After re-watching the movie, I finally cleared my mind:
It is indeed the work of Master Luo, very classic. This is a movie that requires a little religious background knowledge to understand, but I feel that the master has gotten rid of religious beliefs in the narrow sense, and is talking about human nature, how people are forced to be trapped, turn a blind eye to redemption, and eventually die. of.
The film raises several questions, which are the audience's doubts and the director's point of view:
1. Who is the ghost?
2. Why did the ghost attack Zhong Jiu's daughter?
3. What does religious belief mean to people?
The film begins with a passage from the Bible: "Why are you troubled? Why do you have doubts in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet, and you will know that it is really me, touch me and see, and there is no soul and no bones. Meat, you see, I have it." This passage is divided into two parts, with two questions in the front, which are questioning people's hearts, and this question has also become the focus of the whole film; the latter part is to explain to people How to tell who is the protector and the redeemer is also the core of the film.
Let's explore the question "Who is the ghost?"
The film reveals the answer with many types:
The first is to use fishing to predict that the old man is a ghost. At the beginning of the film, the old man is sitting by the lake fishing. Fish means "saved person" in Christianity. The old man is fishing, as if to say that the old man is saving people, but this is a smoke bomb, confusing, because a A close-up shot of the old man's hand, he is putting bait on the hook, "bait" = lure. Later, the wizard played by Uncle Huang said to Zhong Jiu, "The ghost is fishing with bait."
The other is the use of stone throwing to typify the year that the woman is the redeemer. The Nianjing woman's first appearance was when Zhong Jiu was alone at the gate of the haunted house, and the Nianjing woman kept throwing stones at Zhong Jiu. This allusion appears in the Bible: an adulterous woman was caught, and people surrounded her to stone her to death, when Jesus appeared and said, "Only a man without sin can throw stones at this woman." The people present asked themselves, no one was innocent, so they all put down their stones and left. Then, there is only one qualified to pick up the stone, and that is Jesus.
There are several highlights in the film: the first scene is that the wizard and the old man act at the same time; the second scene is that Zhong Jiu takes people to the old man's house to seek revenge and meets the driver who has turned into a ghost; the third scene is Zhong Jiu and the young woman at the end of the film. At the door of the house, while the old man and the minister's assistant are in the cave; these are three very confounding scenes, where good and evil are indistinguishable, and no matter how you understand them, they make sense. Then you need to use the sentence at the beginning to judge who is saving people and who is harming them. And according to this sentence, we also know the answer to the second question: "Why did the ghost attack Zhong Jiu's daughter?"
In the opening paragraph, the first choice is: "Why are you troubled? Why do you have doubts in your heart?" That is to say, the method of ghosts to attract people is to use people's worries and doubts to make people irrational . Zhong Jiu was like this. He was originally a timid policeman. After hearing several rumors about the Japanese, he became fearful and suspicious... Then his daughter became ill, and because of her daughter, the fear and anxiety gradually escalated, and finally brought him back. With a group of people looking for the Japanese old man to seek revenge, when they were driving the car back, when they were suddenly smashed by the old man on the car, they chose to throw the old man off the cliff. At this time, the wizard said a word: "The fish bit the bait." When Zhong Jiu was lured into evil thoughts, he became the prey of the ghost. In the same way, at the end, the pastor's assistant saw the nail-scarred hand that the old man stretched out to him, and listened to the old man reading the scriptures of the Bible: "Touch me and see, there is no soul and no flesh, you see, I am When he had already believed that the old man was the devil, he was puzzled and shaken at that moment, so the old man took out his camera, and he also became the prey of the old man. The reason why Nianjing's pastor's assistant is confused is because he only understands this sentence literally, external things will always be imitated and used, and the core of this sentence is only one: "Ghosts are dead. , without flesh and blood." So who is the dead? The old man was hit by a car and thrown off a cliff, but he survived, which is a hint; the old man is Japanese, and it also implies that he has a certain relationship with Japan when it invaded Korea, which is another hint.
There is a proof that the old girl is the savior. When the wizard sees the young girl, he feels completely defeated. He vomits and runs away obediently after being ordered by the woman. This is very much like what the Bible describes when a ghost sees Jesus.
Finally, let's talk about another theme in the film: "What does religious belief mean to people?"
Christianity appeared successively in the film, and the representatives were pastor's assistants and pastors. These two people, one is a cowardly dogmatic assistant who ends up being the prey of the old man; the other is a priest who can't save people and can only talk about it. Then there are primitive religions represented by wizards, and there are still Buddha statues in his car, so these are all classified as heresy by the director. With the help of the setting: "He is the accomplice of the old man, step by step to lure Zhong Jiu into the trap" to insinuate that these religions and the devil are one.
This is actually a representation of two religious views:
1. Confuse faith with ordinary life, and learn it as a kind of knowledge.
2. Take faith as a remedies for me when I go to the doctor in a panic.
In the final clip of the film, when Zhong Jiu and the young woman stood at the door of their house, they borrowed an allusion from the Bible. This allusion is that Jesus was betrayed by his own disciples, and the Roman soldiers came to arrest him. At this time his disciples were afraid, afraid that they would be implicated. Even his most proud disciple, Peter, refused to admit that he knew Jesus until the rooster crowed three times. When people are most afraid is when they are weakest, and even if the Redeemer is right in front of him, he can't believe him. Zhong Jiu was in such a situation, his daughter was at home, and the ghost was with his daughter. The wizard even called him to tell him not to believe the young woman in front of him. Fear made him extremely weak, and his weakness made him unable to believe himself.
Therefore, when people cannot understand the most fundamental meaning of faith to people, they will not understand when they will be exploited by the devil, and when someone who can save you appears, you will not be able to distinguish.
The meaning of faith to people is: people will not be sad when they encounter things, and their hearts will be firm without private suspicion. Only when their hearts are firm can the Redeemer help you.
Other:
The first time I watched this film, based on the biblical verse at the beginning, which corresponded to the scene where the old man showed the pastor's assistant to see his nail-scarred hands, I firmly believed that the old man was the real savior. I was very emotional at the time that Luo Dao transcended religious sects and had a universal religious view, that is: "The reason why people can't recognize who is the real protector and savior is because people will be prejudiced ( The old man is Japanese, a sinner in history), and will be deceived by his behavior (the old man's practice at home) and by his image (the old man finally turned into a demon)."
But when I looked at it carefully for the second time, my understanding was completely reversed, and the woman was the representative of Jesus. However, this cognition also disappointed me a bit, because after this setting, the concept of the savior is much narrower.
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