although it seems that mainland critics did not appraise "Seven Swords" very well. Some friends even said that after watching it, they were angry and advised me not to watch it. Unexpectedly, after seeing it today, it was a bit of a surprise.
The plot of the killing at the opening stage used strong contrasts of red and cool gray. Visually, this color contrast makes red more vivid and hot; while gray is more gloomy and cold. All of a sudden, an opposing social background relationship was completely separated. The first time I saw this color contrast used in a movie in my impression, it appeared under the lens of French leftist art films after World War II. Perhaps this kind of color rendering is indeed particularly able to reflect a relationship of opposition and struggle, so in subsequent film works, the contrast of red and gray is often used to express such a theme. Unfortunately, due to certain conditions, red is only used for the rendering of scenes and props, and the blood shots are blurred. In this way, it is really difficult to reflect the cruelty of the opposing class struggle, and it also weakens the integrity of the violent aesthetics that the director wants to express. Don't talk about the villain's ugly makeup and really unbearable vocals. At least the beginning of this performance technique gave me a lot of surprises.
However, the color of the subsequent film still returned to the characteristics of Hong Kong-made martial arts as always.
It may be restricted by the length of the film. The portrayal of the characters is really thin, and some things seem abrupt and inexplicable. However, it is really difficult to explain the meaning and origin of the "Seven Swords" in 2 hours. I don't know what the legendary 4-hour director's cut version will look like. But judging from what I have seen so far, I still don't have much hope.
The most unsuccessful person must be Sun Honglei's turmoil. The deliberately suppressed laughter and pretentious body language did not show any evil or domineering, but a bit stupid. It is exactly the image of a stupid idiot who has been vilified in a mainland police film. The most ridiculous is the line that he thought of himself and added: Bandit! What kind of heroes are you even robbing women? However, considering that there will be seven episodes of movies, the villain at the beginning should not be too stylish, so it is understandable. Because people who have played RPG games have this experience, the early bosses are generally "captain pig" type, and then the characters such as "XX Da Zuo" and "XX General" will appear, and their abilities and styles will also appear. Gradually raise a level. However, his words when the cannon bombed the mountain still added a bit of sparkle to this character. "The children of those years have now become beasts that cannibalize people..." Perhaps most people can reflect on the path of their growth.
Now it seems that the movie named "Seven Swords" is quite deterministic in terms of equipment. The power of weapons such as artillery and crossbows has been more practically positioned. There is no longer such a thing as the Oriental unbeaten hand pushing a cannonball. The melee weapon is still based on the "seven swords". Lao Sun took a snatched Yulong Sword and refused to let it go with joy. The big knife used to scare women and chop his subordinates didn't know where it was thrown. It's not at all like his attitude towards women, let alone a swordsman.
But at the end of the first episode, I suddenly discovered that this movie is really a revolutionary film. The seven heroes unexpectedly reached an agreement-let's try to go to Beijing to find the emperor, and let him abolish the prohibition of armed forces. The story of a small group of farmers petitioning after violently resisting the law. The dynasty has been changed, and Fu Qingzhu has such illusions about the new emperor Tartar? At any rate, he was also a former official. How could he be so unconscious and not see the situation clearly?
I haven't read the original work, and I don't know how the plot developed later. I personally speculate that since it is a film of equipment determinism, I believe that the "Seven Swords" will eventually give up resistance or fail completely after experiencing an arduous struggle, because behind the strong bow steel gun is something that cannot be resisted. The wheel of the times". This is not something that a few mountain villagers and a few swords can change. I hope that there will be more expressive plots in the sequel to show this theme of fighting against the times.
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