A knife is at the back of Ma Dasan's neck, and the executioner with the knife raised the knife by an absolute order that cannot be defied. At this time, death was so close to Ma Dasan, but Ma Dasan turned his head arrogantly and gave the whole world a sidelong glance. The head fell to the ground, blinked three times, the corners of the mouth were upturned, and he laughed—a silent laughter that resounded throughout the world.
Who is the knife-wielding executioner at the end of the film? Everyone in the audience knows that it is the Japanese devil, Hanaya Kosaburo. Who is the gun-wielding invisible man in the title? Every audience knows, it's "I". So who is "I"?
One: "The Devil is Coming" is adapted from You Fengwei's novel "Survival". In the novel, "I" is Captain Wu, who is not at all mysterious. This "Captain Wu" in the movie became the "Captain Five" that Liuwang went to look for "out of the village and across the river". It is precisely because "Captain Wu" sent people and failed to fulfill his promise to take them, Ma Dasan asked Liuwang to ask "Captain Five" how to deal with the two prisoners, and asked "Captain Five" to get the villagers out of danger as soon as possible. However, "Captain Five" actually said: "We haven't put anyone on the platform!" This is a subversive adaptation from the starting point of the writer and director, so the originally absurd but still reasonable plot of the novel was completely absurd. In the end credits, there is neither "Captain Wu" nor "Captain Five", but there is that mysterious "I". "Wu" first turned into "five", and then into "nothing"—that is, the non-human "I", so even if the original plot in the novel was preserved, it began to develop in another direction, and finally arrived at the same level as the novel. The ending of the plot is completely different, and the moral is completely different from the moral of the novel.
The meaning of a work of art should not be too obscure or too deep, or no one will be able to understand it; however, the meaning of a work of art should not be too explicit, otherwise it will become a boring preaching. Therefore, excellent works of art always leave clues of all kinds of implied meanings, and always use blind methods to downplay every hint. For example, from the "five captains" in Liuwang's mouth, the "four captains" and "seven captains" in Ma Dasan's mouth, and the "eight captains" in Dong Hanchen's mouth, are blind tricks. Not only that, in order not to let the audience easily see the meaning, the director also deliberately did not let the "Captain Five" appear directly in the movie. For this crucial point and indirect retelling, the director deliberately asked Liuwang to use a funny tongue twister to "go out of the village and cross the river" to divert the audience's attention.
"I" is neither "Captain Wu" nor "Captain Five", so who is "I"? The answer lies in a symbolic scene and a symbolic character added by the director and not originally in the novel: Qin Shi Huang's first construction The Great Wall, Empress Dowager Cixi's executioner Yidao Liu. The Great Wall can't speak, so the director asked Liu, who executed the sword to kill the national hero Tan Sitong, to point out the fundamental meaning of the film: "The Great Wall still exists today, but Qin Shihuang was not seen."
So far, "Who is 'I'?" The answer comes to the bottom: "I" is "I". "I" is a self-proclaimed name invented by Qin Shihuang when he ascended the throne. It is also the self-proclaimed self-proclaimed by all Chinese emperors for more than 2,000 years before the last emperor Puyi abdicated.
The director tries to reveal the absurdity and irrationality of Chinese history through the absurdity and irrationality of artistic language. Therefore, the "Captain Wu" in the novel first became the "Captain Five" in the movie, and then decoupled from "Captain Wu", becoming a mysterious, absurd, and dehumanized "I", a symbol of absolute power. In this way, the realist novel "Survival", which depicts who "I" was at a specific historical moment on the eve of the victory of the Anti-Japanese War in 1945, was adapted into a symbolist fable "The Devil Is Coming", which reveals the two thousand years of Chinese autocratic history and its inevitable consequences.
To the west of China is the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the roof of the world, to the south is a smoky land with backward culture, and to the east is an endless sea. Before modern times, the Chinese did not need to guard against Xirong, Nanman and Dongyi, but only Beidi, because the north of China It is a desert with a flat river, so before modern times, China's frontier troubles always came from the north. Therefore, after Qin Shi Huang ruled the world, he had to build the Great Wall as a man-made barrier, and then the Han and Ming dynasties also repeated reinforcement and reconstruction. However, after the rapid advancement of modern technology, that is, after the end of the cold weapon era, the sea is no longer a natural barrier without defense. Therefore, since modern times, China's foreign invasion has always come from the sea in the east. However, time has changed and the great Chinese nation before the pre-Qin period has gradually lost its greatness after the pre-Qin period, because countless Chinese emperors after Qin Shi Huang thought that they had absolute power without worry, and for more than 2,000 years, they willfully fooled and harmed China. The nation has led to the continuous decline of the ability to resist foreign insults. One dynasty is not as good as the next, and the generation is not as good as the next generation. Finally, the great Chinese nation has been "educated" and "rectified" into a bloodless, irrational, "better to die than to live". Cowardly slaves and cunning fools for the highest purpose of survival. If a person insults oneself, then others will insult him; a nation that dares not resist its own invaders must be a nation that does not dare to resist foreign aggressors. This is the fundamental meaning of "The Devil Has Come".
Two: If there is only the profound ideological intention of the adaptation, but there is no superb artistic means of the adaptation, then the adaptation cannot be successful. The success of "The Devil is Coming" is first of all that the writer and director simplified the plot of the novel "Survival" and simplified: in the novel, the contrasting polyphonic ensemble of Huawu and Dong Hanchen's time-sharing and each talking is obscured by other plots. Not a consistent plot line. The film deletes a large number of overly branching novel plots, and uses the unique narrative advantages of the film to carry out this tension-filled contrasting polyphonic ensemble. The key to the success of the adaptation is that the director has found the core of the fable that can contain multiple meanings and even the opposite meaning: Who is "I"?
After the title "I" was sent to the prisoners, the main storyline that followed was interrogation. The key detail of the interrogation process was that Ma Dasan reminded the fifth uncle and grandfather: "You always ask, that... Who is 'I'? "Zhao Jingxuan, the fifth uncle and grandfather of the village scholar, is omniscient within the scope allowed by the policy of ignorance, and he knows almost all the unintelligible nonsense that has shocked the Chinese mind for two thousand years. Misfortunes cannot be avoided”, “The ones who come are not good, those who are good don’t come”, “Raising tigers is a hazard, and there are many dreams at night”, “If you don’t enter the tiger’s den, you can’t get the tiger’s son”, “It is better to be respectful than to obey”, etc., and even a post about it. Ridiculous about the Sino-Japanese contract in the Book of Poetry, but he also did not know "who 'I' is", so he could only ask the interrogated:
"Tell me, who is 'I'?" The
interrogated face was puzzled: "You? You're stumped me now, how do I know who you are?" This is a language technology glitch deliberately created by the director. The core of the fable of "The Devil Has Come" is this language technology glitch— Who is "I"?
Revealing this language-technical glitch is intentional in this fictional Chinese film. However, this language-technical glitch was also intentional in real Chinese history. After the Revolution of 1911 overthrew the monarchy, the Chinese emperor no longer called himself "I", but "I". ——This is the most important distinction between names and facts in a century: the essence of ruler and minister remains unchanged, but the names are confused with the same "I". If the name is not correct, the words will not go well - said Confucius, the father of Chinese civilization. The tragic twentieth-century Chinese history stemmed from this technical glitch that confused the name and the real.
When Ma Dasan asked "Who" at the beginning of the film, if the invisible man with the gun said "I" instead of "I", the illiterate fool Ma Dasan could not know who "I" was, and could only ask the fifth uncle and grandpa for advice. : "You always tell me, who is 'Zhen'?" The learned and foolish fifth uncle and grandfather will laugh proudly: "You don't understand this. 'Zhen' is the emperor. How can the emperor call himself like the common people. 'Me'? The emperor calls himself 'zhen'. Do you know?" Ma Dasan would say, "Do you know. Why doesn't the emperor make it clearer?" The comment instructed by "Captain Five" was transferred to this: "People who do important things can't speak so thoroughly!" Then the fifth uncle and grandfather would say to Ma Dasan and other other villagers: "This errand is sent by the emperor to our village. Yes. Thank you Lord Long En!" So the fifth uncle and grandfather took the lead, all the villagers on the platform faced the imperial capital, knelt down in unison, and kowtowed like pounding garlic.
It can be seen that if there is no language and technical failure that confuses "I" and "Zhen", Chinese history will be rewritten. If there is no language and technical fault that confuses the name and the real, the plot of "The Devil is Coming" will also be re-edited, and Ma Dasan does not need to ask the fifth uncle and grandpa to ask the trial person who "I" is. If the fifth uncle and grandfather wanted to make a joke or even show off their knowledge, of course, he could test the person on trial like Kong Yiji: "Tell me, who is 'Zhen'?"
Dong Hanchen, a Chinese fool who has read both Chinese and Japanese books, would Answered loudly: "Sir, 'Zhen' is the self-proclaimed name of all Chinese emperors. I answered correctly—forgive me!"
But Hanaya, an illiterate Japanese idiot who was forced to pretend to be a peasant as a samurai, certainly disagreed: "You answered incorrectly. 'I' is the self-proclaimed name of the Emperor of Japan. All of you Chinese should be like me, serving as slaves loyal to the Emperor of Japan-you kill me!"
In this case, the history of China after the 1911 Revolution-including The history of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression - there is the most reasonable explanation, but the film can not go on. It is precisely because the "I" who held absolute power after the 1911 Revolution did not dare to call himself "I" directly, but called himself "I" in circles, so Jiang Wen and his colleagues had to circle in circles to make this film.
The reason why "I", who holds absolute power, dare not call himself "I" directly is because Sun Yat-sen, who launched the Revolution of 1911 and overthrew the monarchy, declared: "The trend of the world is mighty and mighty, those who follow it will prosper, and those who go against it will perish. "From now on, whoever dares to call himself "I" in the land of China will be destroyed like Yuan Shikai. Therefore, after Yuan Shikai, no real "Zhen" dared to call himself "Zhen" justifiably, only "I" and "I" endlessly. As a result, the fooled Chinese people mistakenly believe that the "I" is the same as their own "I". However, the Chinese people also know that the "I" is not the same as their own "I", so they have to go everywhere "Who is the "I"? The choreographer consciously repeats the variation and keeps hinting. The shrewdness of the choreographer is that every variation and hint is in line with the logical development of the main plot, and at the same time, every time he has not forgotten to deliberately interrupt the story.
After "I" dropped the sack, Yu'er got out of the cabinet and asked, "Who is it?" Ma Dasan said, "Do you know?" In a hurry: "No! I'll go find them!" Before he could open the door and rushed out, a bayonet stabbed the window paper: "Listen! These two people seized the opportunity to interrogate us! We came over at midnight on the 30th year of the year. Take people, and take them away with a bunch of confessions! Do you understand?" "Understood! Then... when the time comes, who will take people?" "Me!" idea. "So...what's his name?" "I didn't say it, just say 'I'."
Someone knocked on the door during the daytime of the 30th year, and Ma Dasan asked, "Who is it?" The outsider said, "I!" Open the door At first glance, it was the fifth uncle and grandfather who sent a confession. Ma Dasan complained, "Don't 'me', 'me', 'me', I'm afraid of this 'me'!" After the
two prisoners were hidden by Ma Dasan to the beacon tower of the Great Wall, someone entered directly outside without knocking on the door. Room. Ma Dasan asked in the back room, "Who is it?" Yu'er's son, Xiaoluqi, pulled the curtain and came in: "Me!" Ma Dasan said angrily, "Don't be 'me', 'me'."
When Ma Dasan heard "I", his color changed, and he fell ill. Ma Dasan's disease is a common disease more or less common to all Chinese people. The editor and director of "The Devil Is Coming" made an accurate diagnosis of this rare intractable disease in human history with this carefully refined language and technical fault. There is also a language-technical glitch related to "who 'I'" is worth mentioning.
Ma Dasan asked "I": "If something goes wrong, who should I call?" "I" replied from outside the door, "You!"
This is a meaningful answer. Ma Dasan means: You don't want to say who you are. In case of an accident, who can I ask for instructions and report? But how dare he ask such a question! Those who can only blindly obey, can only answer questions without knowing it. Right, no right to ask questions, and no right to cross-examine. Since cowardly slaves dare not ask questions confidently, the "I" who holds absolute power will always answer irrelevant questions. Since "I" has long been accustomed to answering non-essential questions, I usually don't realize that I am answering non-existing questions. Even if I realize it occasionally, "I" will still be so arrogant, because "I" is trying to deprive "you" of knowledge by answering non-existent questions. right, right to ask questions, right to cross-examine. In a word, "I" may not make a promise, or make a promise and never keep it, but no matter what, "I" always asks "you"! The junior didn't mention to anyone that "close your eyes" was an absolute order from "I" to put a gun to his forehead. Everyone who doesn't want to die, when the "I" who has absolute power makes a death threat, "I make a mistake, I will kill you", there is no choice but to blindly follow. However, Ma Dasan knew with infinite shame that obedience with eyes closed was called "blind obedience". Because of the shame he knew, Ma Dasan eventually grew from a cowardly slave without a brain to a lonely hero with a brain. He is no longer afraid that "I" will ask "you", and he has become an indomitable capital "I" who dares to challenge any "Zhen".
"The Devil Is Coming" convincingly depicts how Ma Dasan changed from a blind obedient who asked around "Who 'I'" to an angered one who asked himself "Who am I?" Slaves grow up to be lone heroes who sacrifice their lives, so the film naturally rewrites the novel's ending.
In the novel, the food exchange was unsuccessful. On the way to the food exchange, Huawu took the opportunity to escape and was shot down by the one-eyed and lame sharpshooter, the fourth cousin brother-in-law, while Ma Dashan, the fourth cousin brother-in-law and thirteen villagers all died in the winter. Night Snowfield. In the movie, the Japanese army commander Shuzuka fulfilled the contract signed by Hanaya because of "you signed a contract with those guys, the imperial army is trustworthy, and they saved your life". The food was successful, and the Chinese and Japanese military and civilians had a party. After fulfilling the contract, Jiuzuka logically began to ask Liuwang:
"Can you tell me, who sent him?"---In this way, the movie returned to the biggest suspense at the beginning of the film: "'' Who am I?"
Of course Liuwang and even all the villagers in Jiaojiatai couldn't answer Jiuzhuang's question, so Jiuzhong decided that Huawu was kidnapped by Ma Dasan and others from Jiaojiatai villagers, and it was hidden from the wild people in the gun tower at the entrance of the village. Nomura was imprisoned in the cellar for half a year without "preferential treatment". The scum of the Japanese army, Huawu, was greedy for life and feared death, and was forced to conspire with Ma Dasan and his agents behind him, and set up a plan to exchange food to attract the Japanese army. Therefore, Ma Dashan disappeared immediately after attracting the Japanese army, and went to lead the mysterious "Fourth Captain". ", "Captain Five", "Captain Seven" and "Captain Eight" came to encircle the Japanese army. Shuzuka thought he had seen through the big conspiracy, and in order to wash away his unintentional crime of being deceived and deceived in this big conspiracy, Hanaya took the lead in killing Liuwang with a Japanese saber. The embarrassed Jiuzao continued to do nothing, and frantically issued a massacre order of "not letting anyone go". It can be seen that the ultimate reason for the massacre is that "I" failed to fulfill its promise and irresponsibly put the villagers in danger. At the end of the slaughter, a voice-over of the Emperor Showa reading the "Edict of the End of the War" sounded:
How did I save the billions of children from the fire and water, and how did I comfort the spirit of the emperor's ancestors? This is the reason why I made the imperial government accept the joint declaration.
This is the only voice-over in the whole film, and it is also the ultimate reveal of "Who 'I'": "I" is "I" -- those "I" who are self-respecting are still the "I" who change the soup but not the medicine. After the deliberate downplay of countless details and various tricks, especially the hatred that was aroused by the massacre, and the dam of reason smashed by the torrent of national sentiment, many Chinese audiences probably did not pay attention to this finishing touch. It is impossible for the director to defend the massacre of the Japanese aggressors, but the director tries to ask the historical origin of the massacre and whether the massacre can be avoided, that is, a philosophical reflection on the massacre. If you are only aroused by righteous indignation and are carried away by national feelings, it is difficult to understand why the massacre of the Chinese nation by the Eight-Power Allied Forces and the Japanese Army of the East is more cruel each time, and it is even more difficult to understand the resistance of the great Chinese nation, especially the will to resist. A dynasty is not as good as a dynasty, a generation is not as good as a generation. If there is no real philosophical reflection, then more brutal massacres in the future may be inevitable.
Ma Dasan's indignant revenge and generosity to die since then are the subversive adaptation of the novel by the director and the director, which completes the history of Ma Dasan's growth from slave to hero. However, the hero Ma Dasan did not die in the massacre by the Japanese aggressors before the end of the war, but died in the absurd judgment of Major Gao, the representative of the Chinese authorities after the end of the war. The absurdity of this verdict is not whether Ma Dasan should be sentenced to death, but the fact that Major Gao ordered the execution of Ma Dasan by a Japanese prisoner of war who had already laid down his arms, and the execution weapon was actually a saber of a Japanese samurai. What is especially tragic and painful is that the person who executed the order was actually Hanaya Kosaburo, who had done the utmost justice to Ma Dasan. This Japanese farmer who pretended to be a samurai held up the Japanese saber that "I" handed back to him, and carried out the "borrowed sword to kill" that Ma Dasan had never been able to do before. This finally reveals the fundamental meaning of the film: no matter who the specific perpetrators of slaughtering the Chinese are, the ultimate culprit is not foreign devils, but Chinese devils. Even if the culprits are indeed foreign devils, it is impossible for Chinese devils to seek justice for the slaughtered Chinese victims. This Chinese scum major who denounced Ma Dasan as a "scum", stood there with "I" and "I" endlessly, claiming to be "the most powerful", just like a "Zhen" who cares about life.
However, Ma Dasan has grown from a blindly obedient slave to an independent hero. Ma Dasan's Declaration of Independence is: "He promised to take thirty people, did he take it? Half a year has passed, and if he doesn't come to take people for the rest of his life, you will support him for the rest of his life? Always listen to them for anything, just do it. I don't want to be the master of myself!"
In the whole "Devils Are Coming", only Ma Dasan stood out from the slaves, resisted under the unbearable oppression, and finally obtained his own mind. However, there is no way for a wise person to survive in China where "I am the country". Major Gao's final judgment on Ma Dasan was: "The virtues of the Chinese nation have disappeared from you. You are not worthy of being a Chinese, or even a person." Because in the dictionary of authoritarian China, the so-called "virtue" It is endless resignation. The so-called "worthy of being a person", especially "worthy of being a Chinese", is a mindless slave. So Ma Dasan, who had just obtained his brain, was immediately chopped off and became the latest sacrifice of "those who obey me prosper, those who oppose me perish".
However, Ma Dasan is undoubtedly more worthy of death than the countless Chinese grievances from Nanjing to Hangjiatai, and he died without any regrets, so after he raised his head and screamed in the sky, he was full of anger and "smiled Jiuquan". Ma Dasan may not have heard the wise words of the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus, but the last smile framed in the red sky shows that he has realized a similar philosophy: what is there to be afraid of before death comes? ? What is there to fear when death has come?
Five: Kafka's novel "When the Great Wall Was Built" reveals the unchanging Chinese story as follows: "Many people secretly follow a rule, even the most outstanding, which is to try to understand The command of the leadership group, but only up to a certain limit, and then you have to stop thinking. The monarchy is immortal, but individual emperors fall and fall, even if the entire dynasty eventually falls to the ground, and the breath is dead with a grunt. It is a life that is not bound by any laws today, but only obeys the instructions and warnings that were continued to us from ancient times." "The Devil Comes" is "not bound by any laws today, and only obeys the instructions and warnings continued to us from ancient times. "The Chinese life has added a little novelty. "The Devil Is Coming" is by no means a movie about the War of Resistance Against Japan. The Japanese invaders are just props for this Chinese fable, which makes life in China where "there is nothing new under the sun" has a new idea. Without this prop, the whole story would be as uninspiring as it has been in over two thousand years.
"The Devil Is Coming" is a real patriotic film, but it loves not the autocratic empire of "I am the country", but the free country of "I am me". It tells the audience that "guizi" is by no means foreign, "guizi" is in the hearts of Chinese people, and "guizi" is on the land of China. As long as there is no ghost in the heart, outside ghosts can't do anything. It is a relatively easy and temporary victory to drive out the foreign devils who invaded China from the north of the Great Wall and east of the coast to burn, kill, and loot.
"The Devil is Coming" is only to raise, and also only to answer a question of life and death - who am I?
This question has completely different meanings for free and slave. The former is an inherent questioning involving spiritual life, so you only need to ask yourself, and you don't have to ask people "who I am". The latter is an external confusion that only involves physical existence, so it is impossible to ask oneself, and can only ask around "who 'I' is". The Old Testament Book of Ezekiel once answered this question: "Since there are days, I have been God." To a free man, no one can be his God. To a slave, the master is his God. In China after Qin Shi Huang, the master was the master, the master was the emperor, and the emperor was God. As the sole "I", every Chinese emperor does not allow anyone to become a dignified "I". After the Revolution of 1911 proclaimed that "those who obey will prosper, those who oppose will perish" will not allow any Chinese to call themselves "Zhen", those who are actually "Zhen" in China are already out of place, and they have to start. Self-proclaimed "I", but in his bones he is still the "I" that "those who obey me prosper, those who oppose me perish". The Chinese nation and the one-man thief whose name is "I" is actually "I" are living endlessly, fighting endlessly, and paying a heavy price.
However, this is not only a problem for the Chinese people, but also a problem for all mankind. Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, who was born in the samurai class, deeply revealed the ignorance of Japanese farmers and the reasons for their ignorance in his business card "Seven Samurai". In the film, the protagonist Kikuchiyo, a peasant who pretended to be a samurai, complained angrily and indignantly to the samurai who wanted to kill the whole village peasants on a whim: "What a good idea! Who do you think the peasants are? Bow down and salute, but lie! Peasants are stingy and cunning, stubborn, wicked, stupid, cruel. That's what they are! But who made them so petty and incompetent? It's you! It's you warriors When the war begins, you burn villages, spoil crops, confiscate food, drag people everywhere, play with women, and kill those who resist. What do you think they should do? What should the common people do!”
There is no essential difference between the oriental servility and ignorance of China and Japan, but the historical process is different, so the expression is slightly different. Therefore, not only Chinese characters such as Yi Dao Liu, Er Neck, Ma Da San (before awakening), fourth cousin brother-in-law, fifth uncle and grandfather, Liu Wang, crazy seventh master, eight aunt, rap artist, execution ground spectator, etc., are slaves who succumb to absolute power. Japanese characters such as Hanaya, Shuzuka, Nonomura, and Big and Small Telephone Soldiers are also slaves and idiots who succumb to absolute power. Losing one's self in front of the "I" who holds absolute power or the "I" who is sovereign is a problem that all human beings have to face, rooted in the depths of human nature. Therefore, "The Devil Is Coming" is not only a Chinese fable, but also a human fable that all human beings cannot avoid. No force can prevent it from becoming a classic in Chinese film history and even world film history.
A movie is a comprehensive art whose success or failure depends on cooperation. A major flaw in any link will become the shortest wooden board of a wooden barrel and limit the overall artistic water level of the final result. Jiang Wen, who is a writer, director, and actor, can be regarded as the best film artist in contemporary China. He not only found the right original novel, but also found the right script adaptor, and the selected actors are all excellent, forming a complementary advantage. Super creative team. Jiang Wen's all-round talent and keen artistic intuition ensure that there is no short board in "The Devil Is Coming". "The Devil's Coming" revolves around the core of the fable of "Who am I", using undisturbed entanglement, more and more strange variations, endless lines and superb performances, constantly strengthening and increasing the meaning, Finally, I have reached the artistic height where the deep gets its depth and the shallow gets its shallowness. "The Devil Is Coming" enlightens every Chinese who pursues freedom and longs for happiness, instead of riding around on horseback to find out who "I" is, let alone inquiring about who "I" is with sincerity and fear, but should be self-respect and confident to ask about life ultimate proposition.
October 20-25, 2004
(from "The Labyrinth of Culture" Fudan University 2005-08)
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