change
Just like Zhang Yimou's "House of Flying Daggers", Tsui Hark's "Seven Swords" received endless criticism after the high-profile commercial sale, which inevitably made people suspicious of Tsui Hark. Could it be that Mr. Xu really can't do it? First of all, I personally think that most of the naysayers used to be die-hard fans of Tsui Hark's previous works. They're obsessed with flashy fights with beautiful costumes and half-human beings. There is no doubt that Tsui Hark's martial arts movies have achieved the ultimate in the gorgeous style, but one style has been played to the extreme. If you want to change it, you can only do the opposite and go to the other extreme "realism". There is no gorgeous and elegant clothing, replaced by shabby and shabby cotton jackets, no bright colors, only dark and simple pictures, no light style, only a heavy and depressing atmosphere. This is farewell to yesterday, Tsui Hark gave us a completely different "Seven Swords".
Perhaps the new "Seven Swords" is difficult to satisfy the fans of the past, but this is the spirit of Tsui Hark's film itself, and there is no reason to repeat it all the time. Traditional things may not be offensive, but it is easy to follow the old ways. This is not Tsui Hark's style. Seeking innovation and change is a kind of adventure, because freshmen are always too easy to fail, and "Seven Swords" as the first part of the new style will always have one or another flaw. There is no experience to learn from, and there are naturally many faults. Naturally, some people will be very dissatisfied, and even compare them with successful works in the past, but this is unfair, because the starting lines are not the same, and there is no way to compare.
Messy
In fact, in my eyes, "Seven Swords" is much more complicated than the mentally retarded plot of "House of Flying Daggers", but it may be precisely because the film carries too much content, so the two and a half hours of the film is still the same. The story cannot be told smoothly. Generally speaking, movies released in Hong Kong rarely have such a long show time. In today's frivolous city, people are generally only used to movies with a length of one and a half hours. Movies released in Hong Kong are often cut into one and a half hours. Hour. Tsui Hark's "Seven Swords" is said to be cut from four hours into two and a half hours, which shows how much content needs to be explained.
I'm not saying that the four-hour "Seven Swords" will be good. If the "Seven Swords" is actually released for four hours, I'm afraid it will scare the audience away. However, because of too much content, too many characters, too many causes and consequences that need to be explained, and too many relationships between the characters, the two and a half hours of the edited film also showed too many imperfections. In fact, Tsui Hark also cut it to the end, but I was afraid that I would not be able to cut it. If I cut it again, I was afraid that the story would not be able to continue. In the end, I could only produce the finished product for two and a half hours. In fact, if I could cut it into two A film length of hours is the most appropriate.
Tsui Hark did not simplify the story, which finally led to the whole film falling into a chaotic situation. Many explanations were not clear enough, and many places did not speak enough before taking action, which caused the seven swords to go down the Tianshan Mountains. The characters' emotional handling of each other is sloppy. Moreover, the rhythm of the film is also chaotic, with fast places passing by, and slow in some places, lack of unity before and after, and there are also some problems in the connection of plots.
The momentum
is actually very satisfying to me in the first few scenes of the film. Seven swords and horses are running in the snow-capped mountains. The background is the snow-capped Tianshan Mountains. The set can be done. In addition, it is the scene of the massacre of the beacon-fired army. It feels like the evil spirit is soaring to the sky. Tsui Hark has spent a lot of effort in the villain's modeling. After watching these first few scenes, I felt a bit familiar. I remember that when I was a child, I liked to read comic strips, and the first image of the film was the simple sketch style of the comic strips in the past.
Tsui Hark used a lot of realistic styles to show the unprecedented grandeur, and more applied these to the villain's beacon-fired army, strange makeup, heavy armor, and all kinds of strange weapons. Relying on the desolate world of the Western Regions, it is even more rough and atmospheric. In the design of fighting scenes, group fights are often used, and one person kills dozens of people. In the image style, close-up mirrors are often used to capture images, which often makes the audience feel fighting. In the fierce and tragic atmosphere, there is a kind of murderous and repressed emotions permeating the air, but it is often difficult to see the moves in the fighting process. And unlike Tsui Hark who used Qing Gong frequently before, there are quite a lot of power performances in "Seven Swords". The power from the Divine Sword is volatile and extremely imposing.
But I have to admit that in this imposing new work "Seven Swords", Tsui Hark has deliberate traces in many places in the creation of imposing manner.
There are many characters in the character
film, apart from Qijian, there are also Luzhu, Yu Fang, Fenghuo Liancheng and others. In fact, each character can not write much and must focus on it. Yang Yuncong, Chu Zhaonan, and Fenghuo Liancheng have become the characters who appear the most in the scenes.
In fact, I have had a bad premonition about Beacon Liancheng played by Sun Honglei. Ever since I heard him say that line in the trailer: "What nonsense and seven swords, I will destroy them all for you." The exaggerated interpretation of this villain, and the uncontrollable laugh, I don't understand that such superficial characters are not like the demons in fairy tales with labels, and Sun Honglei really has no praiseworthy performance, he will only use A mode to play all the roles, we can read the same taste from all the characters he has played, the stage-style performance. Actually, Sun Honglei can't be blamed entirely. I think the script this time is also very weak. Those lines are almost unsuccessful, and there is hardly anything outstanding.
And Yang Yuncong, the green swordsman played by Liming, is the most successful character in my opinion, and Liming is the most suitable actor. Yang Yuncong's introverted and calm temperament and the ambivalence of hatred between the family and the country in his heart are all shown Very good, the temperament of Dawn itself is very close to such a character. As another important character in the Seven Swords, Chu Zhaonan is very vague. Most of his appearances are during the fierce battle between the Dragon Sword, and he speaks very little. He mainly has an emotional rivalry with Luzhu, and Donnie Yen mainly shows the ruthless character. On the one hand, the others are slightly weaker.
The other swords in the seven swords, such as the leader Fu Qingzhu, are really weak, Liu Jialiang did not show leadership in all aspects, and more let Fu Qingzhu just become a clue character who connects the whole story. Star Jingjian Xin Longzi and Sun Moon Sword Mu Lang, as the green leaves in the Seven Swords, showed their faces in the fighting scenes very well when there were not many scenes. The performances of Han Zhibang and Tianpu sword Wu Yuanying are not to be missed.
The two outsiders, Lu Zhu and Yu Fang, played by Jin Suyan and Zhang Jingchu are okay, but their existence is just the feminine beauty that Tsui Hark has added to this masculine martial arts movie, but it's still hard to hold back. Purely masculine movie. In fact, it was the masters of Fenghuo Liancheng that impressed me deeply, showing their beauty.
There is a very strange discovery in the emotional drama
of "Seven Swords". I don't understand why it is overly complicated, and even many emotions are inexplicable. The emotion of "Seven Swords" is like a In the food chain, Wu Yuanying fell in love with Han Zhibang, Han Zhibang fell in love with Yu Fang, Yu Fang fell in love with Chu Zhaonan who had never even said a word for the first time, and Chu Zhaonan fell in love with Luzhu again. And Wu Yuanying and Lu Zhu, who are the beginning and end of this line, have an emotional drama with Yang Yuncong and Fenghuo Liancheng.
In fact, is such an emotional chain designed because the current audience is keen on this emotional entanglement? But the love triangle is enough, it is really unnecessary to pull out such a long emotional drama, and it seems inexplicable in many aspects, there is no foreshadowing and no reason, it just happened. Liu Yufang can only explain Chu Zhaonan's love at first sight, but it seems that the empathy is too fast, and Chu Zhaonan's feelings for Luzhu are also very vague, just because they are both Koreans? And the relationship between Wu Yuanying and Yang Yuancong is even more sudden. If it wasn't for too many scenes being cut out, it would be hard to convince them to have a relationship so quickly just by a few lines of dialogue between the two.
In addition to human emotions, Han Zhibang's love scene with Lao Mafu is more like a show. I believe that some audience will be caught, but I think all this is too unreliable. To be honest, Tsui Hark may be because There are too many commercial considerations, but all of these deviate from the realistic style that Tsui Hark pursued in shooting "Seven Swords". No one should doubt the splendid action design in Tsui Hark's martial arts film. All the actions in "Seven Swords" are excellent, no matter Xin Longzi's quick and ruthless or Yang Yuncong's calm swimming
.
Swords Anyway, Tsui Hark has given enough of their own characteristics, and enjoys the characteristics of each sword in performance. In fact, all the creativity comes from Tsui Hark's different positioning of the seven swords. To be honest, Tsui Hark's biggest idea for the film was to come up with these seven strange swords, as well as the strange swords of the twelve generals under the beacon fire.
The most exciting of all the fighting scenes is naturally the duel between Chu Zhaonan and Fenghuo Liancheng, not only the duel between the two masters, but also the duel between Yulongjian and Qingganjian. The contest between the two is especially the most creative in the narrow alley. In fact, the narrow space is the most unsuitable for sword dancing, but Tsui Hark knows it is impossible to do it, and this is what makes him strange. I saw the two men move up and down flexibly in the narrow alley, sword marks were drawn on the stone wall, and the small pattern was even more dangerous.
However, although the contest between Chu Zhaonan and Fenghuo Liancheng was wonderful, how could the duel between Youlongjian and Qingganjian start, and instead the big villain Fenghuo Liancheng did not show his own unique weapons and his unique kung fu, really In vain, he sacrificed a character like Fenghuo Liancheng.
Looking at the whole film, "Seven Swords" as Tsui Hark's new work is still unsatisfactory in many ways, but I don't think this film will fail because of these defects. From the perspective of the overall situation, this film has unprecedented new ideas , it may be the beginning of a new martial arts movie. How do people know how difficult it is to take the first step, a new direction requires self-exploration, not as easy as making a film based on experience. Finally, I still want to give a personal opinion on Qijian. I personally think that Qijian is not an organization or a team. In fact, these seven people are a loose combination, and they should have different ideas and opinions from each other. There are contradictions, so it is unlikely that the Seven Swords will work together for the same goal, so if there is a sequel, we should catch more stories between the Seven Swords, and wish the old monster Xu the better on the new road.
Text: Between the eyebrows
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