It's really frustrating to give this movie a star. I don't think it's so average if I hit three, and I don't think it's that good if I hit four. After all, it's Zhang Yimou's work, so I really think it should be better. After weighing it again and again, I decided to give it a three-and-a-half star.
When I first listened to "The Thirteen Hairpins of Jinling", I thought it was a movie about the same theme as Dream of Red Mansions, but I didn't think it was a story in the context of war, or it was based in Nanjing. It was impossible not to bring any personal emotions into it.
In fact, except for the Chinese plot, the plot setting and overall tone of the entire movie are basically a Hollywood blockbuster. If the director is not Zhang Yimou, but a certain Speer or something, I believe everyone will only think that this guy understands Chinese elements quite a bit, and there will be no sense of incongruity. For those who are looking forward to Zhang Yimou's work, I can only say that I have some regrets.
"The Thirteen Hairpins of Jinling" is mainly about personal heroism, aiming to highlight the revolutionary integrity of the false priest who was ordered in danger and Yu Mo, a woman who is both charming and profound. Whichever way you look at it, this is a movie about how human nature shines in war.
In order to create this kind of heroism, the director used a lot of explosive scenes in the first half of the film to show the cruelty of the war, and set up a lot of conflicts between characters or the characters themselves to express the noble emotions and morals that people showed in the war. For example, the false priest played by Bell has changed from selfishness to selfless protection of students. For example, prostitutes and students have changed from the initial confrontation and conflict to the later sacrifice of their lives instead of attending the meeting.
But as McKee said when he came to China some time ago, "Chinese films tend to create a character with a strong character and use this character to drive the film. Such a character with a strong character is indeed easy to create dramatic conflicts, but it has a negative impact on human nature and life. The interpretation of righteousness is often not deep enough.”
Undoubtedly, in "The Thirteen Hairpins of Jinling", the director tried to create two typical characters, priest and Yumo, especially the false priest, who turned from a cheap speculative gangster at the beginning to a hero who protected students in the later period. But compared to the female image of Yumo who seemed to be thoughtful and righteous as soon as he appeared, the priest's transformation was too fast. How did he suddenly become such a righteous and awe-inspiring person? Is it because of the brutal passing of life that comes into contact with death? But in the setting of the plot, he was originally a "mortuary", and his ability to resist death should be significantly higher than ours; is it because of the cruelty of war? That's what he should have felt a long time ago. The lack of a description of the psychological process of this transformation also greatly reduces the credibility of this heroic figure. The only credible explanation is that his confrontation with the Japanese quickly opened up the two veins of Ren and Du of conscience because of the collision of different auras.
The way of transformation is too sloppy is one of the flaws of the movie, and there are many other details of the plot that are unclear. For example, the scene where Thirteen Hairpins decided to replace the female student with their breasts wrapped, such as the scene where several prostitutes sang "Qin Huai Jing", and even the bed scene of the two protagonists, it seems that the director thought that there should be such a scene, and they appeared like this. The kind of exposure is revealed, and the clips shot for the purpose of shooting dilute the dramatic tension of the climax part of the film, making the place where the climax should appear is too bland, as if stuck in the throat.
However, compared to the scribbled description of the protagonist's psychological transformation, the various characters created by the film are more brilliant. What Shujuan sees in the film is a clue that runs through the film. Through her eyes, she sees the righteous and awe-inspiring Instructor Li, the charming jade and ink, the father who is greedy for life and fears death but loves his daughter like his life, making a lot of noise. The prostitutes...the characters with different personalities are full and special. Shujuan's narration made up for the gaps in the film that could not be described in the picture. It can be seen that the whole film's direction is still very clear. It is precisely because of these people that the complete story of "The Thirteen Hairpins of Jinling" is formed. For that, I would like to thank the writers in particular, right? After three shots, Laomouzi finally chose the right script.
At the end of the movie, Shu Juan didn't know the final outcome of the Thirteen Hairpins, and the movie didn't shoot this scene. Everything was fixed on the day when the prostitutes came to the church, and they were in Shu Juan's eyes. This scene is the funniest moment in the movie. The open ending opened the audience's mind, and cleverly left blank, the swaying figures of those "women by the Qinhuai River" also remained in the audience's mind.
This is definitely the most subtle ingenuity of this movie, because if it is really filmed, I am afraid it will become a domestic TV drama with the theme of the War of Resistance.
This movie is too Hollywood, no matter how I look at it, I don't think it can succeed in the Olympics. Because if the ghosts can make it, why would they give you an award? But seeing that it was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film, I was gorgeously fooled.
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