Tsui Hark was the most outstanding director of martial arts films after Hu Jinquan. After martial arts films declined, he tried to make a comeback with "Seven Swords", which subverted Tsui Hark's previous romantic style of "freehand brushwork" and pursued the "realistic" effect of hard bridges and hard horses. , but the market reaction was lukewarm. After several years of hard work and courage, the new work "Di Renjie refers to the Empire of Heaven" finally hit a double-bang in word of mouth and at the box office. Although the film's restoration of Tsui Hark's previous style has attracted many returning customers, more importantly, he has put two stickers on traditional martial arts films. A new tab: Fantasy and Reasoning.
Xuanhuan is Tsui Hark's forte, such as "Green Snake", which is better than the imagination and rendering of the mythical mood, but in the old martial arts film mode with action as the core, Xuanhuan is used more as an auxiliary means to create a background atmosphere. But at a time when special effects and scenes have become the dominant laws of the market, fantasy can open the door for special effects in movies. In this film, the audience can not only see well-designed action scenes, but also eye-catching visual wonders, such as towering Buddha statues, treacherous ghost markets, disguise, red flame beetles... these are traditional The details that are often sketched out in martial arts films are vividly presented, which greatly enhances the viewing experience of the film.
Reasoning is another new endeavor. In traditional martial arts films, the development of the plot is often driven by the hatred of the family and the country. There are more moral judgments than factual judgments. What the audience needs to invest is only sympathy rather than intelligence, which is obviously outdated. The introduction of reasoning improves the traditional narrative mode, and the audience interacts closely with the film, rather than waiting for the final battle from the beginning.
Compared with Tsui Hark, a film veteran, Su Zhaobin is definitely a rookie. Although "Sword Rain" is his first martial arts film, it does not fall out of the way in the inheritance. "Sword Rain" is about the chaos caused by the battle for Rama's body. The logic of the story is very traditional. On the surface, it is not different from the previous martial arts films, but the internal details have been considerably improved. Su Zhaobin is a programmer, and he pursues "accuracy" everywhere in the script. The so-called "accurate" means that the logic of the story must be rigorous, the characters must have reasonable motives, and everyone must think about problems based on their own interests, rather than simply based on the righteousness of the rivers and lakes or the conflict between right and wrong. Husbands and wives can be enemies, accomplices have their own ghosts, hatred is resolved at the last moment, and alliances are smashed in suicide... Complex interests determine complex character relationships, which in turn determines the huge tension of the plot. It can be said that "Sword Rain" " does indeed develop the contradictions of the characters in the play to the extreme.
Another major transformation of "Jianyu" to traditional martial arts films is to give modern interest to the characters' emotional lines. The so-called modern interest is not the "Chibi"-style nonsense, but interferes with the relationship between characters in a way of concern that is familiar to modern people. The love between Zhang Asheng and Zeng Jing is full of the taste of modern people, and the dialogue is also in line with the language habits of modern people.
The action scenes in the film are basically completed by traditional stunts, but the design of the action has a strong pertinence, such as the soft sword of the drizzle, the flying needle of Lei Bin, the fairy rope of the color dramatist... Different characters have different action styles. Even a minor character dies in a very wonderful, special way.
If "Di Renjie" is a change in the external form of martial arts films, "Sword Rain" strengthens the "internal strength" of martial arts films. Tsui Hark's transformation of the traditional is to draw tattoos and wings on the martial arts film, so that it has the possibility of becoming a vigorous blockbuster. Su Zhaobin strengthens the physique of the traditional martial arts film, enriches its connotation, and emphasizes the rationality of its existence. .
Originally published in "Popular Songs"
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