Golden A: Human Punk Rhapsody with Chinese Characteristics

Kassandra 2022-01-06 08:02:14


From my personal logic, many things in the world are often connected in a variety of weird ways. For example, the first time I participated in a movie edition gathering as a pure fan, I brazenly proclaimed that movies are inseparable from science fiction. Yes, and cited many famous gossips in the history of film as examples. Later, when I was interviewing for graduate students, I was in front of a room of filmmakers who plausibly said that film itself is an art about time, and it is science fiction that is related to time. Until recently, I followed a group of classmates to watch "The Golden Armor in a City", I walked out of the theater and shouted excitedly: "This is a science fiction blockbuster!" The classmate was puzzled and said you insisted last time. "Promise" is a fantasy, so we will endure it. This golden armor is full of men and women fighting and killing, but I don't see where science fiction is. I smiled mysteriously, lowered my voice and cautiously said: "Have you heard of'human punk'?"

For science fiction fans, the concept of "human punk" is not particularly unfamiliar. Western science fiction has Cyberspace. The trend of cyberpunk, from the famous "Neurological Wanderer" to the sci-fi movie classic "Matrix", uses the huge chaos and irregularities in the virtual world to show that the development of post-industrial society has an impact on the entire world of order and ideas. The deconstruction of Otomo’s "Steam boy" in 2005 brought a new wave of grand expressions about steampunk. It is also a kind of imagination that belongs to the era of big industry blooming in this gradual disintegration of social reality. Rust-colored flowers; Lala’s "Sunday" series (published in the second issue of "Fantasy 1+1"), describes an ancient mechanical world driven by celestial arts (it looks very similar to Fujisaki Ryu’s " "Feng Shen Yanyi"), was also revered by the title "Xianli Punk". So from these things, we can see something in common: huge cities and machinery, which conceal the operation of certain virtual rules under chaos and disorder and drive the development of events, which are constructed purely by imagination and ideas. The world, gorgeous, gloomy imagination.

As for "human punk", it seems that there is no work yet. The best annotation probably comes from Liu Cixin's "Three Body", the wild imagination about human computer: a group of several people, according to the simplest logic to form one The basic circuit components are assembled in different ways into adders, registers, stack memory, memory, hard disks, display systems, etc. The huge computer queue composed of 30 million people can calculate the complex operation of the three-body system. problem. Chang Chong’s "Relics of the Wild" has a similar idea: intelligent creatures from outer space transform primitive humans on the earth, and use simple commands to control their behavior, so that they can build giants in an orderly manner like a colony of ants. building. It is also a gorgeous and gloomy imagination, but the theme is human beings. Reverting human beings to the simplest prop level to build a new huge system, in addition to shock, there is more decomposition and black humor.

So what did we see in the film Golden A. The director lavishly showed us a luxurious audio-visual feast, which audiences and film critics will inevitably mention, but compared to the previous "Heroes", "Ambush on Ten Sides", "Promise", "Night Banquet", etc. Wait, the golden armour has an unusual mode of operation under luxury, as if countless closely connected clockwork gears in an antique clock inlaid with gold and jade operate silently, pushing the timeline forward in an orderly and precise manner.
From the beginning of the film, we saw hundreds of court ladies getting up and washing with more drums. Their programming and proficiency are far better than those in the female dormitories during military training. Zhang Yimou has always had a preference for fictional folklore. He is obsessed with those ritualized scenes, and he is good at presenting these imagined infinitely complicated procedures in an audio-visual way, but in this film, this obsession is obviously It has reached unprecedented levels in scale and precision. Tens of thousands of people competed in a small square according to different slogans, as small as the dazzling set of golden accessories when the queen was dressing up, and of course there was a team of extremely precise timing and fixed points. The pharmacy seemed to be an orderly assembly line. The work process, the etiquette at the Double Ninth Festival dinner and the grand fireworks show at the end, the black assassins who seem to be living in the ceiling mezzanine, and even those controversial chests that are squeezed and deformed. In fact, the director has already said through the mouth of the characters in the play the set of things he really worked hard to show: rules. Everything is governed by the so-called rules and operations, directing people's daily life in the way that every office, large and small, should follow, whether it is light or dark, and all of this is revealed through the huge claustrophobic space of the imperial palace. Perhaps some viewers will find that the whole film rarely shows events outside the palace, and even rarely considers the rationality of the camera. For example, how did the golden warriors suddenly appear in the palace? What is the meaning of wearing chrysanthemums? In fact, all this is not important, just like the high degree of virtuality and hypothesis on the Peking Opera stage, you can think of it as a grand ceremony. All we need to see is how the director schedules and arranges all of this, and The dark beauty brought by those complicated and gorgeous rules.
In fact, this is also a world constructed by ideas, but it is also an idea with roots to follow. Although the imperial court was entrusted to the historical palace, in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, or even before the founding of New China, we could never see such a highly ordered scene. Just as senior film critics like to quote in the article: "What matters is not the era of discourse, but the era of discourse." Although the story line and the relationship between the characters of the film are of "Thunderstorm", its operation is absolutely It was Zhang Yimou’s complete set of operating modes that ultimately caused the tragic fate of the characters and the painful experience of the audience. It is neither belonging to the feudal monarchy nor the evil old society, but it is precisely the era we live in that is projected deep in everyone’s heart. Nightmare-like image: gorgeous and delicate, as indestructible as the golden armor, deep into every corner of our lives, there is no escape or resistance.
If we need to use one sentence to summarize, then we can rashly say that Golden Armor shows a certain post-industrial era fantasies projected in the dream of the imperial city. It expresses through virtual scenes that in this chaotic era of disintegration, human beings Alienation and impetuous state. Regardless of whether the director intended it or not, after millions of people swarmed into the cinema to watch this film, I believe that such an idea has been deeply engraved in the hearts of countless people, engraved on the collective consciousness of such people. What we feel is the process by which a huge crowd of amazing people created all kinds of wonders under the control of the rules, and finally fell to death one after another. Collective wars, collective dances, and collective deaths are actually just things that we have been accustomed to in the process of growing up. Without exception, we have been obliterated the meaning of personal existence among the billions of people. At best, we can only be a component in a human computer that can only judge the state of 0 and 1, and make a blockbuster among the fallen golden soldiers. Unclear faces. As for Zhang Yimou, I think he just spent a lot of money to express the anxiety buried deep in his heart with the human punk he is good at, and turn it into a cup of extremely thick poison, forcing everyone to drink it one after another.
After watching the Golden Armor, you may be disgusted by this film and rant on the Internet, but you may also wish to think about the reasons for all this at the same time, maybe not just because of those violent breasts.










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Extended Reading

Curse of the Golden Flower quotes

  • Emperor Ping: What I do not give, you must never take by force.

  • Emperor Ping: [while placing ingredients on a scale] This will cure your anemia.

    Empress Phoenix: I thank His Majesty for his concern.

    Emperor Ping: All good medicine tastes bitter.

    Emperor Ping: You have excess bile, poor digestion, Yin and Yang are out of balance. That is why you are so infractious, listless and lethargic, and capable of nothing but cutting remarks. These are all sympptoms of anemia.

    Empress Phoenix: It has been more than ten years. My so-called sickness is clearly not improving with Your Majesty's treatment.

    Emperor Ping: [angrily throws scale to the ground] If your father were not the King of Liang, I would scarely be speaking to you with such restraint.