With his unique "new martial arts" vocabulary, Tsui Hark made a great contribution to saving the then depressed Hong Kong film market. After opening the Hong Kong market, he went to Hollywood to develop for a period of time, and his two works, "The King of Counterattack" and "Thunder Strike", both encountered Waterloo.
After returning to Hong Kong from Hollywood, Tsui Hark's first film was "Upstream and Downstream". At that time, Xu Keruo said that he was not as experienced as To Qifeng in shooting shootout films, but when he was shooting martial arts films in his early years, the influence of Yuan Heping and Liu Jialiang gave Tsui Hark a relatively solid theoretical foundation of martial arts. Coupled with his directing experience in Hollywood, Tsui Hark had a better understanding of martial arts. Other directors in the Chinese-language film industry have more diverse film vocabulary reserves.
The story begins with the encounter between the bartender Ajie (played by Nicholas Tse) and the policewoman Azu (played by Xu Ziqi). Applejack is a cynical "urban night out" who makes a living by bartending. One day, Azu, a gay policewoman, and her lover, who is also a policewoman, went to the bar where Ajie made a living to have fun, but they had a heated argument and broke up. Ajie originally wanted to comfort Azu and invited her to drink, but the broken-hearted Azu was furious. Ajie, who touched the cold bench, provoked Azu to fight alcohol, so the two drank all over the bar street in one night.
In "The Ferryman", it is the climax of the whole play. In "Downstream and Countercurrent", it is only the introduction of the story and the fuse of contradiction. The wine fight made the two have a one-night stand. A few months later, Ajie met Azu, who was about to give birth, on the street. He decided to take on the responsibility of being a father. Ajie changed his job as a bodyguard in order to get a higher income so that Azu could pay for the miscarriage. Neither Ajie nor Azu wanted to have anything to do with each other, but the accidental birth of the child changed Ajie's destiny.
"Downstream and Countercurrent" takes Ajie's perspective as the entry point, and still follows the style of Tsui Hark's old works, including the personalization of tiny entry points, the juxtaposition of multiple contradictions, and the exploration of the value of human existence. In addition to the large stream of consciousness monologue that makes the film's emotions more delicate, what is more advanced than Tsui Hark's previous works is that "Downstream and Countercurrent" explores the value of people from the level of the id to the self and the supernatural. I, the protagonist, have a clear sense of my own sense of responsibility.
The use of lens language and text language is also quite contrasting with black humor. The opening narration quotes an excerpt from the Book of Genesis in the Old Testament. When it comes to "the first day, God created the light", the scene shows the Hong Kong nightlife, as if the "light" mentioned in the "Old Testament" refers to the bizarre city under neon lights; when the narrator mentioned "On the third day, God created water", the camera aimed at the rows of drinks at the bar and Applejack's hand that was mixing drinks, and when it came to "God created men and women", the male and female protagonists appeared one after another.
This group of shots as an introduction lasts less than a minute before and after. However, the idea is unrestrained, and the execution is seamless. The montage editing method directly reminds me of the movie "Pulp Fiction" in which the drug dealer Lance with curly blonde hair and white pajamas is exactly what Raphael wrote about Jesus. parody. I really want to know what the minds of these brainy artists are thinking when they read the Bible.
In addition to the bizarre plot, there are also many interesting tidbits outside the film. The starring Nicholas Tse, Xu Ziqi, Lu Qiaoyin and Wu Bai were all known for their "rebellious" images in the entertainment news of the year. At that time, the aftermath of the scandal between Nicholas Tse and Lu Qiaoyin had not been completely exhausted. In the play, they were intimate but did not call. The other two actors, Huang Qiusheng and Gong Shuoliang, who played a lot of roles, were both mixed races, which made this film based on a cross-border shootout even more interesting. Add a touch of exoticism.
In the film, when Wu Bai and Nicholas Tse met, Wu Bai sang a song called "Wine Glass in the Air" and called it a birthday song. Nicholas Tse was asked to find the music box that played the birthday song. The song was actually written by Wu Bai on the set when it was filmed.
Although the close shooting scene in the second half of the film tends to clutter the narrative, the end of the film allows the audience to clarify the growth trajectory of the protagonist, and the idea is considered complete. In Tsui Hark's films, there are many such relics, such as "The Legend of Shushan" and "Seven Swords", all of which are due to the "barrel effect", so that the defects in the film that were not too serious directly affect the fate of the film. . "Upstream and Downstream" belongs to the most unfortunate kind. Even film scholars who study Tsui Hark have turned a blind eye to it, but if you look at the film again, you can still find many things worth learning from today's filmmakers.
for "The Paper"
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