When Spielberg filmed "Empire of the Sun" in 1987, he once shot the location on the Bund in Shanghai. For this reason, China closed the Bund for the first time for three days for Spielberg to shoot.
The refugee wave reproduced at the beginning of the film is indeed imposing and very realistic. This has a lot to do with the fact that the film uses live shooting, but we should see that this is related to Spielberg's superb film operation ability. more closely related.
It is said that the Bund is closed, but in fact, the scene involved in the film is only the intersection of Sichuan Middle Road and Jiujiang Road.
The red triangle is the filming point, which is still some distance from the Bund.
The four main buildings on each side of this intersection were used by Spielberg for different purposes in the film. In fact, Spielberg did not adhere to the authenticity of the actual location, but completely followed the film narrative. It is convenient to use each scene in the situation you need.
We might as well take a look at how Spielberg took over and expanded the limited scene of a cross street into a vast scene.
Let’s first look at a map drawn by the editor. This is a schematic diagram of the intersection of Jiujiang Road and Sichuan Middle Road, which was shot by Spielberg:
In the movie, it is said that Jimmy's family lived in the Huamao Hotel, which is close to the Huangpu River, that is, in the Sassoon Building. At night, Jimmy sent a light signal to the Japanese ship on the Huangpu River. The Japanese fired back and began to invade the concession. .
The light in the Chinachem Hotel is what Jimmy did.
The next day, Jimmy and his parents began to escape from the hotel. When they passed a floor, Jimmy ran to the window. At this time, he saw a stream of people fleeing on the road.
Jimmy stands at the window
According to the lens logic in the movie, this viewpoint should be inside the Sassoon Building. However, Spielberg has secretly changed the concept here. The window that Jimmy opened should be on a certain floor of the Jiangchuan Building. It is the building in the lower right corner of our diagram.
Jimmy first looked out from the window on the right. The road he saw was actually the current Sichuan Middle Road, and people kept coming here.
See the scene of mentioning Sichuan Middle Road
From the camera, we can see that there is a red building wall on the right, which is actually the wall of the Amway building across the road.
This red building is the building below.
Just a corner of this building.
Then Jimmy changed a window, and what he saw was the direction of Jiujiang Road, which was also flooded with fleeing people.
What Jimmy saw was the flow of people in the direction of Jiujiang Road.
Jimmy looked at the opposite building again, and saw seven or eight figures scattered above, which were guerrillas ready to snipe the Japanese.
The building is now gone, and a new Bank of China building has been built.
Next, the Jimmy family left the hotel, which has actually become the Jiangchuan Building.
It was through this gate that the Jimmy family came out.
Jiangchuan Building is now No. 89 Jiujiang Road. It was originally the location of Teck Huat Bank. The building was built in 1916. The architectural style is neoclassical style. The facade is made of granite. , the entrance is decorated with baroque mountain flowers. The building is not a hotel at all, but the director used it as a hotel.
Exactly the same as the lintel in the movie
At the gate of Jiangchuan Building, the Jimmy family greeted the driver in the distance, then got into the car and drove along Jiujiang Road towards the Bund.
There is something weird about this obvious position. The Jimmy family was originally in the east, but the back appeared in the west, and then drove east again. Later, the car broke down, and the red building of the Amway Building appeared in a shot.
The red building in the distance is the Amway building seen in the hotel
The Amway Building and Jiangchuan Building are just across the road. The Jimmy family came back.
The Amway Building is also an old-fashioned building in Shanghai. It was built in 1907 in a simplified neoclassical style. The exterior is clear-water red brick walls decorated with a white horizontal waistline. The composition is simple and the color contrast is obvious.
It now appears that in order to get into their own car, the Jimmy family first walked a lot in the direction of the Japanese appearance to the west, then the car broke down and they went back to the starting point.
As Jimmy stood on a vantage point to greet his parents, the guerrillas upstairs began sniping at the Japanese.
The Japanese fought back, and Jimmy mixed with the Japanese, which is the scene below.
The building behind the Japanese is the East Asia Building. See how the scene looks now.
East Asia Building
The place where Jimmy hid the bullet is also across the road from the Jiangchuan Building where he came out.
That is to say, from the beginning to the end, the Jimmy family ran back and forth at the intersection of Jiujiang Road and Sichuan Middle Road. From this, we can see that Spielberg used such a simple street corner. , the handling has become a big drama with ups and downs.
Judging from the real scene of Baidu Street View in 2016, three of the four buildings at this intersection still retain the old pattern of Spielberg's filming era, but the building targeted by the guerrillas in the movie was demolished. At its current location, it is a newly built building with "Bank of China" hanging on the facade, which is quite incongruous with the other three old buildings.
The East Asia Building on the left is still there, and the Bank of China Building is on the right.
Look again at the building where the guerrillas sniped the Japanese in the movie, now gone.
When Spielberg was shooting the scene of the escape on the Bund, the lens changed so quickly that it was almost difficult to see the actual situation in the surrounding area. Only in a glimpse, he confessed that this was the location in Shanghai. However, Spielberg is It is through the rapid assembly of the lens that the grand momentum of thousands of troops is formed, and the very monotonous intersection, under the control of Spielberg's freedom of retraction, is integrated into a dynamic that gives people a sense of scale. in the scroll.
In fact, a careful study of how Spielberg made a huge dojo in a screw shell of a small intersection helps us to shoot a huge space with a limited set. Spielberg does have a lot to learn from, and the old location he shot in Shanghai deserves our director to come to the scene to experience and observe it on the spot.
The location shown in the movie is Jiujiang Road
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