Many viewers who watched "New World" directed by Park Hoon Jung said: "New World" is not as good as "Infernal Affairs".
Because it does not have the "double undercover" mode, anxious atmosphere and ups and downs of "Infernal Affairs", and the rendering of the suspenseful atmosphere is also difficult to approach the latter. To this, my answer is yes.
But is it really only good police and gangster films in the "double undercover" mode?
It is undeniable that Hong Kong films, especially police and gangster films, have a unique status in Asia and even the world.
This has to be attributed to the distinctive and diverse types of police in Hong Kong. Stormtroopers, detectives, mobile units, serious crime teams, forensics departments, etc. However, since the beginning of the new century, apart from "Cold War", Hong Kong police and gangster films have made people see new ideas. Its palace fighting mode is quite similar to the American drama "House of Cards". The film turns to the police department under the Hong Kong Security Department. In the dark battle with the Independent Commission Against Corruption, which is directly under the Hong Kong Chief Executive, other excellent or eye-catching works are also lacking. This is not to say that Hong Kong filmmaker Jiang Lang is exhausted, but after all, its heyday is in the past.
The theme of "New World" involves many aspects: gangsters, undercover, and human nature.
This raises doubts. In addition to fully displaying "blood" and "violence" when Ding Qing was assassinated, the other plots are in a bland narrative, which does not conform to the public's fixed cognition of this type of film.
Will this movie look good?
First of all, the "bloody" and "violence" here are the plots that are enough to trigger the climax of the movie, or the conflicts that are so intense that they can determine the direction of the plot, rather than showing gunfights and violence, while the movie focuses on the narrative. .
Secondly, the "gun battle" between Yanbian "Old Stick" and "Go Teacher" in the film only explains the beginning but flashes by. This is not only the director setting up suspense, but also explaining the tension and contradictions of the following protagonist when he is suspected, and seeing the The fear and panic when the "Go teacher" was tied up.
If the viewers know before the protagonist that the "Go teacher" has lost the shootout and was subjected to inhuman abuse, and this gap is informed to the viewers before the conflict develops in the plot, it will be difficult to work together with the protagonist in the following plot, and gradually Explore movies and get emotional.
This cut is for a more three-dimensional understanding of the undercover situation.
Therefore, such excellent films do not use martial arts to win, and the core is not the external violent conflict and the gripping life-and-death relationship, but focuses on depicting the inner changes of the protagonist or the changes in the situation around the protagonist and its impact on the protagonist.
To put it bluntly, it's acting
So what are the performances of the three leading actors in "New World"?
The first Cui Minzhi, "Korea Chow Yun-fat", has no flaws in his acting skills. In the film, he also successfully portrayed a policeman who is despicable, shameless and unbelievable for his purpose, regardless of the undercover security crisis. Compared with the police, the gangsters seem to be more affectionate and righteous. This is a point worth pondering.
The section chief Jiang played by him has used the undercover agent as a pawn in his hand for many years in an attempt to control the gang, but he never told the undercover agent his position, making the undercover agent Li Zicheng in a dilemma.
Such a person who is gritted his teeth and hated, when his superior and senior director handed over cigarettes, told the other party that he had quit smoking and had the intention to quit. Naturally, it was because the student "Go teacher" said that he cared about quitting smoking before he died, which made him unable to quit for many years. Cigarettes can be quit. Cui Minzhi's consummate acting skills make him very precise in controlling the role, and any reason for action is not far-fetched or embarrassing.
When I was learning Chinese in elementary school, I came across a word - "if you want to promote it, you should suppress it first". It means that when praising a character, the pen starts from the derogatory place first, so as to create a contrast, make the plot turbulent, and the contrast is clear, which can leave a deep impression and establish a three-dimensional image of the protagonist.
Ding Qing, created by Huang Zhengmin, is exactly in line with this setting.
Appearing in hotel slippers, seeing his brother "greeting" him, he couldn't help smiling, and he was full of hooligans.
But it is the "ruffian" who is extremely ruffian in his ruffian, but he is the most shrewd and profound person. When he knows that there is an undercover in the gang, he immediately sends someone to investigate, and a killer is called to deal with it. After Li Zhongjiu was imprisoned, he calmed his emotions and controlled the development of the situation through various controllable means, and then tried to control and solve the problem through bribery.
When he was assassinated, he immediately saw that all this was provoked by the police behind his back, and he defeated many of the opponent's younger brothers with the ability of a god of war.
Almost all actions are carried out in an orderly manner under his arrangement.
But it is such an existence that seems to have no "BUG", but it has lost to brotherhood.
After brutally undercovering Xuanwu, he said to Li Zicheng, "He has been playing with you for so many years!"
This sentence seems to warn Li Zicheng, but everyone except Li Zicheng understands that Ding Qing is mocking himself.
Because although he was angry, he wanted him to kill his brother Li Zicheng as if he had just vented his anger to kill Xuanwu, but he was absolutely reluctant to give up. So when saying this, who knows the anger, disappointment, helplessness and sadness behind this man?
Not only that, he was still thinking about his brother when his own death in the hospital was approaching.
Every sentence is arranging a way for my brother, whether you are a policeman or a gangster, in short, you are my brother, and the only person I can't let go. Huang Zhengmin performed such a flesh-and-blood eldest brother who values love and righteousness. Who wouldn't sigh and admire him.
When the movie was cast, the "undercover" actor was never found.
Choi Min-sik recommended Lee Jung-jae.
Lee Jung-jae did not disappoint Choi Min-sik either.
The control of the characters is very precise, and the characterization is also very tense. It can be said that he did not lose to the two movie emperors. The boss violated his bottom line again and again, and in order to control the gang, Li Zicheng was completely arranged as a chess piece at will. On the one hand, there is the disappointed and despicable "justice", and on the other hand, there is the "evil" that can be relied on but must be betrayed ruthlessly, and the director constantly exaggerates this reversed and opposite relationship between good and evil in the film. shake?
When Section Chief Jiang betrayed and betrayed the undercover agent again and again for the mission, the undercover agent had hundreds of reasons to give up his identity as a police officer, and even Li Zicheng's last silence and excessive hesitation made the viewers anxious about it, and he was eradicating dissidents. After becoming the president, he breathed a sigh of relief.
After Ding Qing's death, there was no one to rely on. Even if he begged Section Chief Jiang, the exchange was still cold words and cruel tasks from the other party. So Li Zicheng understood: Ding Qing is dead, and Li Zicheng who can be indecisive is also dead. Ding Qing tore up Li Zicheng with his life and gave him another chance.
Therefore, he lived like Ding Qing.
Listen to Ding Qing's last words of "be more ruthless", act first and be strong, arrange everything in advance, use the forces left by Ding Qing to eradicate dissidents, and use Ding Qing's killer to get rid of the police who know his identity, according to Ding Qing's The way of Hope personally burned the data of the past as a policeman. He used Ding Qing's means to achieve himself, and also used his own way to make Ding Qing look like he was still there.
But has sitting in the chair of the president really become a winner?
On the contrary, everyone in the film except Li Zicheng is working hard for their own goals. Even if they sacrifice, they have absolutely no doubts about their beliefs.
Before Ding Qing died, he said to Li Zicheng, "Be ruthless!" and asked him to choose his own position as a gangster. Before his death, Li Zhongjiu said to himself, "Congratulations to Zicheng! Become the president, you are very promising. "The words were full of envy and unwillingness. Section Chief Jiang sighed before his death, "It's all over now!" His words were full of reluctance, but he also revealed a hint of yearning for death.
So in a sense, these people, these dead people, are happier people than Li Zicheng. Because they have no ideological struggles and contradictions at all, and have done great things when they are alive, and more importantly, they have never sold their souls.
But Li Zicheng was an undercover person in the first half of his life, lurking for the distorted "justice", experienced extreme self-contradiction and extremely depressed mental torture, and concealed his identity in the second half of his life. As a person who walked through the cracks, the dirty behind unimaginable. Because a person who sells his soul has paid more than anyone else.
If anyone was going to be doomed, it might be him.
This is also the reason why Chow Yun-fat died willingly in "Dragon Tiger". Because he wants to betray the family, because he wants to make the dirtiest deal, because he is a person who makes a deal with the devil and goes to hell alone.
So Li Zicheng took the chair, lit a cigarette, turned around slowly, recalled the past, and the camera was full of irony.
Suddenly, you will find that this shot seems familiar...
Li Zicheng took the seat his brother dreamed of, but his brother is no longer there; Mike made the family business go on the right track, but the family is not what it used to be.
The "Godfather" series has a lot of influence on the subsequent gangster movies, and "New World" has many references to it. "The Godfather" opens at the wedding, and "The New World" begins at the funeral. And Li Zhongjiu smashed the police camera at the funeral scene, which is also a tribute to the godfather's eldest son Sonny who smashed the camera at the wedding scene in "The Godfather".
Moreover, the irritable and reckless character setting of the two, the use of conspiracy calculations by all parties in the film, the male protagonist who yearns for freedom but has to get involved in the gang struggle and transform at the funeral of the closest person, and so on.
The climax of the film is that the male protagonist becomes the new godfather or the new president as the main mirror, the protagonist's revenge and exclusion of aliens are used as multiple auxiliary storyboards, multi-line cross-narrative, the baptism of the enemy's blood as the protagonist is crowned, and a new era is implied. Although it pays homage to "The Godfather", it is unparalleled in its respective era.
Many people said that the undercover agent was "blackened" in the end. However, the definition between good and evil is blurred from beginning to end in the film, and it is only interpreted from the perspective of human nature. It can be said that the "blackening" here is over-interpretation and superfluous, which is really superfluous.
There is a type of good movie, which can always be left to talk about after watching it, or everyone's unique interpretation of the movie.
At the end of "Inception", the spinning top still makes the audience unable to distinguish between reality and dream. "Mulholland Drive" David Lynch uses a very figurative lens to show the illusoryness of abstract dreams and the cruel gap with reality. At the end of "Hunting" Is the meaning of a gunshot a kind warning to the protagonist of crossing the line, or is it still a hint that the dark side of society is intolerable?
The same is true of New World.
Anyone who has watched the movie carefully will have two questions: who killed the president of Shi Dongde? Who is the undercover agent who betrayed the police in the mouth of Section Chief Jiang! Is it Ding Qing?
Regarding Shi Dongchu's death, the film cleverly gives the three forces their reasons for killing him.
The police's "New World" plan was to interfere in the gang's high-level election, as if he knew that Shi Dongchu would die, but Shi Dongchu just cooperated with the police and sacrificed when he needed it, so that the police could take advantage of it. Just a coincidence?
After Shi Dongchu died, Li Zicheng asked Section Chief Jiang why his undercover mission was not over yet. Why should he be so terrified when he asks his teacher for sin? People are naive when they are helpless. So, did he ever think that when Shi Dong died, his undercover career would end? How could he have predicted that Shi Dongchu would die?
In the end, Li Zhongjiu, Zhang Shouji and other directors, the president of the gang was suddenly assassinated, how can no one in the big gang group want to take revenge or find out who the murderer is? Everyone is tacitly aware of the car accident and doesn't ask questions, and who has the ability to assassinate the president of the largest gang in the country?
Who is the murderer? Director Park Hoon Jung didn't explain the matter, and I don't have a standard answer either. Christopher Nolan said frankly that the spinning top of "Inception" does not represent absolute reality or an absolute dream: "I want to convey to you the idea that no matter our dreams or the reality we feel, these are the things we are passionate about. Abstract concepts are only a subset of reality, and everyone's reality is subjective, it doesn't matter whether it is a dream or reality, every layer is real."
Did Nolan have an answer?
nor.
Because the movie belongs to everyone who has seen it, everyone will have their own opinions and analysis, and there is no more reasonable interpretation, so it is no longer important to dream or reality.
There are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand people, and sometimes all the director wants to leave behind is just a suspense or a doubt, a conversation that can make people disagree and watch the film eagerly.
The same is true of New World.
It doesn't matter who assassinated Shi Dongchu or whether Ding Qing was an undercover agent.
Perhaps the language of these shots that is not clearly expressed is what the director really wants to express. When you explore it, when you think hard, when you look at it again with enthusiasm, the value of these questions has been realized.
It doesn't matter whether Ding Qing is an undercover agent or not, because good movies are always like this, they can always expand their worldview on the premise of telling a good story. Maybe later you will understand that the meaning of the shots you want to explore has exceeded The meaning of the film itself may not be what the film wants to express, and it is in your heart from the beginning.


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