Quote from Campylobacter jejuni;1256738:
I don't think his final reaction was an appropriate choice.
I think it's a brilliant choice. Any other reaction would be met with the same sort of apathetic response demonstrated by the other passengers. His smile makes you think and that's enough to justify its inclusion.
[SPOILER="YouTube Analysis"]
1980's China was a rough place. The Party abandoned the people and women fell back into their secondary role from before the revolution, and it has stayed that way since. China became an "every man for himself" world as the virtues of solidarity and building a society for the masses became eroded. The man's lighter was playing the song "The East is Red", a famous communist song from China. It is no coincidence he was the only one that cared enough to go help her. The rest of the people were amoral and selfish, having no guiding principle to act upon. They are like so many of us; together they have great power, but they are scared or do not care enough to act. That is what China wanted to stop during the CR but it failed and selfish, uncaring consumer culture came back. And it is those shiftless masses who are accomplices in the great injustices of the world, and so we do not mourn their loss when the hammer of justice comes back for them.
[/SPOILER]
Other relevant quotes:
"
All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."
- Sergei Bondarchuk
"
The world is in greater peril from those who tolerate or encourage evil than from those who actually commit it."
- Albert Einstein
I'll now draw a rather apt comparison to a subject which I would prefer not to approach, for the sake of argument.
The passengers of American Airlines Flight 11, United Airlines Flight 175, and American Airlines Flight 77 did nothing to stop the terrorists on-board their aircraft, which were subsequently flown into the two world trade centers and the pentagon.
A fourth aircraft, United Airlines Flight 93, was overtaken by its passengers and failed to reach its intended target of Washington D.C. Had the passengers in the other three planes taken action, the terrorists wouldn't have reached their high casualty targets and the planes may have potentially recovered.
The terrorists are not unlike those two rapists as both ultimately got what they wanted (martyrdom or successful robbery/rape). The remaining bus passengers are the passengers on-board the first three flights. The unsung hero is the passengers on United Airlines Flight 93. I can imagine them hearing about the fate of the first three flights, smiling as they later sent their own plane into the ground.