Heads Up, Ears Down

This blog accurately identifies depictions of violence and cruelty toward animals in films. The purpose is to provide viewers with a reliable guide so that such depictions do not come as unwelcome surprises. Films will be accurately notated, providing a time cue for each incident along with a concise description of the scene and perhaps relevant context surrounding the incident. In order to serve as a useful reference tool, films having no depictions of violence to animals will be included, with an indication that there are no such scenes. This is confirmation that the films have been watched with the stated purpose in mind.


Note that the word depictions figures prominently in the objective. It is a travesty that discussions about cruelty in film usually are derailed by the largely unrelated assertion that no animals really were hurt (true only in some films, dependent upon many factors), and that all this concern is just over a simulation. Not the point, whether true or false. We do not smugly dismiss depictions of five-year-olds being raped because those scenes are only simulations. No, we are appalled that such images are even staged, and we are appropriately horrified that the notion now has been planted into the minds of the weak and cruel.


Depictions of violence or harm to animals are assessed in keeping with our dominant culture, with physical abuse, harmful neglect, and similar mistreatment serving as a base line. This blog does not address extended issues of animal welfare, and as such does not identify scenes of people eating meat or mules pulling plows. The goal is to itemize images that might cause a disturbance in a compassionate household.


These notes provide a heads-up but do not necessarily discourage watching a film because of depicted cruelty. Consuming a piece of art does not make you a supporter of the ideas presented. Your ethical self is created by your public rhetoric and your private actions, not by your willingness to sit through a filmed act of violence.

Track Projections

Track Projections. Raya Martin, 2007.

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Edition screened: Included on Second Run DVD #088 Independencia, released 2014. No dialogue track. Runtime approximately 6 minutes.


Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.


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Once Upon a Time in Anatolia

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Bir Zamanlar Anadolu'da). Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2011.

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Edition screened: Cinema Guild Blu-ray, released 2012. Turkish language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 157 minutes.


Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.


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Killers

Killers. Kimo Stamboel and Timo Tjahjanto (The Mo Brothers), 2014.

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Edition screened: Well Go Blu-ray, released 2015. English, Indonesian, and Japanese with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 137 minutes.


No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.



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The International

The International. Tom Tykwer, 2009.

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Edition screened: Sony Blu-ray, released 2009. English language. Runtime approximately 118 minutes.


Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.


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Independencia

Independencia. Raya Martin, 2009.

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Edition screened: Second Run DVD #088, released 2014. Filipino language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 75 minutes.


Summary: A child playing among baby chickens creates a potential threat to the chicks, but all is well.


The Second Run DVD also includes Martin’s 2007 short film Track Projections.


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Double Agent 73

Double Agent 73. Doris Wishman, 1973.

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Edition screened: Included in AGFA Blu-ray set The Films of Doris Wishman: The Twilight Years. English language. Runtime approximately 73 minutes.


Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

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The Arena

The Arena. Steve Carver, 1974.

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Edition screened: Included in Shout! Factory Lethal Ladies Collection Vol. 2 DVD set, released 2012. English language. Runtime approximately 81 minutes.


Details: A scene of prisoners being scrubbed cuts repeatedly to two women plucking chickens. This starts at 7:00 and concludes at 10:50 with the worst image being a chicken’s body rinsed in a bucket of bloody water.


The Roger Corman’s Cult Classics Triple Feature ‘Lethal Ladies’ Collection Vol. 2 also includes:


Cover Girl Models (1975 Cirio H. Santiago)

Fly Me (1973 Cirio H. Santiago)


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The Bare-Footed Kid

The Bare-Footed Kid (Chik geuk siu ji). Johnny To and Patrick Leung, 1993.

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Edition screened: Included in Arrow Shawscope: Volume Two Blu-ray box set, released 2022. Cantonese language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 87 minutes.


Summary: A man takes a small bird from its cage, crushes it in his hand, and throws it to the ground, 19:00-19:05.



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Deadly Weapons

Deadly Weapons. Doris Wishman, 1974.

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Edition screened: Included in AGFA Blu-ray set The Films of Doris Wishman: The Twilight Years. English language. Runtime approximately 75 minutes.


Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.


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Senso

Senso. Luchino Visconti, 1954.

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Edition screened: Criterion Blu-ray #556, released 2011. Italian language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 123 minutes.


Summary: A 30-second scene in a marketplace (1:26:27-1:26:52) includes a line of suspended cow carcasses and butchers with cleavers. This is in the background and the actors appear to be pantomiming. No blood, gore or details. At the end of the scene a man enters with several dead game bird. 1:26:27-1:26:52.


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Shawscope: Volume Two

Shawscope: Volume Two. Various directors, 1978-1993.

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Edition screened: Arrow Blu-ray box set, released 2021. Mandarin and Cantonese languages with English subtitle. Cumulative runtime of feature films approximately 1,286 minutes.


Summary: The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, Disciples of the 36th Chamber, Martial Arts of Shaolin, The Boxer’s Omen, and Mad Monkey Kung Fu contain violence to animals. See individual titles for details.


The Arrow set includes many documentaries, interviews and commentaries, and fourteen feature films:


The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, 1978, Liu Chia-Liang

Return to the 36th Chamber, 1980, Liu Chia-Liang

Disciples of the 36th Chamber, 1985, Liu Chia-Liang

Mad Monkey Kung Fu, 1979, Liu Chia-Liang

Five Superfighters, 1979, Lo Mar

Invincible Shaolin, 1978, Chang Cheh

The Kid with the Golden Arm, 1979, Chang Cheh

The Magnificent Ruffians, 1980, Chang Cheh

Ten Tigers of Kwangtung, 1978, Chang Cheh

My Young Auntie, 1981, Liu Chia-Liang

Mercenaries from Hong Kong, 1982, Jing Wong

The Boxer’s Omen, 1983, Kuei Chih-Hung

Martial Arts of Shaolin, 1986, Liu Chia-Liang

The Bare-Footed Kid, 1993, Johnny To and Patrick Leung


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Tenacious D in 'The Pick of Destiny'

Tenacious D in 'The Pick of Destiny'. Liam Lynch, 2006.

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Edition screened: New Line DVD, released 2007. English language. Runtime approximately 93 minutes.


Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals. 


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Vivre sa vie

Vivre sa vie: film en douze tableaux (My Life to Live). Jean-Luc Godard, 1962.

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Edition screened: Criterion Blu-ray #512, released 2010. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 83 minutes.


Summary: No animals or references to animals in the film.


A 1956 Gottlieb Sea Belles in the café at 8:20. A different unidentified table is first seen at 29:52 with a better view of the left side of the backglass at 35:35.


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Zatoichi the Outlaw

Zatoichi the Outlaw (Zatōichi rōyaburi). Satsuo Yamamoto, 1967.

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Edition screened: In Criterion Blu-ray box set #679 Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman, released 2013. Japanese language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 95 minutes.


Summary: Killing of a moth.


Details: While showing off for a ganster, Zatoichi flicks a toothpick across the room and impales a large moth, 20:04–20:10. We see the skewered moth grounded and struggling


The sixteenth film in the Zatoichi series.

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Too Much Too Often

Too Much Too Often. Doris Wishman (as Louis Silverman), 1966.

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Edition screened: Included in AGFA Blu-ray set The Films of Doris Wishman: The Moonlight Years. English language. Runtime approximately 72 minutes.



Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.


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Snowpiercer

Snowpiercer. Bong Joon-ho, 2013.

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Edition screened: Lionsgate Blu-ray, released 2015. English language and other languages with unreliable subtitles. Runtime approximately 126 minutes.


Summary: At 46:00, a large dead fish is slit with an axe as a motivating act before a melee.


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The Pick-Up (Frost)

The Pick-Up. Lee Frost, 1968.

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Edition screened: Something Weird DVD, released 2003. English language. Runtime approximately 96 minutes.


Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals. 02.5/5❤


A surprise bonus in The Pick-Up is psycho-folk singer Jim Sullivan singing and playing a complete song while seated on the sofa in a mobster’s pad.  Crazy, man, crazy.


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Martial Arts of Shaolin

Martial Arts of Shaolin (Nan bei Shao Lin). Liu Chia-Liang, 1986.

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Edition screened: Included in the Arrow Blu-ray box set Shawscope: Volume Two, released 2022. Mandarin language. Runtime approximately 94 minutes.


Summary: A living harmless snake is fastened to a thin tree branch by looping its neck around the branch and tying a knot with its body. It then is pulled taught, skinned alive, the body whacked from the head, hacked into pieces and cooked on a sizzling hot stone. Hokey Smokes. 16:52 - 17:26.


The film opens with an ethically irreconcilable scene in which two young Shaolin students save a nest of baby birds. They then get worms to feed the pre-fledglings and are interrupted by a senior monk who ruins Happy Baby Bird Time by asking if the birds’ lives are more important than the life of the worms?


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