Reconsideration of Mr. Leslie Cheung's role in "The True Color of Heroes" and "Farewell My Concubine"
Mr. Leslie Cheung, who passed away on April 1, 2003, is not crazy or alive, and may be the last movie with him The characters in the work "Alien Dimension" are similar. They are deeply in the torment of depression and bid farewell to this world in an extreme way in reality. His most generally praised role should be Cheng Dieyi played in 1993's "Farewell My Concubine", and there is another early masterpiece, which I have to mention, is "The True Color of Heroes" in 1986, in which he played Dillon The character's younger brother, along with Chow Yun-fat, who got rid of the box office poison title with the film and shot all the way to fame.
Mr. Leslie Cheung has many masterpieces of films, and I singled out these two films for the purpose of being a good analysis of a phenomenon in Chinese-language films. Although they are common, they have received little attention. Cheng Dieyi in "Ba" is a character who does not distinguish between roles Wind, no matter how the times change, he stands still.
And Song Zijie, who played in "Ying", is just the opposite. He is a young policeman. He originally had a deep relationship with Song Zihao, the eldest brother played by Dillon. Later, he found out that he had been kept in the dark for so many years. Song Zihao was an underworld eldest brother. guilty in jail. This has affected Zijie's future in the police world, and made him feel fooled. This is a painful and tangled character. Every decision that follows should be enough to affect the direction of the plot and the relationship with the characters, but in fact He didn't. Song Zijie had no other more effective performance besides fighting and complaining in anger. The role he was supposed to play was taken away by the pony played by Chow Yun-fat. Xiaoma is also Song Zihao's brother. He is not related by blood. He is a sworn sworn brother, but he shows a sign that water is thicker than blood. He is an extremely impulsive and very childish character. It is better to say that he is more like Li Kui than Lin Chong, although he is closer to the former in terms of appearance. But the important point is that, like Cheng Dieyi, he can live in his own world no matter how the surrounding environment and his own experiences change. You don't need to expect what choices these two will make, because in addition to being faithful to acting , shooting, and brotherhood, the two will not have a second choice.
This involves a question. Originally, in drama film and television, a character who is faced with a choice and has inner contradictions and entanglement is a drama, but why are these two important works in the Chinese film industry, the most outstanding is the same? What about a rib in the end, often referred to as a flat character?
Asking this question may seem like a big deal, but just as many seemingly high-end national events can be easily answered by villagers with one or two big truths, this question may be no exception. Because Chinese people have experienced too many passive changes in the past century or two, many people have to make some unintended choices, go with the flow, and adapt to the whole environment. And only those who are wise and ignorant and have great integrity can have the confidence and ability to remain unaffected and not make changes. This is the most common division between good and evil, gentleman and villain, but if this set of standards is also used for movie characters, it will lead to flat characters in power. Although it may be regarded as a classic, it will also become a swan song. , not simply because it is so classic that it cannot be replicated, but because the character itself is so flat that it has only the only characteristic of persistence and immutability.
There are quite a few good movies that express artist Long Yangzhi, such as "Total Eclipse" and "Prick Up Your Ears", and those that have experienced the changes of the times, such as "Goya's Soul" Works like Ghosts. If the first two films cannot be used to make a simple analogy with "Farewell My Concubine", because the issue of sexuality is too sensitive, it can only be subtle and not obvious, then "Soul of Goya" can still be used to talk about things. The film was directed by Milos Forman in 2006. The background is Spain in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It was also a period of turbulence. The city head changed to the king's flag. First, the Inquisition did what it wanted, and then Napoleon's army came. The people of the church were expelled and exiled, and then the British came again. Goya, who was in the middle of it, also responded to all changes without change, and never gave up painting. Not only that, but the hard days after deafness became the peak of his creation. However, Goya in the film is different from Cheng Dieyi in that he does not have such a perfect personality. More often, he is a guy who has made good connections in the royal and religious circles and is looking for a backer. Although he keeps his paintings in painting Bottom line, he didn't "beauty" her on the canvas when he painted the romantic queen, but he still praised the king's lame violin skills.
Like the director's 1984 classic biopic "Amadeus", Goya is not the first actor in the film "Soul of Goya", but Lorenzo the priest. He was ambitious to resume the trial of the Inquisition. Ines, the daughter of a wealthy businessman, was suspected of being a heretic because she refused to eat pork in a tavern. Goya tries to connect the rich businessman and Lorenzo to rescue Ines. But the wealthy businessman had no patience to continue to be a good believer, so he simply used his own way to punish him, tortured Lorenzo, and asked him to sign the document admitting that he was a monkey. After Lorenzo escaped from Spain, he killed him again as Napoleon's consul in Spain, but he brought with him the revolutionary idea of freedom and equality. Lorenzo is a typical example of serenity and rudder. He has no real faith, just looking for forces that can be vassalized. In contrast, painting is Goya's belief, but the film does not artificially exaggerate Goya's image, and must form a sharp contrast with the villain.
Cheng Dieyi is a character, and he is constantly invited to take the stage. Several famous jokes are believed to be sung repeatedly, but he never tires of singing, always living in the world of drama. And in 1998 "She's Lonely than Fireworks Hilary and Jackie", Jacqueline is a talented cellist. She has won numerous honors at a young age. She has performed on stages all over the world. She has a husband who is also a musician. It seems that she has everything. But under the fame, she has been overwhelmed. She has an older sister, Hilary, who was also quite talented in music when she was a child, but was quickly left behind by Jackie's talent. But at this time, Ji Qilin envied her sister and wanted to share her ordinary life, even her brother-in-law. The reason why she adopts such an extreme and perverted method is because Jackie Lin knows that she cannot escape the constraints of the magic and talent of the cello, unless God uses the same extreme method to take back her talent. God did appear, and Ji Qilin suffered from sclerosis, and became more and more unable to move, let alone play the piano! Just as love and hate often coexist and transform into each other, so is the passion and disgust for art.
Cheng Dieyi, who can say the line "Agreed is a lifetime, a year, a month, a day, an hour is not a lifetime", it is hard to believe that he will not go to extremes elsewhere, but apart from an infatuation, He is not lethal or dangerous in other respects. In other words, he is more like a eccentric hermit than a fiery enthusiastic artist. When encountering difficulties, it is often Duan Xiaolou that rushes to the front and causes an accident. Therefore, as Juxian said, Dieyi dragged the Xiaolou down, it is better to say that Duan Xiaolou's hot temper caused the trouble. He is a person who sells melons on the street with a watermelon knife. After a long time, things will happen. On the other hand, Cheng Dieyi, although he lacks political consciousness, is not as concerned about national integrity as he is about stage appearance, but every time he is in danger, he can always meet a noble person, because among the senior officials, there are always people who love drama. , As Master Dieyi said at the beginning, only animals don't listen to the show. Over the years, he has suffered no more grievances and injuries than the people around him. Compared with him, the heroine in the 1982 movie "Frances" has a much worse fate than him. Under the influence of her mother since she was a child, Frances has a strong personality, and often goes to extremes, expressing her doubts about God, and has visited the Soviet Union, so she is out of tune with the people around her. She later became an actress, acted in several films, and her career started off well. But she is increasingly unable to stand the control of the studio boss, and at the same time she is deceived by some idealistic independent filmmakers. She lost control of her emotions, was admitted to a mental hospital, and began to challenge the authority of doctors. Frances' mother was an ideal woman when she was young, but she didn't realize it, so she pinned all her hopes on her daughter. She taught her daughter to challenge authority, but she never thought that she was the biggest pressure in her daughter's life. In order to correct her daughter's wrong course, she asked her to continue treatment in a mental hospital. Frances was subjected to lobotomy. Art... Frances took freedom as her belief, and paid a heavy price. On the other hand, Comrade Cheng Dieyi, for a long time, no one actually exerted much pressure on him in the acting itself, so his so-called persistence, in addition to being aloof, inevitably has a few hints of hypocrisy. Even in the worst environment, when others are attacking each other and drawing a line, he just puts on makeup and is silently criticized. In the novel, Dieyi and Xiaolou reunited in Hong Kong many years later. In the movie, it was changed to Dieyi and came from slaughter. The question is, why doesn't a person who loves dramas like crazy, why don't dramas be trampled to the point of worthless money? What about suicide? he What were you thinking at that time? In fact, not only at that time, but all along, what Boss Cheng was thinking in his heart was vague, and what everyone could see was his gestures, frowns and smiles.
After talking about "Farewell My Concubine", let's go back and talk about "The True Color of Heroes". Director John Woo used to be the assistant director of the martial arts film director Zhang Che. In "Ying", he replaced the sword with a pistol, but the character relationship and spiritual core can be regarded as the same strain. The relationship between the three brothers can't help but remind people of "Thorn Horse", in which John Woo is also one of the assistant directors. In "Thorn Horse", Zhang Wenxiang and Huang Zong were born in the green forest, which is equivalent to the ancient underworld, while Ma Xinyi was famous. But the difference is that he is not as useless as Zijie. He is suppressed because of his brothers with a gangster background. Ma Xinyi is determined to forge ahead and is unstoppable. When Huang Zong becomes a stumbling block in his love affairs and officialdom, he kicks him away. , without a trace of pain at all, which is unimaginable for Zijie. Dillon played Ma Xinyi in "Thorn Horse", and won the Golden Horse Award for Outstanding Acting Special Award and the Outstanding Acting Award at the Asia-Pacific Film Festival for this role. Of course, there is Dillon who has always played a hero, and he played the villain, which made people shine. Because of this, but also because Ma Xinyi is the one with the least psychological fluctuation among the three brothers. Although Huang Zong is also a character with a rib, but he has a lot of incompatibility from the grass to the officialdom. And when Zhang Wenxiang discovered the adultery between Ma Xinyi and Milan, and came to inform Huang Zong, Huang Zong did not believe that his elder brother would do such a thing, and told Wenxiang to stop doing such things that alienate brotherhood, his heart was far from Ma Xinyi came calmly like that.
In the new version of the 2007 "Certificate of Voting", it became clearer. The second brother, Zhao Erhu, did not lose his rambunctious character in the army, did not obey orders, and paid the army privately. Sneaked into Suzhou City first, made a covenant with the enemy, and did not kill and surrender, but the elder brother Pang Qingyun, for the sake of the military's heart and rations, violated the contract and killed and surrendered, trapping the two tigers in a situation of inhumanity and injustice. Erhu and Qingyun each shed tears once. Erhu cried while listening to a play similar to Taoyuan Sanjiyi in the restaurant. Someone instigated him to kill Qingyun, but Erhu refused. The only time Pang Qingyun cried was after killing Zhao Erhu. It is no exaggeration to say that this is the tears of a crocodile. Therefore, among the three brothers, Pang Qingyun is actually the most stubborn. Brother Ma in "The True Color of Heroes" is a brotherly love, while Pang Qingyun is single-mindedly climbing to a high position. Playing such a single-character role, no matter whether it is good or evil, it becomes easy to shine, so Jet Li can also win the Best Actor in the Academy Award for this role.
If this analysis is not convincing enough, let’s take another example of Dillon and David Jiang, that is “A Country and a City” directed by Li Hanxiang. David Jiang’s Kou Liancai was originally the same as Xiao Ma, just a small role, but the more the drama. The more you add, the more it overshadows the limelight of Lord Guangxu played by Di Long. Investigating the reason, it is not necessarily a hero playing a eunuch. It is fresh, or because Kou Liancai is unusually loyal. He was originally sent by Li Lianying to the emperor to monitor, but this undercover agent is not at all entangled. He stood on the emperor's side, and on the Queen Mother's birthday, exposed the truth that the Japanese soldiers had hit Tianjin, and finally came to a death remark. The director put all the words that should be said by the great loyal ministers and heroes into the mouth of this little eunuch. Although it expresses a kind of national righteousness, but from the character setting, although there are people in history, they are still There is too much theme first, wishful thinking. Just like Xiao Ma, because Song Zihao was betrayed by Taiwanese and imprisoned, he vented his anger and killed all the Taiwanese. He was shot in the foot and became a lame man. But once such a reckless shooting case, he was not found on his head. On the other hand, although he was lame, why couldn't he become a lame man? Since he is so heroic, why didn't he kill Tan Cheng, who doesn't talk about brotherly loyalty, earlier? He is so arrogant, no matter how he looks like a person who can bend and stretch, cleaning cars on the street for others, including Tan Cheng, is it just to wait for Song Zihao to get out of prison, swallow his lunch, and fight the world again? From many perspectives, this plot is a screenwriter's behavior, just to make the little horse who swears to the gods to sympathize with people, but it does not help the character setting itself or the integrity of the film.
So how do Western films deal with this fraternal relationship and create characters that are both impressive and not flat? Take 1997's "L.A. Confidential" as an example, the police in the 1950s were not much different from the underworld, and there were even more behind-the-scenes figures who wanted to eat black and white. In the film, Guy Pearce, Russell Crowe, and Kevin Spacey play the three policemen who are not related by blood or sworn brothers, but they are entangled because of a murder case. The three have different personalities. Except that Kevin Spacey's character is a slippery person and is a bit different from Jiang Wuyang, the other two characters can roughly correspond to the eldest brother and second brother of "Famous Name". Guy Pierce wears a pair of glasses and has Brains, and intrigue, and Russell Crowe's character is impulsive and powerful, but also self-aware that his brains are not good. It may be more coincidental that the two also had a conflict over a woman, but the conflict was not magnified and did not lead to bad results. The two soon showed their strengths together and found out the real culprit behind the scenes. Jiang Wuyang's character was the last to die in "Famous Name", and the gunmen sent by the imperial court helped him assassinate Pang Qingyun behind the scenes, but in "Luo", Kevin Spacey was the first to be killed because he The first insight into who is behind the scenes. And Guy and Russell both survived, one won a high position, the other won a beauty, and from a political point of view, the dead man behind the scenes is also commemorated as a hero.
The two films shouldn't just end with a bright and optimistic ending, although the overall style is film noir, and the other is a tragic ending. The story of the Spurs was remade in 2007, and why? Is it because, as the film director Chen Kexin said, he doesn't believe in brotherhood? Or is it to show that a person who is chasing fame and fortune has no good end after all? In this day and age, is it a bit too simple and out of place to talk about whether brothers and wives are not to be bullied, or to be rude, or to throw out a negative example who can do whatever it takes for power?
The three characters in "L.A. Confidential" have their own characteristics, but they are not extreme. He is not good at actual combat, although it represents the future of the police, but he uses the method of shooting in the back of the opposite angle to end an old era, so he cannot help but carry the original sin. Russell Crowe colluded with the media and made money by poaching scandals to become famous. He was an old slick, wandering among various forces, trying not to offend any force, but he also lacked a sense of justice when it was critical, because he was too savvy in the end. Well, a wise man has a thousand worries, and he must die. And Russell Crowe is Tender, although he has a bad temper, but he knows how to pity and cherish jade. The most important thing is to have self-knowledge, know how to rein in the precipice, and not be swept away by anger and used by bad guys. None of the three are single-character characters, and Russell and Guy can finally work together to create a new future together, instead of fighting privately or just killing a villain.
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