電影《都是自衛惹的禍》影評：Nietzsche's Art of Self-Defense

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? -- Nietzsche, The Gay Science

The film starts with our martyr whose name is Casey. Casey has been carpentering for a company diligently for 10 long years as a sensible accountant. But since he is in a surrealistic film, his coworkers deny him of everything. He is biologically alive but devoid of being-in-this-world. Even the narrator bullies him by expose to us his most private moment of musterbation. He is a slave, living in the antithesis, the denial of his own being-aliveness. Unable to act for himself, voluntarily disavowing all of his own liveliness. He lives his life as if his alivneess itself is a sin and a torment. And which is possibly due to an ancestor or his being tricked to bite a fruit.

He was crucified by four gangsters from Motorbike Ville. Life instinct kicks in. Resurrected on a hospital bed. He is reincarnated with the superpower of affirmation. Immediately he affirms his own life. He wants to be alive. He wants to protect himself. He doesn’t know how. The teller told him a hand-gun will do. Yes. The ultimate phallic signifier.

Affirming is, however, not easy. He bumped into a contender of his will of 「to own a handgun」 — it was the rule number 11 of the Karate Academy — 「Guns are for the weak.」 He acted like an orange peremptory bady. He stopped affirming his own life and began to affirm the reactive thought of 「I am not weak.」 He found himself a new passion. Yes, the Karate Academy will save him.

His protagonist sized life instinct propels him forward. After only two months of training, as a yellow belt, he defeated his brown-belt classmate. He is now ceremonially a real karate man.

But an antithesis can not exist by itself. It logically presupposes a thesis. And in our case the thesis is 「Karate is for the strong」 and it in turn presupposes the Karate Academy’s(the slogan giver’s) existence. His yellow belt is an amulet signifying the Academy. It empowers him. He can not affirm himself without it. He needs the academic affirmation to be a phallic-owning real man.

The Academy reels in, all of this is but the Sensei’s trap. The Sensei now demands our protagonist to serve him. Whatever Casey feels, whatever he wills, the Sensei overpowers him. He is again being bullied. Only this time with blood dripping down from his hand. He ceases to be a man, he is a tool willed by Sensei. He eventually ceases to be a human. The cost to be a real karate man is to give up his own life.

The acute memory of the Motorbike Ville woke him up. He wills again to be alive. He has learned his lesson. Using a pistol he killed the Sensei, took over the myth of the 「index finger technique」 which is the local phallic signifier in the academy and became the crowned king of a new dynasty.

The film ends here, and Nietzsche can only guide this far. There is no guarantee of a happily ever after. It's up to Casey to decide what to do next, and we have all seen how easy it was to fall into a trap. Our society is a web of traps weaved by those powerful but insecure people. 「只能說當超人真的好難」 said Jay.

Epilogue: Nietzsche the Nihilist. Nihilist, noun, 「a person who believes that life is meaningless and rejects all religious and moral principles.」 This can not be any further from the truth. The 「nihilism」 of Nietzsche is a two-fold formation. At its very core it a radical affirmation of one’s own life, of one’s own vitality, and of one’s own will to create personal values and to live by those values. It is in comparison to this stronger inner will to live that the outside laws seem afloat, hence can be rejected. This film is an excellent demonstration of the destructive potential of letting a social construct to take prior position over one’s own existence(Crusade, Fascism, Isis, to name a few in real life). And because of this rejection of all outside influences, this rejection of all fundamental law that can be used to judge one’s life, one’s life is then reciprocally said to be 「meaningless.」 The phrase 「God is dead」 should be followed by 「long live the gods within.」