I watched this film as early as last September. I wanted to write a film review, but I didn’t. I watched it again recently and realized that it was a very difficult film to evaluate. On the one hand, the film was generally energetic and combative. With wonderful and beautiful scenes, it is a good work as a commercial film, but on the other hand, many parts of the film are too naive and the logic is too confusing. After watching it for the first time, it is difficult for me to tell what kind of point of view I should hold.
Although the film has many problems and even obvious breakouts, it is undeniable that this is a rare work in recent years, so I very much agree with a certain media's evaluation of this film: a chaotic but absolutely wonderful entertainment blockbuster. Maybe it's been a long time, I can think calmly, and now I know why I have such a contradictory attitude towards this film. It all depends on one person—Jackie Chan. It is our admiration and expectations of him that make a simple entertainment film a bit heavy and contrived. At the same time, it is also because of this expectation that Jackie Chan's performance is somewhat unnatural, and he deliberately wants to create something, but it is not very successful. Let's first see what kind of story this is.
The film takes an earth-shattering war as the background and tells an unforgettable love cycle: greed, betrayal, struggle, love, which has been writing the history of mankind for thousands of years. Yu Shu, a brave and skilled general of the Qin Dynasty, was ordered by Qin Shi Huang to escort the Korean princess Yu Shu into Qin Wei's concubine. In order to protect Princess Yushu, Meng Yi clasped hands and fell into Wanzhang Waterfall with the chariot... The same dream has been entangled with archaeologist Jack (Jackie Chan) for many years. ornaments), which fascinated him even more and made him fascinated by Qin Dynasty antiquities.
Invited by his friend William (Leung Ka Fai), Jack started an archaeological journey on the edge of life and death, slowly implicated in the secret of the beauty in his dreams by the magical floating power emitted by the gems of the Qin Dynasty. The closer the truth is, the more difficult it is to explain and the more unable one is to extricate oneself. In mythology, in fact, it is inseparable from the most realistic nature of love, hatred, and greed. Jack and William took a helicopter to the top of Lishan Mountain and entered the canyon of the waterfall group.
There was a time tunnel in it, which could lead to the suspended Tiangong. Yu Shu appeared alive in front of Jack's eyes. Yu Shu, who had been waiting for thousands of years, thought it was Meng Yi who kept his promise and came back to find her. He was very moved. Jack finally met the woman of his dreams, and the two vowed to be together forever. Mr. Gu wanted to harm Jack, but was fortunately stopped by William. In the end, Mr. Gu was crushed to death by a large stone, and William decided to bury him in the ground, leaving his name in history. Yushu knows that Jack is not the real Mengyi at all, and wants to stay and continue to wait for the fulfillment of the promise. Some people are fighting for fame, some people are chasing profits. Will Jack give up the present for love, hug the North Korean princess Yushu, and stay together forever? The answer is, of course, no. The hero still has to return and live in reality, which is the convention of Jackie Chan-style films.
In fact, this film is still very good in terms of imagination. Through a paragraph in "Historical Records", it makes a big fuss, that is, "a falling star goes down the east country, and the ground is a stone," imagining that meteorites have the ability to make objects free from gravity. The magic of it has become the core of the construction of the vast mausoleum of the Qin Emperor. In the imagination of the imperial mausoleum, the expression "pearls make stars, mercury crosses the Milky Way" is incisively and vividly expressed, has a strong visual shock, and the reproduction of history thousands of years ago is also very consistent with traditional Chinese aesthetics.
However, there is a lack of imagination in the plot of the story, and even a very naive mistake, such as the samurai sword worn by General Goryeo, should be only two thousand years later. If the whole film is divided into three chapters, the ancient part is the first chapter, Qin Song; the modern part is the second chapter, Indiana Jones; So in general, the first part is substandard, the second part is Jackie Chan's "signature dish," no problem, and the third part is quite creative, but only on the set. Therefore, in this magnificent work, Jackie Chan did not have many breakthroughs, and still relies on his personal style to make up for various deficiencies. Although a person is wonderful, he still has some regrets.
The name Jackie Chan is a milestone in the Chinese film industry and even in the hearts of all Chinese. No matter what he does or is as a person, he is like the character in the film, a hero and a good person. His films were well-received and sold, becoming a banner for Chinese-language films. His true kung fu, his dedication, perseverance, and affinity have made him an idol and a source of pride to countless Chinese people over the years. Jackie Chan is a myth in our hearts. But precisely because of this, the expectation of the depth of love is also greater. We always hope that Jackie Chan can bring us more surprises, not just familiar stories and gradually produce heroic fatigue, and we see that what arrives is often more exciting, but lacks depth.
It's easy to group the characters played by Jackie Chan into one category: the "civilian hero." Whether it's a policeman or a general, a chef or whatever, there's a sense of déjà vu. This is not to say that his acting skills are not good; it is that his personal character is too strong, and the characters he has portrayed in the past are too deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. Therefore, although Jackie Chan himself has repeatedly stated that each of his films must be different from the past, he does not want to repeat the same thing. The role is gone, but in "Myth" we still see his former shadow, such as a scene in which Jackie Chan and a few Disha policemen fight on an assembly line covered with super glue, using the effect of glue.
Jackie Chan designed a full body of tricks and wonderful movements, much like Jackie Chan in the golden age. It can be said that without these scenes, it really can't be said to be Jackie Chan's films, and watching his films is just watching these. It is true that this is also good, but think about it in reverse. Is this a kind of repetition and limitation? From an objective point of view, each of Jackie Chan's films is quite wonderful to watch alone, but after watching them one by one, it seems that something is missing, which is a bit regrettable. What is missing? I think it's the lack of breakthrough, the breakthrough in character and styling in substance but not on the surface. Another regret is the lack of heavy opponents. Looking at Jackie Chan's films, although each of them is full of stars, the actors who play the opponents are all lacking in drama. The insidious ones are okay, but they have no personality or thinking. They just set up obstacles one by one and wait. Jackie Chan's overcoming lacks the suffocating confrontation, confrontation, and confrontation between De Niro and Pacino in "Pirates of Fire".
All the characters (even the supporting ones) are designed to obey and serve the protagonist's surroundings, which is very similar to Bond in the 007 series, but Connery and Brosnan, who played Bond, have both stepped out of the 007 model. In the absence of a halo Under the circumstances, he has successfully created many different types of equally wonderful screen images. Therefore, we should also expect that what Jackie Chan brings to us is not only a successful entertainment film and a fixed model, but a real breakthrough and greater brilliance.
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