rain.
Continuous, boundless, endless rain.
From birth to death, from king to minister, from shadow to body, there is no escape from the rain that cannot be avoided.
From the beginning to the end, I have witnessed all the rain of conspiracy and intrigue, and it has been falling like this. How many things have happened through the ages? All in the humid and dense rain in the south, vanishing and leaving no trace.
Rain is my first impression of "Shadow".
It is reminiscent of the novel "Rain" by the Malaysian Chinese writer Huang Jinshu. One is the pouring rain in the tropical rainforest of the South China Sea, which is wet and greasy, and the other is the cold wind and rain by the Yangtze River in southern China, which is cold and foggy.
Just like reading Huang Jinshu's novels, you need to sit under the sun, otherwise the heavy rain in the story will pour over your body, Zhang Yimou's "Shadow" is also enough to make people sitting in the cinema watching the movie, they can't help but feel that the heavy rain seems to fall through the screen, It fell on the body, entered the bone marrow, and shuddered.
For these rains, Zhang Yimou even did not hesitate to put the palace of the king of Pei and the governor's mansion on the riverside where the river could rise and flood at any time; he also did not hesitate to let all the ministers of Pei come to the court in the rain and travel by boat. Go; not to hesitate to put all the hexagrams that can imply the future of the country's rise and fall on the rain of "seven days of continuous rain"; and the word "pei" in the country of Pei does not imply good weather and abundant rain?
It can be seen that Zhang Yimou is determined to photograph the rain in the south this time. Rain is also an indispensable part of Zhang Yimou's film and cannot be ignored.
There is no doubt that at least at this point, Zhang Yimou succeeded. The rain in "Shadow" can be said to be unprecedented, and no one has come since. It is impressive from beginning to end. It can even be said that with this rain, "Shadow" is enough to be famous in the history of photography. At least it can stay in my memory forever. Maybe as a southerner, I have always kept the memory of that kind of cold autumn rain in my bones. Every time I see it, I can always feel the same.
The last time I saw so much rain in a movie was with Lou Ye's 2014 work "Tuina". Inside, the rain in Nanjing is really falling all the time, and the rain swept through the brightly lit windows, and it was also cold and windy, which left a deep impression on people.
After the heavy rain, it is the film that has amazed countless people from the first appearance of the first stills, the color of black and white and gray and the texture of ink landscape painting. This is my second impression of "Shadow".
Color was originally Zhang Yimou's best, and the best thing to do. Even the top Hollywood director Steven Spielberg once said with envy that Zhang Yimou is a director who can tell stories with color.
Whether it is the bloody, fiery Chinese red in "Red Sorghum" and "The Big Red Lantern Hanging High", or the dark green and indigo in "House of Flying Daggers" and "The Thirteen Hairpins of Jinling", or the "Yellow Earth" and "City Ending" The Northwest Yellow Earth and the Yellow of the Brilliant Palace in the Golden Armor. Color has become one of the most recognizable labels in Zhang Yimou's films. Zhang Yimou was also fascinated by color, and finally moved to the colorful "The Great Wall", which was widely criticized.
But this time, Zhang Yimou unexpectedly gave up color, or chose another stronger color, returned to the original, and went to the other extreme. Black, white, and gray together form the colors of the entire movie, making the entire movie look like a black and white movie. A little monotonous, but also looks elegant.
Empty mountains and valleys, melodious melody, yin and yang tai chi, ink landscape, fluttering clothes. Combining with each other and complementing each other, Zhang Yimou used his strong art skills and photography skills to construct an ancient China that everyone imagined. Whether it's true or false, we can't tell, that's the matter of the historian. But visually, it's a real treat. Wonderful.
What's especially good is that Zhang Yimou didn't give up his most representative blood red. The blood red under the black, white and gray color is like the red that Ma Junior saw in Jiang Wen's "Devils Are Coming" at the end of his head. There is a touch of red between black and white.
This time, Zhang Yimou really used blood red on "blood". The blood in this film can be regarded as rare on the domestic big screen. The stab wounds on the chests of Ziyu and Jingzhou, the flesh and blood on the battlefield, the white knives go in and the red knives go out, the daggers go into the arteries, the bamboos go into the thighs, the fast swords slashed their necks, blood spurted out, making a hissing sound. . Not only does it make people's blood flow, but it also makes people feel the pain of grinning. The bright red blood that can be seen everywhere is the cruelty of the struggle for power and the strife.
After the heavy rain and the colors of black, white and gray, is the whole story of the movie. To be honest, the story is not brilliant, but at least it is not bad, worthy of the good rain and the black and white and gray colors. Just like the simplicity and rudeness of the title "Shadow", this story of intrigue is actually very simple, but it is just "Shadow". Between the real body and the avatar, it is nothing more than an ancient power struggler who forcibly added a life to himself.
As far as the movie "Shadow" is concerned, from bottom to top, from small to large, this "shadow" exists in three levels, namely, the husband and wife, the small family, the ruler and the minister, and the country and the country.
The first is the couple's small home. At the beginning of the film, the narrator said: "Xiao Ai is facing the most difficult choice in her life." The suspense is pre-positioned and it is fascinating enough. The choice facing Xiao Ai, played by Sun Li, is between the real body and the shadow, and between Zi Yu and Jingzhou. One is the real body of the original partner who hides behind the scenes and is very weak; the other is the shadow substitute who looks fierce but is actually pitiful.
Sandwiched between the two, Xiao Ai has a hard time deciding. On the outside, she has to show that she and "Ying" are in the same mind and not leaking flaws; on the inside, she has to show nothing to do with "Ying" and not attract jealousy. The triangular relationship formed by the three is extremely delicate.
But in fact, the triangular relationship of the wife with strong desire, the husband who is weak, and the third person who is fit and strong has always been Zhang Yimou's usual ethics. For example, "Judou" in 1990 is like this: a young and strong nephew, an uncle with a physical defect, and a young and beautiful woman Judou, an incestuous love between the three.
Only this time, Zhang Yimou added a layer of self-paradox on the basis of the original ethics. Because the husband and the third party here are the relationship between the real body and the shadow, the two sides of one body, and the confrontation between the self and the self.
The second is everyone between the monarch and his ministers. Stories at this level are particularly common in China's long history, but it is just that the power is high, and the ruler and the minister are fighting against each other. King Pei, played by Zheng Kai, seems to be ignorant and ignorant, but he is actually scheming. In order to secure his throne, he must get rid of the powerful governor; while Deng Chao, played by Deng Chao, seems to be loyal to the king and patriotic, but he actually hides his heart. The power is too great, and he has long wanted to replace it.
When two tigers fight each other, one will be injured. No matter who dies, it is just a struggle for power.
And the appearance of "shadow" makes this story, which should be a little cliché because it has been repeated too many times, become exciting. For King Pei, "Ying" is the great governor who can bow his head; for Ziyu, "Ying" is the best substitute who can bear the charge of murdering the king. But they didn't expect that "Shadow" is not just a shadow, he can also be a great governor, and even a king. There is an extremely delicate triangular relationship between the three.
The last layer is the national war between countries, between Pei and Yan, which is a real war.
Fortunately, this time Zhang Yimou did not choose the crowd tactics, instead of using a huge army of thousands of horses, but just a showdown between generals and a small-scale battle. This handling is ingenious.
"Sun Tzu's Art of War" says: "Therefore, the upper armies attack the plot, the second is to attack the Jiaotong, the second is to attack the army, and the lower is to attack the city." In a story of intrigue and intrigue like "Shadow", if there is a scene where the two armies confront each other, it would be a bit regrettable and frustrating.
But what is shown in the movie now is the covenant of gentlemen on the surface. Going to the meeting alone, it is still conspiracy in secret. It's not just that the plank road is dark and dark, and the duel on the surface is used to attract attention to smuggle soldiers; it is also using "shadow" as a stand-in, as a bait, even if you die in battle, it's just a "shadow". This is the best policy of the great governor Ziyu. An extremely delicate triangular relationship has been formed between the Grand Governor Ziyu, the Shadow Jingzhou, and the enemy general Yang Cang.
Three levels, three stories, and three extremely subtle triangular relationships are all worthy of deep thought due to the intervention of "shadow". The so-called true and false, the false is not necessarily worse than the real, and the "shadow" is not necessarily worse than the real body, as long as he achieves the ultimate. At the end of the story, "Shadow" has indeed achieved the ultimate.
After watching the movie and just leaving the venue, news came from Taiwan that "Shadow" was shortlisted for as many as 12 Golden Horse Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and other awards, making it the biggest winner. It seems that this time Laomouzi has a full sigh of evil, sweeping away all the haze left by "The Great Wall" two years ago. Laomouzi used his strength to prove once again that he is still the most important film director in mainland China.
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