First of all, at the story level, the main line of "Chasing the Dragon" is actually not the history of "Lame Man" and Lai Luo's family, but a story similar to seeing heroes with discerning eyes. In "Chasing the Dragon", Lai Hao is set as a fledgling hero, born in poverty, relying on his bravery to enter a criminal city alone; and Lai Luo is set as a big brother who is already outstanding, and he knows heroes and heroes to Lai Hao. . In the film, Lai Luo became a "500 million detective" by running a pornographic gambling business, and Lai Hao became a gangster brother by committing a crime. These plots have been greatly weakened. Coupled with the star power of Andy Lau and Donnie Yen, it's easy to forget that these two protagonists are actually bad guys.
Replacing the heroic story with a story of discerning heroes and weakening the criminal behavior of the two protagonists is only the first step in "Chasing the Dragon". The next step is how to resonate with the audience, Laidlaw and Lame Howe. At this point, the approach of "Chasing the Dragon" is to portray Lai Hao as a bloody person who values love and righteousness, while giving Lai Luo a fairly strong sense of justice. One of the two protagonists is emotional and the other is rational, from sympathy to mutual suspicion, and finally back to brotherhood. This is the calculation of Chasing the Dragon in terms of characters. In this way, it is not these two people who are really bad, but the era. The rational Lai Luo seems to be motivated not to satisfy his desire for money, but to join forces with this dark age, so as to make the whole society stable and orderly. The emotional lame man first joined the underworld to save his brother, then was maimed to save Lai Luo, and finally went to fight with the British in order to avenge his younger brother. Every change seems to be out of love and righteousness, and it is this pride of righteousness that makes people warm.
From "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" to "Water Margin", from Zhang Che to John Woo, whether in Chinese folk culture or in Hong Kong movies, brotherhood is highly regarded, and many men and even many women are obsessed with it. But from a rational point of view, the values of respecting rules, morality, and loyalty that are respected by all corners of the world or underworld are fundamentally untenable. In "Chasing the Dragon" there is such a paradox. Speaking of rules, in fact, it is nothing more than to make the pornography, gambling and drug business run for a longer period of time. All social organizations and organizations should not rob and mess around. Only in an orderly manner can the business be big and make more money. Speaking of morality, it is more to avoid the important, and catch the sesame and miss the watermelon. For example, Lai Hao sells drugs while preventing his subordinates from selling the drugs to a weak scholar. This conscience is not enough to dilute the evil deeds of drug trafficking. For example, even if Hitler saved a Jewish child, he was still the devil Hitler. As for loyalty, it is actually nothing more than using a virtual cultural value to unite scattered individuals and form a more powerful fighting force in order to eradicate dissidents on the road of committing crimes. In the final analysis, the so-called "righteousness" is just a beautiful coat put on by these people in the rivers and lakes or in the underworld for their robbery and profit-seeking behavior. It's just that this coat is decorated too beautifully in Chinese culture. As for many people, they are unwilling to punctuate it or voluntarily indulge in it. Therefore, whether it is "Chasing the Dragon" or "Water Margin", whether or not you feel the passion and resonance for the beautiful brotherhood when appreciating such works, the rational logic behind these stories is actually untenable.
The creators of "Chasing the Dragon" also seem to have felt the "inappropriateness" of brotherhood, so they made a further calculation - nationalism. From the very beginning, "Chasing the Dragon" has designed a disgusting big villain British police Hunter, and in the middle let Lai Luo warn Lame Hao that he must not kill the British police. In this way, the humiliation of colonial history has become the biggest innovation of "Chasing the Dragon" that is different from previous heroic films. Similar design bridges have actually appeared in "Ip Man 2". In my opinion, as a film, such a design does not need to be criticized too much. After being infected by the film, adult audiences should naturally have the ability to judge right and wrong. However, on the issue of nationalism, many films in recent years can be said to have retreated.
Hong Kong movies use nationalist values to attract audiences, probably starting with Bruce Lee's "Jingwumen". Nationalism in the films of this era is often a bit "boxer disease", and audiences will buy it as long as screen heroes beat foreigners. By the early 1990s, Tsui Hark's "Once Upon a Time" series, "Fighting Heroes" starring Jet Li and other films, the attitude towards nationalism can be said to be rational and thoughtful. It doesn't matter whether he is a Chinese or a foreigner; if a nation wants to be independent and strong, it needs to learn from the strong rationally and calmly, rather than blindly xenophobic and xenophobic. This is a common value in the movies of this era. It is a pity that, in the past few years, from "Fighting Swordsman", "Ip Man 2" to "Chasing the Dragon", the handling of nationalism in Hong Kong movies has not gone further, but has returned to the simplicity and rudeness of the 1970s. Not a good thing. As far as "Chasing the Dragon" is concerned, due to too many calculations, the value identification fluctuates between brotherhood and nationalism, which makes the whole film a little out of focus.
From a film censorship perspective, Chasing the Dragon's various calculations have proven successful. From the commercial point of view of the film, the various elaborate calculations of "Chasing the Dragon" have also been proven successful by the market. But for movie audiences, after enjoying the pleasure of movies, it is necessary for an adult living in modern society to not forget rational value judgments.
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