Bloody Street Film Critic This is a film that makes me uncomfortable after watching it. A lot of bloody and violent scenes run through the film, which is completely different from the warm and dreamy Hong Kong-style romance at the beginning. But it is indeed a good film, thought-provoking, uncomfortable, shocking, and nostalgic.
The first period of tango was a standard Hong Kong-style romance. A B's hospitality and care when picking up Xiaozhen, and A B's conversation with Xiaozhen in front of a high-rise building, Xiaozhen, let's get married. We are so poor, how come we get married? We can fight, we at least have ideals, how many people don't even have ideals. Moved me. It turns out that the poor in Hong Kong in the 1960s were the same as my parents in the 90s. Similar youth, similar stories, I found the love of mom and dad in them. Of course I was touched. Of course, I fell in love with the love and righteous A B. Of course, I hope that their future will be as A B promised to Xiaozhen. However, their silhouettes are so small that they are incompatible with the industrialized buildings behind them, which may imply that they will not be able to enter.
Immediately after the wedding, Ahui broke his head in order to borrow money for A B. Ahui was vaguely vague. This also hinted at his future fate, right? Since then, the fate of the three of them has planted the seeds of uneasiness. B's eyes are distressing, and I began to worry. Sure enough, A B missed and killed the underworld leader in revenge, and happiness came to an abrupt end. They fled to Vietnam and happened to be assassinated, and the bomb happened to blow up the cargo they depended on for survival. Is human destiny really unchangeable? The last violent aesthetic is a reenactment of the three of them riding a bicycle. Sure enough, A Hui died first, and A B saved him. The three of them faced the deep sea. Does it imply that they will eventually go to destruction one by one? Is fate already doomed since then?
What shocked me the most about this film was its true reflection of society. It turned out that Hong Kong, which was still a colony at the time, often had riots against British colonial rule. The excited Hong Kong students would wave Chairman Mao's quotations like mainland students and yell that we are Chinese! It turned out that the romantic Hong Kong in my eyes was once unbearable. This period of history is no longer conspicuous and has not even been written into textbooks. So how did the people of Hong Kong react when Hong Kong returned? The people who shot and killed the people were locals from Hong Kong, but the British officers and soldiers who risked their lives to dismantle the bombs to protect the people were extremely ridiculous! A similar scene was also staged in Vietnam at that time. The Vietnamese people killed their own generals, and the Vietnamese officers robbed the jewelry store of the Hong Kong people who were also Asians, but they let the two robbers, Ahui and Arong, get down. Shocked! The way they treat prisoners is also annihilating, letting their comrades kill their comrades with low quality! The Americans followed the rules and allowed Hong Kong people to pass through with a permit, and they would also accept the wounded in Hong Kong. I don’t know why Wu Yusen praises Westerners so much. Maybe it is because he feels that a nation that has no national consciousness and loses its national culture will be invaded or even perished. If the Chinese do not slaughter the Chinese and the Vietnamese have a moral bottom line, their nation will rise and will not be invaded by Western civilization. At that time, the shocking Hong Kong had already returned. China is no longer the China it used to be, but we still have to remember this period of history. Today, how many ethnic groups are experiencing the bloody winds of Asia half a century ago? The first thing I think of is Afghanistan. Their nation is tired of melee, losing its own national culture little by little in the war, and the nation that loses its culture will only wander ignorantly and recklessly. However, their citizens can do nothing. sorrow! Faced with reality, heroes are no longer heroes.
Facing the same reality, the three of them have completely different lives. Ah B hasn't gotten bad, he is still a good man with love and righteousness. He touches me the most and makes me feel distressed the most. He is the most sad character among them. He is about to marry Xiaozhen when he is still frivolous. Hong Kong people have the spirit of contract, which means that he is responsible for Xiaozhen and their children for life, what a man who is responsible. Moreover, he does not have parents, which shows that he longs for family in his heart. He must be forced to leave his wife and children on the wedding night. He must feel guilty for not being able to protect his family. He tried his best to protect Zhen Xiuqing in Vietnam for the sake of salvation. However, the redemption failed with Zhen Xiuqing's death, so the first thing he did when he returned to Hong Kong was to find his family. Ah B is kind, his eyes are full. He really doesn’t want to hurt others, but in order to save the lives of the three brothers, he must shoot and kill. When a person’s psychological structure is impacted by society, he will suffer deep pain and even destruction. So Ah B and Ah Hui are here. It almost collapsed when killing people. The second impact was to kill Ahui. His tearful confession moved me and pained me. You call me the eldest brother, and I say that I am friends regardless of size. Ah B places great importance on friendship, as much as family affection, but he can't bear to watch Ah B lead a hellish life, so he has to kill him. At this time, Ah B should also be in extreme pain, and he is on the verge of collapse again. The third impact was to kill A Rong. He and A Rong are in a life-and-death situation, but the scenes of riding bicycles keep appearing in his mind. Isn't this torture for him? He was forced to shoot Ahui's skull by A Rong, and then killed another best friend for a best friend. This series of shocks made A B crazy and finally broke him. His psychological structure collapsed, so A B will go to destruction, and in the end A B should commit suicide. Tragedy is the destruction of beautiful things for others to see. Ah B, a rare sentimental and righteous aspiring young man, watching him be devastated step by step towards destruction is the biggest tragedy in the whole film. This also deepens my reflection on reality. If Ah B was born in Hong Kong, he would live his ideal life with his Xiaozhen, right?
Let's talk about another person, Arong. In Hong Kong at that time, as he said, whoever had the money had the final say. A Rong’s father was a street sweeper, and of course he taught him to get ahead and not to live in poverty. He also regards money as important as fate, while feelings are second. The three people played in Hong Kong because they had no interest relationship, so they had nothing to do with each other. After rushing together, he became selfish, numb and vicious for money, until he became completely unrecognizable. The impact played a vital role in his change. The whole society was impacting him. In Hong Kong, his son of a street sweeper had no chance, and his first pot of gold was blown up during the riots in Vietnam. , His illusions and dreams about the future were easily shattered, and the scenes of witnessing the extinction of humanity in the Vietnamese military camps, all of which are subtly changing him. His best brother is also attacking him, his best friend forced him to throw away the gold, and he was forced to make a choice between the dilemma of money and friendship. That time he still chose friendship and said I change, I would rather believe At this time, he was telling the truth. After that, he said that he had forgotten that he had a dad who was sweeping the streets, indicating that he had decided to abandon his past self at this time, and that he had forgotten the cherishment of friendship, but he was still not born again at this time. He killed his best friend Ahui in order to save his gold and his life. This time the friendship part of his psychological structure completely collapsed. After killing Ahui, he must have fallen into extreme pain. It can be said that the former A Rong was completely destroyed. The result of destruction is not death, but rebirth. The former A Rong was completely gone. After he was reborn, he became ruthless and became a complete materialist and egoist. Therefore, B asked A Rong to hope that he would repent, but it was in vain.
In Wu Yusen’s lens, the rich and powerful Hong Kong people are all Ah Rong, hypocritical and vicious. Rather than pushing the responsibility for shaping them to society, it is better to say that the root lies in their psychological structure. What they have seen and heard from childhood is the same. Ah Rong is no different, money is the supremacy, so that they can do utter conscience. After all, it is still a problem in Hong Kong society. As a colony, Hong Kong society has lost the culture of its ancestors and is contaminated with the unhealthy trends of the capitalist society. Western culture is not good at traditional culture, and Hong Kong is totally unrecognizable. People in Hong Kong at that time should be able to feel the confusion, alienation and loneliness, they were lost. Hong Kong people are very weak and have no dignity in front of foreigners. When the three brothers held up their passports and shouted that we are Hong Kong people, this point was made clear. Hong Kong, no matter how eye-catching the industrialization is, it will never escape the sorrow of the colony. Therefore, the return of Hong Kong has given Hong Kong people a sense of belonging, security and dignity. The song of the Seven Sons should be the true voice of Hong Kong people. Although Hong Kong has been returned to China for so long, Hong Kong people don't mention the significance of Hong Kong's return to them, but it does not mean that it does not exist. Movies, which record history intuitively with lenses for textbooks, shock us more than pale and boring words. This is the charm of movies.
The theme of this movie is friendship, and everything else is the background. What Wu Yusen wants to show most is the sympathy of the hero at the end of the road. In the slums of Hong Kong, in the rain of guns and bullets in Vietnam, in the vigorous nightclubs of Vietnam, people with heroic feelings interact with each other. Helping to move forward. We all wanted to be heroes, but one by one went to destruction, making the whole film a tragedy. In the end, A Rong’s sin was deserved and it didn’t make us much happy.
Another implied theme of this movie is peace. A large part of the movie is the Vietnam War. Ren Dahua faced his blown arm and said that this is the war. I was lucky that I didn't lose my life. The cruelty of war is expressed in a few words, making everyone involved in it doomed. Whether it is the turbulent Vietnam or the rioting Hong Kong, it is caused by war. The naked reality makes the audience and Wu Yusen resonate with peacekeeping and anti-war. The film has been convicting soldiers. They will also take photos with their families on the street. They are unwilling to shoot prisoners in Vietnamese military camps. There are even British soldiers who risk their lives to dismantle bombs. They are also love in human nature. They just fight Because they want to obey orders, they also need our sympathy. As for war, it is nothing but a cruel method of politicians.
Wu Yusen’s film is uncomfortable. It is not as thrilling as an American blockbuster. It is suitable for a person to enjoy quietly. It should not be a successful commercial film. No wonder the box office is not high. But Wu Yusen’s film can give us too much. It is a real classic. He does not become a director who caters to the market but follows his heart. He is really a good director. Only such a director can make a classic. However, there are not many directors like this in China. Many directors who can make classics have become slaves to commercial films. Nowadays, Chinese films are more commercial than artistic, and the purpose of making money is greater than the pursuit of art. There are too few directors who can produce such artistic and commercial works as a generation of masters. Only when we watch more classics, do not cater to the hype of the film market, and do not go to see movies for the sake of watching stars but for the sake of watching movies, can the Chinese film market have more classics.
Tribute to the classics.
July 19, 2016
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