The Bird People in China (中国の鳥人 Chûgoku no chôjin) is a 1998 Japanese movie directed by Takashi Miike. The film is considerably more mellow in tone than some of the director's more famous works.
The story tells of a Japanese businessman, who is sent to assess some gems in a remote Chinese village, and a member of the yakuza, who is accompanying him to make sure his organization gets its proper share. The scenery of China is something not usually explored in Japanese film and thus was a massive change of pace for Miike, and a far cry from his the recurrent themes of violence and sexuality present in his other films. Chinese locations in the movie include Dali City, Yunnan, the city characters enter through a stone arched gate and the Nujiang River, where they see people riding pulleys on steel cables over the water.
The film explores themes of ecology and third world versus first world, depicting the East as a legendary place having a mystical knowledge not shared by the West (including Japan), but twists its message by inserting the character Grandfather, a former British pilot. Near the end, the yakuza decides to kill all foreigners in order to keep the village away from
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