the Great Japanese Imperial Army!" The Major kicks Jiro aside and immediately leads his men in a killing spree!

These are unarmed peasants. Although the Japanese soldiers of this late period are entirely different from those at the start of the war—being mostly half-grown youths—they nevertheless carry lethal weapons. Those bayonets are far from mere fire pokers.

"Ah, ah!"

"Yaaah!"

"You little Japs, I curse your entire family!"

Cries of agony, panicked screams, and the sickening sound of bayonets piercing flesh flood Jiro's ears. He is completely paralyzed. He never imagined that a mere quest for a bite to eat would unleash such a catastrophe upon these people. It is entirely incomprehensible, utterly incomprehensible...

"Stop killing! Stop killing!" Jiro pleads with his compatriots to cease, but no one heeds him.

At that exact moment, "Jiro, you idiot! Why didn't you ask me to come along?!"

The speaker is none other than Fukuda, who is currently busy looting, carrying a small burlap sack on his shoulder and holding a chicken in his hand.

"You were the one who leaked it?! It was you?!" Jiro suddenly understands; it must have been this fellow, otherwise how would the Major have found out?

"Baka! We are soldiers! Soldiers must act like soldiers! We aren't here to do odd jobs!" At that moment, the Major arrives, his uniform completely stained with blood, having clearly claimed numerous lives.

"What kind of soldiers are we? What kind of soldiers are we?!" Jiro roars at the Major in fury.

"Baka!" The Major actually pays no mind to Jiro at all. In his eyes, Jiro is little better than the dead. Slowly, the Major reaches into his tunic and pulls out a piece of paper.

"We have already been defeated! We have already been defeated!"

Defeated? Yet they are still here murdering people?

However, the Major quickly provides his answer, laughing hysterically as he says, "Hahaha, we are defeated! Defeated! Yet I haven't even killed a single enemy! Such a defeat is unacceptable to me! I came here precisely to kill my opponents! I want to kill! Kill!"

As it turns out, he is a psychotic deviant, no longer human.

"Ah, ah!" At that instant, Jiro lunges forward, grabbing a bayonet and stabbing it straight into the Major.

"..." The Major's mouth hangs wide open, unable to comprehend why Jiro possesses the courage to draw a blade against him, the courage to kill him!

The preceding sequence constitutes Wu Xiang's version of *Devils on the Doorstep*. He intends to use this segment to replace the surrender scene from the original television drama, which lacked punch. Naturally, the Japanese soldiers are not the only ones featured.

Promptly, a detachment of troops arrives—none other than Zhang Dabiao leading the First Battalion. They have just accepted the surrender of a unit of Japanese soldiers, mirroring the scene in the show where they disguised themselves as Chu Yunfei's troops, a motif Wu Xiang cleverly repurposes here.

"Charge!" Seeing this spectacle, what else is there for Zhang Dabiao to consider?

Consequently, the Japanese soldiers who had just massacred the entire village are themselves slaughtered to the last man, leaving Jiro as the sole survivor.

"Battalion Commander! What should we do with this man?"

"Isn't he one of our own?"

"No, we don't recognize him, but the kid just killed a Major."

"Well done! Would you like to join our ranks?"

"Ah, ah..." Faced with Zhang Dabiao's invitation, Jiro can utter no words; he simply tilts his head back and lets out a desolate howl.

"Forget it, he's a coward. Let's move out!"

"Yes!"

The above is Wu Xiang's final cut of the Wu Xiang version of *Devils on the Doorstep*. In Wu Xiang's post-production plans, an additional piece of narration is to be added: "The Major was the only person Jiro ever killed!"

In this way, the entire story resonates with a profound anti-war sentiment, while simultaneously portraying the Japanese soldiers as worse than beasts.

This short narrative concludes here, marking the end of the Anti-Japanese War arc in the new version of *Drawing Sword*.

Naturally, there are plenty of behind-the-scenes anecdotes as well. Earlier, when shooting the death of Monk Wei, Baoqiang was somewhat reluctant to die. Wu Xiang cajoled him every which way, and finally, out of exasperation, gave the kid a few kicks to get the scene in the can.

Well, the child is still young and a bit stubborn...

[PS: Thanks to Yaya Ge Dingding for the tip, thank you very much. The author only just woke up now, so I might as well post the second chapter right away today. Many thanks to everyone!]