First, the focus is out of balance.
I have never been able to clearly feel what Feng Xiaogang wants to show in "Assembly". In the process of watching, I felt the distinct styles of different types of films, one skin at a time.
The first is a war movie, in which the portrayal of all characters is given way to the line drawing of war. The second is the suspense film, which started a long verification process around the core question of whether the assembly number was blown in the regiment. Then there is the historical film. We miraculously travel through time and space, witnessing the major battlefields that our PLA uncles have stepped on. Then there is the unjust crime film, which seems to be the "Days of Leaving Lei Feng" that the school organized to watch when I was a child. Later, it was a political film. Gu Zidi was like Rambo in "First Blood 1", which made a moderate and conservative reflection on whether society respects history. Followed by a patriotic education film, with the two nympho-like annunciations of the head woman, we finally ushered in a harmonious ending. Finally, when I saw the subtitle of the origin of the name of Guzidi, I suddenly realized that Feng Xiaogang wanted to make a biopic.
It can be seen that Feng Xiaogang has great ambitions. He not only wanted to show the dedication and blood of the protagonist of Gu Zidi, but also wanted to portray the group portrait of the 9 soldiers in a vivid way. It's a pity that the warriors are still relatively face-to-face, very fierce and mentally handicapped, and Gu Zidi's character is too much displayed after the war. In the first half, there is nothing impressive except for his rich combat experience. This leads to an imbalance of themes throughout the article. In the first half, there were so many names of the soldiers of the Nine Company that we couldn't remember, and it was hard to remember that they all died immediately. In the second half, we followed Gu Zidi on a journey to find the truth, but we found that Gu Zidi was not such a charismatic person. Sometimes we thought he was cute, and sometimes we thought he was too unpredictable. He overemphasized the sacrifice of his comrades, but he could not see the pain of others. It's not that the character was unsuccessfully portrayed, but that the eldest brother's charisma is not enough, which makes people not have a strong interest in continuing to pay attention to his fate. In this way, the whole film becomes a bit anticlimactic, which has become the biggest fault of the film. By the way, the several things that Gu Zidi did in the back-"solving", "finding the corpse", "correcting the name", the plot was handled with unclear motives, unreasonable logic, and unclear levels, which was rather bad. Especially in the scene of throwing a chair, at the end of the plot, there is no account of how Gu Zidi's enemy uniform was put on, so the reason for supporting Gu Zidi to drop the chair is gone, and the purpose of shaping the characters is not achieved, but it makes people even more annoying. The grumpy character of the millet. Here I need to state that I don't hate Gu Zidi, on the contrary, I like him very much and appreciate Zhang Hanyu's performance, but I think the script's shaping of Gu Zidi has not achieved the goal that the whole film hopes to achieve.
Feng Xiaogang also wanted to gain something in suspense. Basically it revolves around the question of whether to blow the horn or not. In fact, both the audience and Gu Zidi were scorched by the scorched platoon leader (this statement may be disrespectful, please forgive me) when he lied, he already knew the truth, but Gu Zidi later had this after Liang Zi told the truth. The big reaction is a bit unbearable to scrutinize - if Gu Zidi really thinks that he will blow it later, then his image in the audience's heart will change from sticking to the military order to deliberately betraying his comrades in arms; if he thinks he didn't blow it, then such a strong reaction is a hypocritical performance . In either case, this paradox hinders the shaping of Gu Zidi's characters. The biggest problem with this suspense is that Platoon Chief Jiao should not be allowed to lie, and even less should Gu Zidi choose to stay with great fanfare during the dispute of Jiulianlian. Because this will make the audience's judgment finalized, and the suspense effect will be greatly reduced. I think Feng Xiaogang is really not experienced enough here. He has paved the way for the phenomenon of tinnitus in many soldiers, but he has abandoned tinnitus at such a good juncture in creating suspense. Tinnitus Tinnitus Tinnitus! ! ! Don't let anyone lie, don't let anyone be shaken, don't let anyone argue - these will affect the character building and the driving force of the future plot - Feng Xiaogang, you just need to make the soldiers tinnitus and deaf! Because the battle was too intense, the soldiers' ears were damaged, and no one could determine whether the rallying horn sounded or not. At this time, Gu Zidi spoke. If we didn't hear it, we must fight to the last person! In this way, neither the audience nor the characters in the play know whether the trumpet has been blown or not, then the suspense is powerfully formed, and this suspense has become a powerful driving force to promote the plot of the second half of the movie, which effectively complements the thin character of Gu Zidi. The flaws allow the second half of the film to have a direction, expectations, and an end.
Feng Xiaogang also wanted to create an epic feel. Maybe the epic sense he understood was "The Great Movement of Heaven and Earth", so we experienced many inexplicable scenes. Not only did we walk around in the Korean battlefield, we also witnessed a military marriage, and finally we went to dig a "brother buried under the coal mine". (I see that it is extremely cold here, and Director Feng must not have insinuated, he is not like him), but as I said just now, there are quite a lot of places to run, but I wrote so much In addition to not very prominently perfecting the character of Gu Zidi, it does not contribute to the plot. The role of the head of the artillery regiment is not a pity to delete. The design is inexplicable. Although he is helpful to Gu Zidi's pursuit of the truth, he does not help the audience to understand the theme of the film. Several scenes with him as the protagonist interfere with us. The understanding of the theme of the film, and he is not the key factor to promote the development of the plot. Let us analyze the theme of the whole article in detail - "Every sacrifice is worth remembering" (Feng introduction), and then analyze the role of the three scenes of the Korean battlefield, military marriage, and coal mining, and you will find the arrangement of "Assembly" The scenes are so random that the purpose of the three scenes could have been concentrated in the previous scenes in another way. The drama of the Korean battlefield did not promote the plot, but there were two promotions for Guzidi: one is that Guzidi has a lot of experience in adapting to the battlefield; So don't be afraid of dying. The former role has actually been fully demonstrated in the Yaozi battlefield. The latter effect, as mentioned above, creates a slight contradiction. Gu Zidi's more accurate mentality should not be guilt, but to seek an answer to the questions of the 47 martyrs. So the Korean battlefield is of little significance. Let's watch the military marriage scene again, and connect with the clues that have proved beyond doubt that the Korean battlefield is a scene of saving the life of the regiment commander, but it has no effect on the plot and the characters. His people - the good buddy, the head and the head's wife, but the role of the two later was really annoying - the head of the head was responsible for sending and receiving letters, and the head's wife was responsible for reading and crying. I have to say one more thing, these two are helping the millet and disservice to the audience - even if their help is limited, they have robbed the scene. Then there is the scene of digging coal to find the corpse, which has no more meaning except to show the persistence (or stubbornness) of the millet land.
The final subtitle, explaining the origin of the name of Guzidi, is a bit baffling to the whole film. I know that Director Feng has a lot of affection for such grassroots characters, but from the perspective of the whole film, it would be better to put less emphasis on Gu Zidi. Whether this film is about things or people, Director Feng is very uncertain.
Second, common sense mistakes.
There will always be mistakes, and there are a few obvious ones, and it's okay to talk about them.
First of all, a little doubt, during the war of liberation, would an ordinary platoon of the PLA use such military gestures when fighting street battles?
Secondly, Hu Jun was roasting military boots when the head of Liu, played by Hu Jun, and Gu Zidi were explaining their tasks. This detail is actually very good and real, but the previous picture is: Hu Jun is roasting his boots on the right, and Gu Zidi throws them on the ground on the left; the latter picture is a close-up, the left hand is holding the boots and roasting. Yes, it was either through the gang, or it was a counter-attack across the axis. In short, it was a relatively low-level mistake.
Then, in the battle of Kiln, the first enemy army was the artillery raid. , and it's all intact, it's a miracle. It seems that the Great God of Character is always on the side of justice.
Also, didn't the last instructor Wang who urinated his pants blew up the broken kiln filled with the remains of the soldiers of the Nine Company in front of Gu Zidi? Gu Zidi later revisited the old place to look for the kiln to find the remains. Was it a concussion? forget? What is even more miraculous is that the remains of the martyrs who were blown up and "could not be pinched (Gu Zidi's line)" were actually found later, and they were still 47 intact. It seems that Instructor Wang detonated a fake bomb at the beginning.
Third, the rhythm is out of control.
Anticlimactic is the biggest flaw in the film. As mentioned above, from the first battle, the excitement became less and less. After experiencing the unnecessary supporting roles and unnecessary plots in the later stage, the interest in watching this film was basically lost. This isn't Director Feng's problem, it's the script's problem.
In addition to the revisions I made earlier, my current surgical plan is: I changed the setting of the lie and dispute of the platoon leader, and changed it to tinnitus inaudible to create enough suspense; later, I removed the two roles of the artillery regiment leader and his wife. And related plots, "solving", "finding the corpse", and "rectifying the name" into one clue is "solving"; the controversy of the whole film is whether there is a rallying trumpet, which has become Gu Zidi's heart knot. The organization set up and arranged more obstacles in the journey to seek answers, and finally found the cruel answer that Captain Liu decided not to blow the assembly call and sacrifice the Nine Company to keep the whole regiment, but Gu Zidi realized the "sacrifice" in front of the headstone of Liu "The heavier meaning of the word - no matter how big or small, sacrifice is always needed, without sacrifice, there will be no establishment of great achievements, and the most important thing for the remaining people is to be able to live.
Finally, the overall structure of the whole film is two-wire parallel. The cross-editing of war and peace echoes each other, and the final outcome is that in the time of peace, the truth was sought in a zealous manner, and all the nine companies died heroically in the time of war.
Fourth, the effect of the East is more obvious.
While pointing out the inadequacies, I must first applaud this kind of "Eastern-style frown" and applaud Feng Xiaogang's pioneering and enterprising spirit.
And the so-called "Dongshi effect frown" is that "Assembly" learned "Saving Private Ryan" not only in a good way, but simply copied it. When I saw Instructor Wang, who was urinating his pants, went from being useless to bloody, I thought of the German translation Urban that Tom Hanks found (miracle I remembered his name); when I saw the blood-stained home letter, I sprayed; By the time I hit the tank nine times in a row, I was already cheering loudly! The strength of the uncle of the Chinese People's Liberation Army has surpassed the strength of the American soldiers of the same period! Think about it, in "Saving Private Ryan", Tom Hanks, who was a teacher, lost because the German tank was too strong, and Gu Zidi didn't know the characters, but he was able to destroy the three tanks of Jiang Jun, so handsome!
But it has to be pointed out that we have only learned a few things, but have not fully digested them.
In "Saving Private Ryan", Urban's existence is not to show the process of his character from twat to man, his value is to give Tom Hanks an additional value for leading the eight-person team composed of big gangsters Reference: Who should be killed? Who shouldn't be killed? What is a man's worth in war? This value reference is fully reflected in the causal cycle of treating a German prisoner, and a multi-dimensional answer is found: Ren is not necessarily correct in war, although it should be pursued. And the blood-stained family letters written by the soldiers naturally appear at all stages of the plot, and they are a great prop design throughout. At the same time, the true reproduction of the tactics of using soldiers makes "Saving Private Ryan" more instructive like a textbook. But looking at "Assembly", you will find that Instructor Wang does not represent any value position. He is nothing more than a tragic and solemn before his death; the family letter has never played a role in promoting the plot in the film; and the tactical reproduction, I only It is too unprofessional to say that the Kuomintang army did not follow the infantry closely after the tanks charged. It seems that Feng Dao has not cared about the military reality in order to allow the nine companies to resist the three waves of attacks. The perfect and real war scenes so deliberately pursued were wasted, and finally another "Armageddon" was assembled.
After Feng Dao pursued the reality of the picture, he felt that he should be able to do better in the sound processing. Not to mention other things, when the war was going on at its worst, only the sound effect was better. Feng Dao added sensational music several times, did he not have the confidence to organize the sound to be able to stand on its own?
That's about it. Conclusion: Although there are many problems, I appreciate "Assembly" very much. China desperately needs this kind of work to shout about. Looking forward to Feng Xiaogang's next works will not repeat these shortcomings, to a higher level!
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