People are voting emotionally.

Load of rubbish!!

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Rebelle was a movie about how powerful a woman can be in the context of war. Komona was a little girl who lost her parents to Great Tiger's rebels at the age of 12. Great Tiger's rebels made Komona shoot both of her parents with an AK-47. This haunted Komona so much, that she saw the ghosts of her parents in her nightmares. After the rebels kidnapped Komona, they used her as a "war witch." The Rebels along with Komona continue to fight across the Democratic Republic of Congo, until the Magician and Komona decide to run away. The Magician, who is an albino who is believed to be someone who can perform witchcraft. The Magician asks Komono if she will marry him, and she says that he needs to get the mythical White Rooster, which is very rare. The plot than changes to Komona and the Magician travelling around to find the White Rooster, until they find somebody who knows where it it. The man who knows where the Rooster is drives them to a village where a group of albinos live. You can tell that the Magician feels more at home her, seeing that he is also albino. After they get the rooster they go the Magician's uncle, named the Butcher. The movie slows in pace until the Rebels of Great Tiger find them again, killing the Magician and kidnapping Komona again. The movie ends after Komona has a baby with the general of the Rebels, and then gets on hitch hikes onto a truck. I liked the progression of Komona as a character, especially when she went back to her home town and "buried" her parents.

Of all the foreign films that we have watched, Rebelle is without a doubt my favorite film so far. The story outlines a young teenage girl from the ages of 12 to 14 who is abducted by the rebel army. When her hallucinations protect her from war with the government soldiers, they pronounce her as a witch and she is highly regarded, especially by the Great Tiger himself. During the film, she develops a close relationship with a fellow child soldier known as the Magician, who through great lengths to find a white rooster to propose marriage to her. After he dies, she gets abducted again by a war commander, and after having conceived his child, she manages to avoid getting raped and kill him by shoving a razor blade inside of her body—which, in my opinion, is really cool. It's rare to find such a strong female protagonist in film nowadays, especially in foreign films, so that made it all the more refreshing. Overall, I enjoyed this movie immensely and would rate it five stars.

"War witch" delivers the story of a young girl who is kidnapped by rebels and is forced to join their fight against the government. The rituals needed to become a child-soldier and the fanaticism to their leader the "Great tiger". The rebels soon realize that there is something special in this little girl. As an illustration of brutality and the madness of child-soldiering, the movie is a success. We are able to places ourselves in a reality that is very distanced from our own. But I believe the movie achieves no more than that. The film shows very shocking situations and it makes you feel angry and impotent, but so does any other story about child-soldiers. The movie lacks something else. Something that can widely differentiate it from any other tale of this kind, because there are in fact a lot of movies that deal with this subject.

Kim Ngyen's "Rebelle" is everything that a Canadian film should be: a confident, non-American, distinctly Canadian look at the world around us. Ngyen's film succeeds in presenting vignettes of what a "war child" is presumed to go through: the indoctrination through brutalization, clinging to an immature version of humanity whilst expected to do very adult things, and ultimately trying to exit the soldier's life and find a life of normalcy. The magnificent Rachel Mwanza is the absolute centre of the film, richly deserving her Canadian Film Award as best actress, delivering far more depth of performance through her expressive face than delivering any of Nguyen's dialogue. It is incredible that a young woman of 13 can portray all of the experiences her character undergoes, including the rigours of childbirth. I hope that she is allowed to appear in more films- a major world talent. The film was made in the Democratic Republic of Congo, for a reputed $3.5 million. The actors are local, though the film never indicates what country it is set in (so as to better represent the African whole, I expect). While not the film's fault, it is disheartening to see yet another film about Africa that presents the continent and its people as wholly dysfunctional. Yes, there are conflicts, bad governments, poverty, blood diamonds and child soldiers, BUT, there is also everyday life, beautiful cultures, and struggles of 'people just like us'...just trying to get by day to day. Where the film falters, I think, is in trying to have, or at least imply, a happy ending for Mwanza's protagonist. After undergoing what she goes through, it is difficult to believe that she has the inner resilience to return to a normal 'teenage'life, let alone one of motherhood. PTSD has a way of rendering impossible functional relationships. Also, as noted in my review title, the film is much too short. I was reminded of Apocalypse Now in the themes that Nguyen deaves into, and I think REBELLE needed Apocalypse's length. Maybe we will eventually get 'Rebelle' REDUX. Note to the Producers: the film is a Canadian film, not a product of the Nation of Quebec. So, do not put Quebec as the country of origin on the DVD case. You took Canadian tax dollars to make the film, and submitted it to the American Academy of Film Arts as the official Canadian entry. I am proud that Rebelle is a Canadian film, IN French, one of our two official languages.