The fabricated plot of Sun Shangxiang's female disguise as a man to go deep into Cao Ying is already challenging the audience's bottom line, but you still let her make fun of it? ! This not only weakens the danger and arduousness of the undercover task, but also destroys the appeal of the romance between Sun Shangxiang and Tong Dawei to the audience. What's even more outrageous is that just after Shang Xiang left, Xiao Qiao came again. The millions of Cao Jun's camp has become a Paris fashion store that women flock to? The Soochow woman who acted in such an unrestrained manner obviously made Prime Minister Cao, who was also a poet, unable to handle it. He can compose poetry and sing to wine, but he doesn't know what to say to Xiao Qiao who wants to kill himself. After waiting for a long time, I said, "Stop making trouble!"
We are not against the courage and wit of female characters in an epic war film, but that this kind of adaptation should try to coordinate factors such as the background, theme, style and so on. The princess in "The Lord of the Rings" also slayed the ring spirits on the battlefield, and also played a "I'm not a man" humor. Why is the plot and character creation just right? Even in the hypocritical "Braveheart", the French princess goes deep into the enemy camp to fall in love with Wallace, which is somewhat more acceptable than Xiao Qiao's entry into Cao's camp. It is true that there may be foreign monks who like to recite the scriptures. But in any case, don't let two female characters enter the enemy camp privately one after another in a film and finally return to Zhao! The repetition of plots without internal connection is a taboo in narrative!
Strangely, it is this kind of writing and directing skills that at other times can contribute to the film's several high-level bridges.
In "On the Red Cliff", Kongming's three qi and Zhou Yu were changed to three wins Zhou Yu to promote the alliance of Sun and Liu, which is quite exciting. And "Under the Red Cliff" is more subtly linking the grass boat borrowing arrows with Jiang Gan's stealing books and getting rid of Cai Zhang, making the psychological changes of Cao Cao, the core figure in the countermeasure, more reasonable. The purely fictional scene of "Cao Mengde's secret crossing of the corpse and chaos on the other side" seems to be more commendable. In addition to being slightly exaggerated and hypocritical (Lin Chiling's tears), it highlights the opposition between good and evil, and its main dramatic effect is to provide an excuse for Liu Huangshu's "running away" later. Note that this excuse is not only deceiving Cao Cao on the other side, but also deceiving the audience outside the screen. Because it is precisely because of its existence, coupled with the psychological indoctrination of "strong sun and weak Liu" in "On the Red Cliff", audiences (especially those overseas who have not seen the original work of "Three Kingdoms" but simply use the plot of the film itself as a reference for character development audience) will not easily question Liu Bei's prudent behavior to protect himself. As a result, the well-designed suspense was successfully retained, and the audience's psychology was successfully mobilized.
Another good adaptation is to cut off Huang Gai's fraud and turn it into a big fuss when Dongfeng arrives. Although the plot of bitter meat is a classic plot that is familiar to Chinese audiences, its own dramatic tension is not enough: Cao Cao's judgment on whether Huang Gai is a fraudulent surrender lies in his psychological cognition, rather than the beginnings and transitions of the storyline that the audience can fully participate in. Dongfeng, on the contrary. It exists objectively, and it is accepted by the audience whether its turning or not has different effects on the warring parties. Therefore, plots such as "seeing that the wind has not yet turned and Cao Jun is about to attack" can successfully create tension and suspense. But unfortunately, Wu Yusen used Xiao Qiao to go to Cao Ying to break the game, which was a failure.
Like his domestic blockbuster counterpart Chen Kaige, John Woo has a strong Kurosawa Akira complex. In "On the Red Cliff", Zhou Yu expressed the concept of "unity is strength" through the uncle's straw sandals, which is similar to Xiuhu Broken Arrow Xunzi in "Chaos". When it comes to "Under the Red Cliff", the respect is even stronger. First, Xiao Qiao's comments on Zhou Lang's sword dance reminded people of Takeda Shingen in "Shadow Warrior". At the end of the film, Duke Cao defeated Sun Liu's alliance and won a big victory. Zhou Yu looked at Sun Shangxiang, who was kneeling beside his dead friend, and gave a closing speech in the style of Kanbei, the leader of the Seven Samurai: "We all lost." , Lin Chiling's line is barely acceptable. After all, "it is as fast as the wind, as slow as the forest and immovable as a mountain" can be traced back to Sun Tzu's Art of War, and there is little difference between describing the art of war or martial arts. But Liang Chaowei is pretending to be profound. There is nothing wrong with the lines themselves, but the problem is that the character in the movie is not giving a recitation of proverbs and aphorisms. His emotions must be sent out by feeling. And this "sense" in this film, that is, Sun Shangxiang's enemy's love affair and the man's final death in battle, is obviously not a successful portrayal. The audience was not deeply moved, and thus could not agree with Zhou Yu's emotion.
The way to siege a city is to find a breakthrough. This is a routine plot in an ancient epic war movie. In addition, fire is used to burn Chibi, so it is natural that explosives become a means of siege. These two points alone can somewhat justify the city-breaking plot in "Under the Red Cliff" that is very similar to the battle of Helm's Deep. And this time, it is the general Gan Xing of Soochow who wants to complete the arduous mission of breaking the city at the expense of self-sacrifice like a strong orc. To be honest, Nakamura Shido's performance is a bit weird. The eyes are round and the corners of the mouth are twisted, which seems to highlight the bravery and strength of the character. But somehow I feel that he is not a good person, more like a thug and minion next to the big brother of the Japanese gangster. Also, it's not quite clear why it's not called Gan Ning or Gan Xingba. Are you afraid of infringement? Or did Gan Ning's descendants object to having a Japanese person play their ancestor? ... In any case, this man without "tyrant" ended up doing the most manly thing.
In the same siege, Zhao Zilong took the lead and leaped over the city wall, which reminded me of the countless wars involved in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but there seems to be no specific description of what the horse generals should do when they attack the city. . Are they really the same as ordinary soldiers, climbing ladders and climbing ladders to the top of the city to fight the enemy hand-to-hand?
From Chow Yun-fat and Li Xiuxian in "Blood" to Cage and missing a leg in "Changing Face", the love of heroes has always been an important motif of John Woo's films. But this time it was a little weird. When Zhou Lang and Kong Ming were so close to each other face to face, many people remembered not the sympathy of heroes but the tightness of chrysanthemums. In a sense, these two have surpassed Hua An and Shi Ye in "Tang Bohu Dianqiuxiang". Because they can get a lot of thunder without pouting. Could it be that this is the so-called highest realm of the so-called chatting and laughing, where the ashes are wiped out?
The enemy army has already entered the camp, and these brothers are going to "kill this bitch" first? ... Cao generals are too weak, which undoubtedly makes "Red Cliff" eclipsed in the level of martial arts. Because there is no one-on-one matchup scene. In this regard, I am a little puzzled: since Wu Yusen can make such astounding changes to let Xiao Qiao and Sun Shangxiang enter the Cao camp, why not dare to make a certain Cao general stronger and make it and Zhou Yu? Zhao Yun and the like are coming to the showdown?
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