Years later, when I recall the screening of "Eight Hundred" that night, there will be a lingering scent of sesame oil. Well, it was the food of the lady next to me that added another sensory dimension. Taking advantage of this unfinished taste, I talk loosely about the impressions left in my mind. The views below represent me last night, not me today.
In general, the narrative perspective of this film is based on small characters, and still does not give the commander of the military a direct protagonist treatment.
I waited an hour to finally have a powerful feature from a dying Chinese soldier.
Except for Zhang Yi's lively but unavoidably slick performance to a cowardly man, the audience has been calm.
The whole film did not concentrate on managing one character well, so it was closer to an impressionistic performance than a group performance. As excellent as Zhang Yi's, it is also excellent that has little to do with the story itself. I doubt that every character in it can really walk into the hearts of the audience and find a real sense of identity.
This film only shoots the story of the eight hundred heroes, and the frontal battlefield of the Battle of Songhu is not mentioned at all. When the movie entered the main narrative, the field had already fallen, and most of the national army was at the end of its retreat.
The four-line warehouse is guarded by the 1st Battalion of the 524th Regiment of the 262nd Brigade of the 88th Division. It is mentioned in the movie that the 88th Division has replenished five times, and the main body of the 800 warriors has been the provincial security regiment. In real history, to be more precise, it is already the Hubei Security Corps.
The film gives them embodied personalities. They are not ace army, nor local factions, but more like improvised strong men. What they say is rice, they are ordinary farmers. In addition, among them are the former Northeastern Army, who are shown as very cowardly characters.
The four or five hundred national troops in the warehouse are regarded as strong men and heroes in various expressions, but in several protagonists, they have been reasonably humanized, and among them there are also weak and cowardly.
Of course, in fact, there is still a part of the backbone of the Central Army. We heard a clip where a few Whampoa classmates sat around and hummed the Whampoa military anthem softly—humming softly, and without subtitles, the song and the camera disappeared in a flash, revealing an interesting ideological fear.
Captain Lei Xiong of the Machine Gun Company, Captain Shangguan Zhibiao, Chen Shusheng who jumped off the building with a grenade behind his back, and even Xie Jinyuan, the commander and spiritual representative of the strong men, all have vague and weak images of these national officers and soldiers. To a large extent, they are not so much a character as they are just a string of name symbols.
Most of the time, Xie Jinyuan was not present. When he was present, he stood on the second floor half of the time, making symbolic speeches one after another to the soldiers in the open space downstairs. A bright beam of light reflected from the back of his head, completely immersing his face and body in a halo. His voice was so weak, and his image was so vague.
It can be said that the most important character in the four-line warehouse is the character with the least strength in the film. But it really has nothing to do with the actors, I don't think there is a single actor who didn't play well in the film. You can say that Xie Jinyuan created by Du Chun is excellent in the limited room for play, Xie Jinyuan is an infinitely lonely and desolate tragic hero under his interpretation, but this image is very fragile, far from showing him Masculine, majestic side. When you hear him speak, you will feel the emptiness in his body, as if there is no weight. Although all the characters lack flesh and blood, Xie Jinyuan is undoubtedly the most lacking in content.
This effect is caused by the shooting method of the camera, but also by the cowardice of the creative consciousness. When you shoot the Eight Hundred Heroes, it is impossible to bypass Xie Jinyuan, Yang Ruifu, Shangguan Zhibiao, these national army chiefs. But when you don't dare to paint these characters, the value of this film has been greatly reduced. If it was an artist, this movie shouldn't be made.
Originally giving up the overall presentation of the Battle of Songhu and only showing that a battalion alone who had no influence over the overall situation was already a big concession. But now, there is a need to go even further. Those who have real names and real passages abdicate into backgrounds and symbols, and the time and space that should belong to them can only be filled by fictional characters and actions.
Since the image of the Chinese soldiers is so thin, it is even more difficult for us to demand the image of the Japanese. In the beginning I was waiting to see if it would show the humanity of the Japanese. I did wait until, in one of the film's not-so-sophisticated fictional episodes, where soldiers are asked to kill prisoners, the fear and begging of a young Japanese soldier is human at that moment. But that's all, in addition, there is only one officer left with an image of the Japanese, and this image does not exceed the flat portrayal of the Japanese in past film and television works. The rest of the Japanese soldiers are just figures and figures dancing on the battlefield.
There is no breakthrough or novelty in the theme. Basically, the theme is that the four-line lone army, which originally only had diplomatic significance, through four days and five nights of fighting, saved face for the defeated and incompetent national army, made the foreign powers admire the Chinese army, and also awakened and cheered up the national consciousness of resistance and humiliation. and confidence. The film uses people from all walks of life and various colors to illustrate that the all-out war of resistance is the responsibility of all citizens. These characters are not only soldiers, but also boy soldiers, peasants, businessmen, gangsters, and prostitutes.
But whether this can stand up depends on the first link of the logic chain - the national army really does nothing. Gaining international respect is not something that happened only with the deeds of the Eight Hundred Heroes. Before that, the Battle of Songhu had been fought for nearly three months. But the Eight Hundred Heroes are indeed special, like a blockbuster film with the right time and place, and under the watchful eyes of the forces of various countries and the Chinese and foreign media, it has become a huge news event and a symbol of the war of resistance.
But at the end of the film, the armed foreigners in the concession were also inspired to shoot for the lonely army. This plot really made me doubt its possibility. The international admiration for the lone army's loyalty, bravery and skill in fighting is true, but with the weakness, selfishness, and arrogance of the concession forces shown in the data, shooting to help out is too artistic. You must know that the concessions of various countries represent the political positions of various countries. Chiang Kai-shek fought this great battle at such a high price, including the final retreat of the army and leaving a lonely army. To a large extent, he wanted to promote peace through war and fight against the international community. Not talking directly with the Japanese, but urging the League of Nations to intervene in Japanese aggression.
However, after the war in March, he sought diplomatic alms while fighting, but in the end, both sides were in vain. The spine and bones were all broken, and there was no substantial sanctions against Japan from various countries. Therefore, during the battle, the appeasement of the Nine Nations of the League of Nations had undoubtedly been revealed. With their fear and fear of the Japanese army, it was difficult for them to shoot to help out such a tough act.
In fact, after the eight hundred warriors retreated into the British Concession, the British, who were afraid of trouble, surrendered the weapons of the Chinese army on the spot. Not to mention all kinds of imprisonment, control, and conflict over the years, all based on fear of the Japanese army.
The film is full of interpretation and fiction. For a work of art, even an important historical work, you can't ask it to be faithful to historical facts, but if deduction and fiction weaken the original power of reality, why can't we ask: Why not follow historical facts?
Soldiers jumping out of the window with grenades behind their backs are pale and solemn. The times fly by, and the creator's consciousness and techniques are still stagnant more than ten years ago, which is really sad. The performance of Chinese soldiers in the Anti-Japanese War, their cowardice, their heroism, and their vivid and real details, do not need to be exaggerated and exaggerated. They are already powerful materials.
The plot of pulling the telephone line at the risk of death may be the most distant fiction from reality. This passage is more than tragic, but it is like the difference between "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "Three Kingdoms". In fact, there is a telephone line in the warehouse. You must know that the Sihang Warehouse has such a good location and such a solid cover. It was originally the headquarters of the 88th Division. Could it be equipped with a telephone system? However, judging from the style of free play everywhere in the film, it should not be criticized.
The story of Yang Huimin presenting the flag may be the most widely circulated but the most distorted story of the four days and five nights. This was due to the reporting strategy at the time, Yang Huimin's exaggeration later, and the limited knowledge of other secondary parties. The most important point to emphasize is that there is no such thing as swimming flags.
The Junk Bridge is a crucial scene in the film. Many people died here. The Japanese army shot and killed many people, but in fact, except for the battle of the last evacuation, the Junk Bridge is probably not so dangerous at ordinary times, and Yang Huimin does not need to put the flag. Wrapped in the body, cross the river to swim. In the movie, Yang Huimin took off his coat and took off the national flag, which was treated as a scene of "Jiang Wu" peeping at his chest.
The truth is that Yang Huimin is indeed brave and enthusiastic, but she is not a seventeen-year-old girl, she is in her twenties. On the evening of the 27th, she stood on the bridge, risking her life, shouting to the warehouse, asking to enter the warehouse for service. Lei Xiong asked Xie Jinyuan for instructions, but Xie Jinyuan refused. But Yang Huimin didn't leave, and asked the defenders what they needed. Xie Jinyuan asked Lei Xiong to tell: "Just a flagpole and a national flag." Before dawn, the flag was delivered and raised from the roof of the warehouse the next morning.
But then Xie Jinyuan called and asked for a bigger national flag. That afternoon, Xie Jinyuan sent someone to get in touch with Yang Huimin again and got a huge national flag, which was raised at that time. The original flag was changed to hang on the side near the concession.
In the middle of the night, the boy service group led by Ye Chunnian drove in a detour, and once again brought the largest national flag in their hands. Yang Huimin and reporter Cao Juren also came along, but Xie Jinyuan was busy with the military and did not receive them. Lei Xiong took his place. meet.
The wounded soldiers were transferred to the concession for medical treatment. The caliber was unified in advance. When asked how many people were in the warehouse, the answer was: "Eight hundred people."
In the film, a local reporter from Shanghai also entered the warehouse. He asked the question of how many people there are in the warehouse. The prototype of this reporter should be the war reporter Cao Juren.
It can be seen that the reason for the confusion in the presentation of the flag is that it was given three times, and there was more than one person who presented the flag. Out of consideration for everyone's personal safety, and possibly the media's instinct to pursue heroic narratives, Yang Huimin was pushed to the front and condensed into a shining symbol in the whole event.
The roof of the Sixing Warehouse, which was submerged in the sun flags of the Japanese army, suddenly hoisted the flags flying high, each larger than the other, which angered the Japanese army. The film deduces the feat of protecting the flag under the bombardment of enemy planes. It can only be said that this is in line with the dramatic logic of commercial films. But I didn't see the narrative that the Japanese army dispatched planes to bomb. The Japanese army mainly attacked our army at the window of the Bank of Communications on the side, and dispatched tanks, excavators, and steamboats with machine guns and mortars into the Suzhou River - but Due to fear of the concession, the river was narrow, and the Chinese people concentrated their ships and set up cards to obstruct them, so the surface offensive failed. However, the Japanese attack did not focus on the flag on the roof.
This highly ideological plot in the film also includes the plot of the Chinese and Japanese commanders, riding black and white horses, and shouting at the battlefield. The Japanese commander emphasized to Xie Jinyuan that this is a battle of honor involving you and me. This again falls into the lair of stereotyped narratives of the past - an exaggerated exaggeration of the Japanese's personal sense of honor.
Of course, at the moment when the two horses confronted each other, what we could feel was the contest between the two nations, which seemed to be opposites between good and evil. This white horse, which appears inexplicably in the bank warehouse, runs through the whole film. It symbolizes the spirit of every Chinese soldier represented by Xie Jinyuan who worked hard for the Anti-Japanese War. You can also call it the "backbone of the nation". Although this is powerful, it is still a routine and oversimplified heroic and national narrative. The audience is by no means going into a movie theater for such a grand concept and sitting quietly and waiting. What we would certainly like to see are more complex, nuanced, and novel expressions.
As far as the consciousness displayed by this plot is concerned, it is similar to the drama elements in the film. The opera artist, opera lyricist, and Zhao Zilong who rides alone in the film are all manifestations of this duality and stereotyped conceptualization. Of course, you can also say that it comes from the perspective of the bottom civilians and reflects a simple national consciousness. The opera elements and deductive elements in the film are very good in terms of routine and drama, but they are undoubtedly weakening the spirituality of the film, so that it can only stay in a superficial state and cannot dive deep. Tell something calmer and richer.
In the film, the characters are deliberately given dialect accents, but they are reluctant to dialect, so that every accent is reduced to a crappy hybrid of Mandarin and dialect. Of course, I also think that it is not a wise move to completely dialect. The choice of dialect in film and television dramas is a very difficult knowledge. I think it is generally best to use Mandarin, and I want to try to incorporate some regional characteristics to enhance the sense of reality. Instead, the audience is reminded that you are watching a fake show.
After watching a scene, the most interesting thing is probably Xie Jinyuan's accent. Xie Jinyuan is from Meixian County, Guangdong, and he seems to be Hakka. I don't know if he should speak Hakka, but Xie Jinyuan's accent in the film seems to be Cantonese in the usual sense. I still want to stress again that Du Chun is a good actor, but when Xie Jinyuan in the film speaks the mandarin of Cai Shaofen, I will doubt whether there is an unspeakable ambiguity in the film's attitude towards Xie Jinyuan.
It stands to reason that Xie Jinyuan is undoubtedly a national hero, but his portrayal in the film is full of "shadows", and he is often absent. When this unavoidably funny accent comes up, the question flashes in your mind, is this a positive or a negative presentation? Are we representing a hero in a negative way? If so, it is truly a "feat" in film history. I think this has nothing to do with the movie, just like Xie Jinyuan was told at the end of the film, everything is politics. This treatment of Xie Jinyuan, who should be highlighted the most, reflects the current political scale.
When we talk about politics in the movie, what we have to talk about is the flag of the Republic of China flying. The plot of raising the flag and protecting the flag is a climax in the film, but what I watched most interestingly was the display of the flag. It is safe to say that the foreign national flags in the film can be displayed calmly, and there is even a very large foreign flag at the end of the film, but this national flag of the Republic of China is still half-covered with a pipa. There are quite a few shots for it, and it can be seen that they want to show it happily, but most of the time it is just a blur in the distance.
Obviously, the film crew took a lot of thought for this, and once gave a back lens, which vaguely reflected its logo. There was also a very close-up display of the flag. My impression was the bridge section where the flag was lifted up after it was blown up. That shot mainly fell on the flagpole. As the flagpole was raised, it would reveal the red fluttering in the wind. corner. Just as the emblem was about to be revealed, the lens was cut off, so dangerous! This paragraph is a feat of protecting the flag for Acura, but the heroes are protecting a flag that cannot be seen clearly by us.
The most disappointing politics in the film is that the overall evaluation of the Chinese army against the war is still negative. This has been clear from the very beginning of the interception of the national army's retreat. Later, in the film, it is also implied that the national army in the Battle of Songhu was cowardly and disappointing. The logic of going all the way down is that, therefore, they failed to wake up those who were intoxicated and insensitive, and failed to gather the strength of the people of the country to fight against foreign aggression. It was the soldiers who stood by the Four Elements Warehouse to hold their respects for the national army, rebuilt the confidence of the people, and moved the world at home and abroad. However, such a pustular national army fought the Battle of Songhu for three months. Blind praise is unnecessary, but basic respect is essential.
This long-standing negative impression of the national army also affected the eight hundred warriors. In fact, as early as at that time, Mao Zedong characterized the Eight Hundred Heroes as "models of the national revolution" and called for wide publicity. The deeds of the Eight Hundred Heroes are still impressive to this day. People's emotions are based on real people. Fictional characters are still representative and authentic, but not as persuasive as real people. But these figures, even those of low-level military commanders, could not be expressed objectively and generously, so I could not help but sigh while watching.
In fact, the main battlefield of Songhu in front of the warehouse can make epic blockbusters, and a few years after retreating into the concession alone can also make a very powerful life-style TV series, as wonderful as "The Coquettish Lawyer". I've seen some extremely informative, specific sources, full of real details that completely break the stereotype. While watching, I thought, this stroke is the human nature that should be slapped on the back, not just praise or criticism, always showing some macro, intense and sensational aspects. Rather than the Eight Hundred Heroes clinging to the Sixing Warehouse, what I want to see more is how Xie Jinyuan, who is trapped in the concession, struggles with the Ministry of Industry and Bureau, seeks completeness in national affairs, and those that grow quietly in the solitary camp that he cannot control. Variety. For example, after the conceptualized Eight Hundred Heroes retreated into the concession, their military discipline was slack, and the officers and officers became disillusioned. Even Shangguan Logo had a conflict with Xie Jinyuan in the solitary camp.
But I don't know when we can wait for such a natural work and such a comfortable narrative to appear. In today's time, we are just shooting and looking at a thousand copies of the eight templates.
But I will not deny "Eight Hundred", I think it is still more representative than the film itself in this era.
It still dedicates atmospheric and realistic war scenes, and every actor has contributed abundant emotion and excellent performance.
The most wonderful detail in the film is to describe the feeling of touching a woman for the first time, which is rich in nutrients from Chinese classical literature. In Chinese literary and artistic works, the description of sex is there as soon as you shoot.
The most exciting role is still Zhang Yi's old abacus, and the serious jokes created by the slickness of the matter make the audience not come for nothing.
More importantly, the value of "Eight Hundred" in literature, it uses its narrative methods, ideology and political encounters to reflect this era.
We must always have confidence in the future. History is not a flood, history is not politics. History is nourishment, a bridge, a bond, something we naturally confront every morning when we wake up.
(Public number: Duan Xuesheng)
Compared with the concise and grand narrative, what fascinates me will always be the details, the endless details.
So, after retreating to the concession, what dangers and hardships did the strong man go through? Why did the hero die in the hands of Xiao Xiao?
Please see-
Where is the hero Yao Bai, and how many people know about the general's loneliness?
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