After watching "Children of Jianghu", I was completely fanned by Jia Zhangke. I even think that he is one of the few directors in China today who is willing to tell stories seriously and has the ability to tell stories well.
"Children of Jianghu" tells the story of a "big brother" and the woman of his big brother.
In 2001 in Datong, Shanxi, Brother Bin was the social eldest brother in a small town, and Qiaoqiao was the eldest brother's woman. Brother Bin is a self-proclaimed man in the rivers and lakes, and he walks around the discotheques with flickering lights and the poker tables where the organs are exhausted every day. However, Qiaoqiao is eager to escape from the moment, even if he and Bin brother go to remote Xinjiang to live the life of an ordinary couple.
Brother Bin is indulged in the fantasy of rivers and lakes, and Qiaoqiao is indulged in the ideal of love!
The first half of the film reminds people of "Young and Dangerous" from time to time, but it has the texture of "The Godfather" and "Once Upon a Time in America", which is real, simple and objective.
The shaping of Brother Bin well restores the mentality of some "mixed society" people in mainland China at that time.
Although Brother Bin is a local snake, in fact, the "big brother" he understands comes from the traditional chivalrous spirit and Hong Kong movies. There is a detail in the movie, he leads his horses to watch Hong Kong gangster films together. Movies are their learning materials. They understand gangs and rivers and lakes according to the content of the movies, so as to form a set of their own value system and behavior model.
This detail reminds me of my high school days, when many boys liked to watch "Young and Dangerous". There is a video hall near the school, which is divided into countless small cubicles. Every weekend, the cubicle is full of people. Looking at the video hall, at least five of the ten boys are watching the "Young and Dangerous" series of movies.
The mixed society we understand is the fluttering hair of Chen Haonan played by Ekin Cheng, and the pheasant played by Chen Xiaochun who is good at picking up girls. The brother we understand is that Chen Haonan and the pheasant are the same as each other and live and die. When we were in adolescence, our hormones were soaring, and we thought that the "Young and Dangerous" in "Young and Dangerous" was cool, and the "hero" was "hero".
In high school, many boys have already started to "mix society", one of them is particularly ruthless, and even the gangsters outside the school dare to provoke him. Once, he was beaten by a group of people at the school gate, and he was beaten with blood until he climbed into the school. The door was saved by the guard.
This is the rivers and lakes of the mainland at that time, and it is also full of enthusiasm and youth, but it is actually a gun version of a Hong Kong gangster film. Even believers in Guan Erye may have come from Hong Kong Film Middle School.
Brother Bin, played by Liao Fan, is such a character. With his own fists, he climbed to the position of the eldest brother. He believes that "where there are people, there are rivers and lakes", so as a person in the rivers and lakes, he must fight and kill. At the same time, sitting in his seat was also very trembling. He was also worried that someone would kill him one day, so he even brought a gun to strengthen himself. And that gun, who saved his life, could not save his life.
Fate is impermanent. Brother Bin, who is calling for wind and rain in a small town, is intercepted by a group of stunned youths who want to be in the street and almost killed. When life and death are at stake, his girlfriend Qiao Qiao took out a gun from her handbag and pointed it at the air. A few shots were fired, the young man was restrained, and Brother Bin's life was saved. And their fate has also undergone a dramatic reversal.
Strictly speaking, "Children of Jianghu" can be divided into two parts. The first half is the rivers and lakes of Brother Bin, and the second half is the rivers and lakes of Qiaoqiao. And this dividing line is the moment when Qiaoqiao picked up the gun.
Before Qiaoqiao picked up the gun, once, Brother Bin took her to test the gun in the wilderness. They had a debate about Jianghu. Qiaoqiao persuaded Brother Bin to go to Xinjiang. Brother Bin said, "I am a person from Jianghu."
Qiaoqiao replied, "I'm not from the rivers and lakes."
Brother Bin handed the gun to her and said, "Now you are in the arena."
At that time, although Qiaoqiao picked up the gun, she was not a person in the Jianghu. She really entered the Jianghu to save Brother Bin's life. She picked up the gun and fired a few shots into the air.
What is Jianghu? It is a sincerity and a righteousness. So when Qiaoqiao was taken into the police station, she did not confess to Brother Bin when she was questioned by the police, but insisted that she picked up the gun by herself. Therefore, she was sentenced to five years in prison.
The best five years for a woman were given to Brother Bin, but when she was released from prison, Brother Bin already had another girlfriend.
Destiny is often changed in an instant. She pulled out her gun and saved Brother Bin's life. It was just an instant decision. And Brother Bin stayed away from his own arena and betrayed her, which seemed to be a momentary thing.
After being released from prison, Qiaoqiao went to look for Brother Bin, and began to walk around the rivers and lakes. On the ship to Fengjie, her money was stolen, so later, in order to survive, she cheated other people's money in the restaurant. She didn't want to be in the arena, but the world and reality forced her into the arena.
I really like the scene where Brother Bin and Qiaoqiao are in the hotel. It shows a man's conceit and self-respect and a woman's collapse of love.
Brother Bin said that he could not return to Datong, because he used to drive a Bentley around the market, but now he has nothing. He didn't want to go back, on the one hand, because of a man's self-esteem, on the other hand, because of his disappointment. He used to be famous for a while, thinking that the brothers on the rivers and lakes could show their sincerity, but in fact, when he was released from prison, no one came to pick him up. he. His arena has collapsed, his era has passed, he is disappointed with his brothers, disappointed with the rivers and lakes, and disappointed with himself.
And Qiaoqiao, from beginning to end, what she cares most about is not whether Brother Bin is the eldest brother who calls and hugs, or a poor man with nothing, what she wants most is that they can be together and live an ordinary life. In her heart, there was only love, but when Brother Bin said those words, all her fantasies about love disappeared, because she might have already understood that in Brother Bin's eyes, the only thing he cared about was himself. And she is just an embellishment of his brilliant life. But she regards him as the whole of her life.
Maybe from that moment, she decided to forget brother Bin in the arena.
From "Old Man in Mountains and Rivers" to "Children of Rivers and Lakes", Jia Zhangke is very interested in depicting the changing fate of the little people in the vast time. He uses a long time span to express the impermanence of life and the power of time. In his films, you will find that people are like ants, ruthlessly crushed by fate and time, and eventually become what they did not expect. You take your life very, very seriously and finally look back on your life! In the end, I was shocked, I went, or TM's life was a mess! You can't even tell the difference between living seriously and living blindly.
Brother Bin worked so hard and wanted to return home, but in the end, he was paralyzed by a stroke because of drinking too much, so he had to return to Datong and rely on Qiaoqiao's care. In the past, Ma Zai, who obeyed his words, sneered at him.
The description of Brother Bin's life experiences is accomplished through two games on the gaming table.
At the beginning of the film, Brother Bin was on the right track and played mahjong with his brothers. The two brothers had a dispute over the debt issue. Brother Bin was chatting and laughing while playing mahjong to resolve their conflicts. Seemingly a big problem, it can be easily solved in a few understatements.
But at the end of the film, when Brother Bin returned to Datong after being paralyzed, the younger brother at that time had to bet against him in public and humiliated him by winning a wheelchair.
However, in this game of dignity, he lost the bet.
This gambling game makes people feel a lot of emotion, life seems like this gambling game, winning or losing is not controlled by oneself, it is all based on luck.
The same sense of fate can also be found in "Old Man in Mountains and Rivers". In the love triangle between Shen Tao and Liang Zi and Zhang Jinsheng, Shen Tao finally chose Zhang Jinsheng, and Liang Zi therefore left his hometown. But many years later, when Liang Zi returned to his hometown due to illness, things had already changed. Shen Tao actually divorced Zhang Jinsheng, and he himself, who left because of self-esteem, said he would never come back. Do not accept Shen Tao's help.
Life, those former youthful spirits are simply not worth mentioning.
In Jia Zhangke's films, he likes to bring some private goods with him. In "Old Man in Mountains and Rivers", he used Shen Tao's mouth to say, "Everyone can only accompany you for a while." And in "Children of Jianghu", he expressed his view of the universe through Xu Zheng's mouth, "We are all prisoners of the universe". He also expressed the emptiness of life through a clever mouth, "After burning at high temperature, volcanic ash is the cleanest."
Human life is like a volcanic eruption. It has been hot and burned, but after years of tempering and changes in the world, in the end, looking back, everything in the world is fleeting, and self-esteem and conceit are all obsessions in the heart. But most people, like Brother Bin, have been chasing vain fame and fortune all their lives, but they just ignore the most precious thing that they should care about the most - a woman's sincere love for him. However, many things in this world can't stand the test of time. Brotherhood will betray, and rivers and lakes will disappear. Only love can stand the test of time.
In the last scene of the film, in the camera, Qiaoqiao wandered at the door wistfully after knowing that Brother Bin was gone, how hopeful that, in addition to the audience, there was Brother Bin who was watching all this while sitting behind the camera. Because Qiaoqiao's love for him is worth protecting for the rest of his life.
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