Still the subject of humiliation.
When you or your relatives suffer the most extreme insults in the world, and none of the law, morality, and justice can seek justice for you, what will you choose?
Is it the anger of the common man, the blood splattered five steps? What's the point of doing this?
The famous Japanese cult movie "Shura Xue Ji" in 1973 gave us a very shocking vision and a very shocking answer.
It's hard to describe the feeling of "Shura Xue Ji", a Japanese film shot in 1973, because it is so special.
Many people know it because of "Kill Bill", Quentin, a natural plagiarism, almost "shamelessly" misappropriated many elements of his favorite oriental movies in this film, the most important of which is "Sura Xue Ji", Even the theme song directly uses the theme "Flower of Shura" in this movie.
But it is also the theme of female revenge. Quentin is still Quentin. Even if he loves oriental culture, he is still a person immersed in Western "love and redemption" and cannot modify his cultural genes. And Shura Xueji is Shura Xueji. Except for the heroine who seems to be weak but fanatical, paranoid, desperate and crazy to the end, except for the bright Japanese sword and the blood sprayed everywhere like cheap ink without money, the fundamentals of the two are still so different - even if the film critics Think of "Kill Bill" as a tribute to "Shura Xue Ji".
Because revenge, especially the revenge of the abused, has a very different meaning in the Western context than in the Eastern tradition.
In Kill Bill, Ulla Norman's revenge is purely personal, not moral. She was originally a killer, but because she was betrayed by her companions when she wanted to be a mother and lost her child, she started to kill. The strange thing is that in this process, everyone actually agreed with her logic. Not only did the woman who came to seek the revenge of her father let her go when she learned that she was about to become a mother, she even said, "Congratulations. ". Even Hattori Hanzo, a symbol of Japanese samurai tradition, would be willing to fight for her bloody road. In the Western context of individualism, it seems that a person who has been seriously injured can already find a good reason for the end of the road to hell and the entrance to heaven.
And "Xura Xue Ji" wants revenge, the only meaning of life is revenge, living for revenge, and dying for revenge: Why revenge? Revenge for whom? I think Westerners, can't really understand even, even today's Japanese can't understand. ——Although in their culture, there has always been a tradition of resentment of women incarnated as "prajna". The only person who can really understand "Xura Xue Ji", I think, happens to be today's Chinese.
The sense of deprivation is an eternal theme in the big era
In the early Meiji years, Japan was initially westernized and opened up, the society was violently turbulent, and its values were completely chaotic - that's why a few hooligans at the bottom of society instigated ignorant villagers to turn into mobs, and casually killed Xue Ji's mother's husband and son. (I was beaten to death while walking on the main road, it is said that she happened to be wearing a white suit), and she raped Xue Ji's mother and occupied her. However, Xue Ji's mother, who was humiliated every day, desperately killed one of the four hooligans. Not only was she not sentenced to "justifiable defense", but no one pursued Xue Ji's father's death. Instead, she was sent to prison. So she pinned all her hopes on her unborn child—desperate to seduce any man she could reach to have a child, no matter who the child was, as long as she could avenge herself and her husband and son, this is Xue Ji's mother The only motivation to survive.
Twenty years later, the remaining three murderers who killed Xue Ji's father, except for one who was poor, the other two have all cleaned up their original sins, relying on audacity, collusion between officials and businessmen, and unscrupulously become high-ranking figures. The big chaebols admired by thousands of people, they have no sense of debt for the sins of the year, and they have no remorse. So, Xue Ji appeared. She was expressionless from beginning to end. She was dressed in white and had a short knife.
Who is Xue Ji, why does she take revenge, who has real hatred with her, and what is the legitimacy of her revenge? ... In "Xura Xue Ji", it's not important at all. What's important is that since the law, morality, and people's hearts can no longer judge the murderer of the carnival, then the weakest woman should take the responsibility of revenge. . That weak woman can have a metaphor, that is, traditional ethics and culture that have lasted for thousands of years.
In 1973, it was the peak period of Japanese movies. In fact, it is also a period when Japanese traditional culture is really facing external pressure: under the guidance of the anthropologist Benedict's "Chrysanthemum and the Sword", the United States began to study Japanese traditional culture. The transformation, the Americans say, should make Japan a "truly" modern country. America almost succeeded. But what is the cost of the retrofit? No one could have predicted it, so the most sensitive people in a cultural system, the artists, began a silent resistance, which was almost instinctive, but full of powerlessness and despair. Of course, they also began to reflect. Reflection is like a handful of salt sprinkled on an injured flower, which makes their works bloom more beautifully. It is the last crazy beauty, so dazzling that people can't open their eyes. I just don't know if they realized at that time that this was really just a flash in the pan - just like the Japanese bubble economy.
Shura Xueji, white snow, red blood, scrutinizes greedy and depraved sinners without emotion, she has no way out: there is no external force to support her; she has no pity: neither pity herself nor pity Others, because it is meaningless, because she doesn't care if there is a future; she has no mother and no father: the mother who gave her life is dead, and the non-blood father is a pure coward, and the blood father does not know who it is (the only one who can What is certain is that he is a shameless hooligan who even insults female prisoners). Xue Ji herself is a "hybrid". Therefore, she had to abandon everything, fall into Shura, and put her to death instead of seeking life.
Behind Xue Ji is not a mother who has been insulted to the extreme and has nowhere to seek justice, not a group of insulted women (in the movie Xue Ji was born in a prison and raised by a group of women in prison), nor is she a woman destined to be punished. The forgotten class (the one who helped Xue Ji's revenge was the minister left by the shogunate), but an insulted and damaged nation, a whole country and history that felt that its cultural blood was about to die out in the surging wave of "modernization", entire civilization.
They finally turned into Shura. ...but this is also the final revenge.
The Japanese monk Ikyu once said, "It is easy to enter the Buddha and it is difficult to enter the devil", which seems to be something in the bones of the Japanese nation. This kind of madness to retreat to the end is exactly the obscenity-style complete revenge of Japanese traditional culture against the "modern civilization" that they are increasingly unable to resist.
However, even if the snowflakes are floating in the sky and all the blood is drained, it cannot stop the retribution of karma. Of course revenge has to pay a price, trampling everything will naturally be trampled by everything. The strong reincarnation of fate in the East will not leave even a trace of light for the Avengers like "Kill Bill". When Xue Ji ruined her only love and her last hope in the future to complete revenge, her life was over, and the last woman who also stabbed her for revenge, but she ended her heart in despair. The symbol of everything is also the end of the killing spiral. Xue Ji fell on the snow, and this time the snow was covered with her own blood, so red, so white. Her hoarse roar, is it the despair of realizing that her life is meaningless? I think the director must not know, no one knows.
However, everyone knew that even if she could kill all her enemies, Xue Ji's revenge would not be successful in the end. Whether in front of the growing power class, or in the irreversible modern trend, Xue Ji's revenge is just a man's arm. Perhaps the image of a woman wearing a traditional kimono itself has shown the weak confidence in the director's heart. (See the images of major minorities we see in mainstream media today.)
...I love the movie "Xura Xue Ji" very, very much (purely for personal taste), I love that kind of revenge, that kind of despair, that kind of thoroughness. Needless to say, for me, who is fierce by nature, I was attracted to her from the bottom of my heart. I can't resist the power of revenge, the deep love and hate that never leaves. But I also began to understand, more and more soberly, that "all knives that are swung will end up at me." No matter how much you appreciate the people and cultures that have no way out in the magical reality, and their final blows, nothing can stop the fate of the general trend. No one can judge the good and evil in it, and right and wrong are destined to transcend our lives. This is the fate of our generation.
I hope that under the irrigation of blood, new flowers will still open. Sometimes I even think crazy, what if it is an evil flower?
"Flower of Shura" The sad snow falls on the dead morning, the lost dog howls and the clogs cut through the air I carry the weight of the galaxy on my shoulders My umbrella leads me to the dark road of no return I am a woman who walks on the edge of life and death There were no tears many years ago All the sympathy tears and dreams Snow nights and tomorrow are meaningless I'm in the river of vengeance I've long forgotten my daughter
In the past few days, I have repeatedly seen articles citing Yi Zhongtian's words, "Chinese people have three dreams, the dream of a wise ruler, the dream of an honest official, and the dream of a knight." Probably when there are no knights, it is the time of the anger of the common man. However, the time has passed so long, the dream should wake up. In this world, there is no need for wise rulers, no need for honest officials, no need for knights, and no need for revenge.
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