Stars fall here
but rise on the other side
Be the jewel in the crown of heaven
Shining forever
- the epitaph of an anonymous person
Usually it's not the quality of the movie that decides the success or failure of the movie, but what you know about it in advance expected value. Quite bluntly this is the equivalent of your parachute lightning rod or seat belt. If you look at "Women's Federation" as "Transgender Elite", then you win. This is the so-called low drive and high walk. On the contrary, if you expect "Treading the Boundary" to be the culmination of "Two Smoking Guns" and "Sneak", I'm sorry, your drawing is broken.
Back to this movie. movie title? Undead, neither flashy nor cool nor attractive. director? D. Kerry Prior, never heard of it. starring? Except for Miyamoto Musashi, I don't know anyone. plot? Zombies, hey, just headshot, humans win. poster? Very cottage look. So, for such a low-profile film, a diaosi who doesn't even have a chance to be a spare tire wants to lie in your hard drive and mine, what does it rely on? With a rating of 7.6, it is a leader in zombie movies. In the comment section, there are continuous positive reviews and word of mouth. In the discussion area, OMG, its soundtrack is actually a standard work. So, click on Thunderbolt, I'm sure I need it. But at this time, my expectations for it are limited to a zombie movie with some dark humor and a good soundtrack. Although it is old-fashioned, it is quite sincere, at least not wasting time.
The story begins in Iraq, with three U.S. soldiers, Moon Black Wind, driving a transport vehicle (should be returning to base). The director planted a moral debate here—right or wrong about the Iraq war. Private A is clearly a radical militant, and he is convinced that only force is the only solution to the chaos in Iraq. Private B showed a naive attitude. He was a patriotic young man. He believed that although the war was cruel, in the end, they would help the Iraqi people to establish democratic politics, so as to truly save this suffering and save them from fire and water. The first two naturally agreed on the use of force to kill. "There is always right and wrong, as long as you have a choice" the male protagonist turned off the lights and said calmly: "A life without a choice is like driving in the dark without headlights. When you can't steer, see or not What's the difference?" The above dialogue is a good point of the director or screenwriter's point of view on the Iraq war, especially the American soldiers who participated in the war: these soldiers responded to the call of the motherland and came to the other side of the ocean. Some people became radicals because of their red eyes, and some people were fooled by the good propaganda when recruiting soldiers. They thought they were the founders of the new order and shouldered a sacred mission. And what if he knew the essence of this unjust war like the male protagonist? No choice means no direction, no steering means no decision, no matter what the truth is, no matter what the meaning is, all you can do is keep your head down, bump your head, and what happens next (crash, get out of the car, die, be sucked by Iraqi zombies, get sick, Resurrection) are fate. Not on you, but on others. Indeed, as an outsider looking at the war, the tone of voice can only be deep helplessness. This is my understanding of the director's design of the title.
Next, the story begins to unfold slowly. War, horror, suspense, zombies, vampires, B-level, superheroes, cops, sci-fi, politics, a hilarious stew of black humor, we have to admire director D. Kerry Prior The superb narrative and multi-style blending ability. I'm starting to wonder if he's been in a video store like Quentin before. Familiar tributes are also interspersed, such as the Executioner (Bart and Joey), Detective Harry (point 44 rescues the girl), Zombie SWAT (the crime of the undead) and so on. It's a bright spot shared by nearly all directors with stunning debuts. They threw themselves into filming, hoping to fully show their thoughts to the audience without too much scruples. The film is completely self-made, sometimes mixed with a lot of past feelings. Hopefully D. Kerry Prior will retain that quality in his next second installment.
D. Kerry Prior is also commendable in that as the story progresses, he does not stop "persistent and helpful preaching". When the male protagonist Bart went to the hospital to steal blood packs because of Joey's instigation (perhaps I can't say that, most of them are also his own needs), she ran into a rambling nurse, and the director used her to give psychological counseling. Alluded to drug addicts and religious superstitions. At the same time, it also pointed out that in the contemporary society of Alexandria, people should understand what they really need, and at the same time, they should release their pressure in time and not go to extremes. In the Koreatown supermarket, the director also alluded to the issue of racial discrimination through the ironic episode of the black robbery. Black people shouting that they are doing their part for anarchism, which is obviously a serious social problem in the United States. Discrimination between different races leads to changes in ideology, which intensifies social contradictions and causes hidden dangers to social security. The fact that people cheered the heroic acts of Zombies without regard to the fact that they also hurt lives, also reflects the strength of the US police and the security situation in the city. There are many similar lecturing scenes, such as homeless people. For example, after a good friend accidentally knocked down four drug-trafficking police officers, corruption in the police sector has also been a long-term problem in the United States.
The soundtrack of this film is also commendable. The author, They Say Surrender, almost shed tears, and find you waiting at the end of the film brings the loneliness and helplessness of the protagonist to the peak. The accompaniment of some classical music in other scenes also played a complementary effect.
The merits and demerits of the interpretation of the two emotional lines are offset. As for friends, Joey did a good job and helped Bart almost without reservation. Joey turned into a zombie because he saw that Bart was in danger (in fact, there was no need to help). In fact, the development of the whole story basically depends on Joey's instigation, and Bart is a thorough "sufferer" in the relationship between the two. Later, although Joey told Bart that he had sex with his girlfriend (actually, what I understand is that Joey wanted Bart to cut off his girlfriend's head), the two fell out. But in the end, good friends, for a lifetime, are true. Bart disregarded his previous suspicions, and before parting, he sent a message of "I love you." One thing that makes me noteworthy is that the director obviously added some points to the handling of the character Joey: as the two men fight for righteousness (hypocrisy crime) more and more, Joey is obviously attracted by profit, he has Step by step toward madness, immersed in it. He is the one who has been slowly decayed by interests. While watching the movie, I also wondered if Simon Pegg and Nick Frost would be more hilarious, but after thinking about it, it was absolutely unnecessary! Because they are already good enough!
In terms of love, the director's handling of his girlfriend Janet obviously cannot satisfy me. Out of control after the funeral, emotion after the reunion, a song They Say Surrender confided too much emotion. But after that, the director has always controlled the story in the main line of the base friend, and only let Marty come forward to tell Janet's situation: she is looking for a way to save you. Later, in the face of Janet's selfless devotion, Bart drained her blood, and at the end of the day, I can't change my love for you. In the film, Janet said several times that Bart did not express her feelings for her, but the director let this regret last until the end. The director made up for it in another way: when the male protagonist read the letter written by his girlfriend on the subway, he began to run wild, full of love, and deeply reluctant to let himself kill her with his own hands. Choose to stand out from the encirclement and come to the Hill of Crosses to wait for the baptism of the sun in order to make yourself ashes.
The grand conspiracy at the end was finally staged. The U.S. imperialists collected victims with ulterior motives and airdropped them to Iran as biological and chemical weapons (I don’t know if the director here is satirizing the U.S.’s use of weapons of mass destruction to launch the Iraq War, and at the same time joking Consider the escalating Iran issue.) From one battlefield to another, fate is ultimately beyond his control and his choice. The ending and the beginning are successfully connected to form a reincarnation, and the film ends perfectly.
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