The Japanese horror film Banba Shimizu Chong joined forces with Mak Junlong to create a hybrid emotion of fear in the repressive atmosphere of the Japanese horror film and the gloomy temperament of the local Hong Kong zombie film; at the same time, contemporary visual art, which has gradually become a luxury for the rich. The elements were also taken in place by Mak Junlong, a son who has been immersed in the high-end rich circle for a long time, and subtly mixed it into the channel of metaphorical information in the film (the rotten and spoiled strawberry under the high-speed camera, the goat-headed woman symbolizing the devil. etc.), although at the beginning of the film, the quick montage cuts full of multimedia images and independent image elements even make people feel a kind of contemporary art pretense, but when there is a shrouded in gray-blue tone in the shot When the scene in the bottom corner of Hong Kong was in decline, all feelings were immediately pulled back to a grounded atmosphere, and the "Made in Hong Kong" brand began to be embedded in the film's flesh and blood.
Qian Xiaohao, a Shaw Brothers star in the 1980s, along with other local Hong Kong filmmakers who have been gradually forgotten by the screen, the audience and the profit-seeking film industry, does not so much play the role of being out of breath, despair, seeking break or self-salvation in the film. The person himself, even more ironic, after the golden age of local cultural export, Hong Kong's awkward position in the more cruel real world where capital and economic benefits are paramount, as well as the confusion and loss of self-cultural identity. Since the 1970s, Hong Kong's culture, especially movies, has experienced the fusion of special colonial culture and mainland political culture and the strong regional economy. System cultivation, continuous breakthroughs and expansion in a small area, injecting a clear spring into a cultural desert. The configuration and combination of various genres such as martial arts, ghosts, three-level, police and bandit, romance, etc. have been continuously improved, which has made great contributions to the Hong Kong film industry occupying the world's cultural landscape. In particular, the themes of gods and ghosts rooted in Cantonese and inland local culture, with zombies as shells and various kinds of small ingredients to meet the ever-increasing entertainment and cultural needs of Hong Kong people. During the period when the British Hong Kong government handed over power, Hong Kong was suffering from the looting of international bloodthirsty money and the temporary chaos of the political landscape. In the cultural and film industries, Hong Kong was stagnant. During the adjustment period, many filmmakers and entertainers put down their colonial and imported styles and went north to seek gold. From the late 1990s to the beginning of the new millennium, Hong Kong did not have many film works with good box-office reputations. When many Hong Kong cultural people felt that the end of the world with Hong Kong's characteristic culture was coming, a "Infernal Affairs" quickly attracted many film critics. The audience smelled a hint of the spark of Hong Kong movie revival, and made a lot of money at the box office. For a time, the themes of police and bandit dark battles have re-engraved the successful model of "Infernal Affairs". And this kind of fast-selling business model that relies on one film for ten years has not successfully grasped the tide of cultural pulse, which has freed the golden signboard of Hong Kong film for half a century from the stranded situation, but has fallen into the fierce capital game and entertainment industry. The deep quagmire of the game.
After a lapse of ten years, "Zombie", which seems to have too many similarities with "Infernal Affairs", stabbed back into the film market with a Hong Kong-made label, and won a lot of applause after its release without any suspense. And naturally took over the baton of the revival of Hong Kong movies after "Nothing". With a mentality full of utilitarian colors and cultural ambitions, how much effect will a commercial film ultimately produce? Pulled down through the film, the above thinking is not the seemingly profound circles and superfluous self-inflicted harassment. Much of the seemingly inadvertent spillovers in the film are worth delving into by high-level cultural critics. Whether it is Mak Junlong's own flash of inspiration or a more sophisticated hermit's manipulation behind it, spectators should not underestimate the burning point of this film that is hidden under the surface narrative.
The film tells the story of an apartment chasing ghosts and conquering demons caused by the suicide of a former star, but three clues of narrative structure are inserted into the surface narrative: the suicide of the down-and-out star Qian Xiaohao leads to the unemployed ghost-hunting Taoist priests buried in the apartment. The tragedy between the old couple who converted to evil because of love, Qian Xiaohao encounters the self-redemption of the former tenant's widow, mother and son, and evokes his own love and hatred. Although audiences who admire many film masters who are proficient in using multiple clues to intersperse narrative structures are not surprised by this kind of paediatric layout, as a new director and a Hong Kong genre film with facial recognition, it can be used to It is a great breakthrough that the set language is controlled without falling edge, and a semi-open ending is buried at the end to fully justify it. Coupled with the atmosphere rendering and visual special effects of the film, the rhythm control of the whole film is far beyond the embarrassing scene of Korean movies that you can't hold your own when you play too big. At the same time, it took care of the aesthetic conception of many sentimental parties who applauded the movie. The scenes in the movie, such as various rhetoric, props and life views of the ghost hunters and Taoist priests, are accurate and decent, corresponding to the traditional residences in Hong Kong that can be immediately drawn. The furnishings and the living conditions of the market close to the audience, the nostalgic taste is real and not hypocritical, and the sadness and heaviness lurking in the dilapidated, all reflect the decline of Hong Kong's traditional society and the encroachment of culture; The skills of ghosts to hunt ghosts, the messengers of the underworld appearing in the corridors, and the ghosts and ghosts that terrorize the audience at the right time, show the elements in traditional zombie movies step by step in a comprehensive and complete manner. This mixed use of visual perceptual language, combined with film language and cultural feelings, instantly defeated the fans who had long been immersed in the entertainment movies for the young and mentally handicapped in search of greater excitement.
In the eyes of higher-level cultural critics, the story is under the cover of raising and killing ghosts, moral redemption, etc., but it implies another message. In the first half of the film, there is a lot of fanfare to pretend to be a ghost. Compared with the many old people in the apartment, it seems to be a chill that everyone knows the destiny to welcome the arrival of death, but it reflects the warm human feelings - this is what Hong Kong movies have always been. The values conveyed are optimistic, positive, mutual help, and compassionate; the ghosts visible to the audience do not kill people, but the obsession and evil hidden in people's hearts, but no one can really see them. The Taoist priest raises and hunts ghosts, seemingly to eliminate harm for the people, but he has taken more lives; Qian Xiaohao is entangled in the obsession of death, but he is full of hope for life. This moral comparison and irony reflects the morbid, indifferent and desperate side of Hong Kong society. However, in the higher-level cultural architecture, morality and human nature once again metaphorically map out a deeper signifier— ——As
one of the few base areas with traditional Chinese customs and culture, Hong Kong has been in a state of stubborn survival in the cracks between two ideologies, capital and cultural forms since it was colonized until its return. Policies and economic control have not cut off the cultural heritage of Hong Kong people for generations. Instead, they have developed and grown uniquely in the continuous struggle of the descendants of the province and Hong Kong, and have gained wide recognition of their own cultural identity. With the help of economic take-off and capital operation, Hong Kong people are diligent, shrewd, active and practical, and skillfully manage their own cultural lifeline, transforming it into the most distinctive economic productivity in the narrow region, winning the admiration of all beings. After the handover, the growth and development of this cultural lifeline has been eroded and worn away in the hearts of Hong Kong people. This loss deeply hits the sensitive G point of Hong Kong people. It is not a simple and crude ideological input. It is an exchange of interests between politicians and capital, that is, a game of power and economic rewards between elite groups occupying the top and management roles. It is not difficult to understand the wave of hundreds of demonstrations in Hong Kong society in recent years, but such protests have also been gradually submerged in the powerful wave of the globalized economy and forced to silence. Each struggle ushered in more cunning and strict cultural control, so that a revolution for its own cultural status and survival became a cultural mourning that gradually came to an end.
Throughout history, the demise of every culture seems to be uniformly stamped in textbooks as "foreign enemy invasion" and "feudal backwardness". It's a shameful incident of countless self-cannibalism within the body, and this is really a loud slap in the face of our own. Whether it is the zombie culture hiding in a corner of the huge culture, or the decline of Hong Kong culture, it is impossible to get rid of the historical trend of internal conflict in the history of the development of Chinese civilization. Just like the pile of rotten strawberries at the beginning - the rot begins entirely from within itself, and this political metaphor with a strong Svanmeier expression embodies this tragic spell - it is this tragic spell. A film in which a young man with a little sense of cultural responsibility pays tribute to his ancestors conveys the most solid spiritual core. This core has been clearly explained at the end of the film: after a fierce battle, The protagonist still dies mediocrely, and the struggle becomes merely a hallucinatory nightmare of his own internal experience. Mai Junlong himself went to identify the corpse, and calmly peeped and thought about the struggle ideals of his fathers from the perspective of a bystander, but it had nothing to do with his own situation. All he had was a lost and forgotten broken story text. . Perhaps only later people will realize that another legendary cultural symbol has completely died out when they witness the once unconvincing ghosts and zombies being placed in the window of the museum; what they will never know is , whether the things that bury the zombies with their own hands have the slightest connection with the unseen bewitching and the destructive power transformed by the darkness in people's hearts.
This really isn't just a zombie revival story.
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