When Du Qifeng's creative career has grown and explored in the 1990s and entered a mature and peak period, human nature has become the theme he is willing to discuss up to now. Except for a very few relaxing works, such as "Love at High Altitude" and "My Boxer Boyfriend", Johnnie To will use police and bandit movies from various angles to express different aspects of human nature from different angles.
The positive ones, such as "Wenque", got rid of the oppression of the rules and order of contemporary society, and the nature of chasing freedom is like the bird, and finally got rid of the shackles at the end of the film and ran to the endless sky. Another example is "Exile". The gunmen struggled between the tasks given by the upper management and their inner chivalrous feelings, and finally chose to respect their own wishes and put their humanity on the emotional side, which made them seem Not professional enough, but it adds simplicity and chivalry, showing the brilliance of humanity.
Negatives, such as "Deadly Gold", in a narrative structure that connects beginning to end, like "Pulp Fiction", the characters seem to be caught in an endless circular labyrinth, embarrassed by the social status quo caused by the financial crisis. The pressure of life has caused their morality and conscience to be challenged, and they are trapped in the dark side of human nature that cannot escape, and they are always confused. In "PTU", "Gorgeous Office Worker", and "Three Walks", all the characters seem to have entered a huge maze composed of midnight Hong Kong, non-daily companies, and closed hospitals. , In the complex interests and dense entanglements, subject to repeated pushback from desire, position, and conscience, controversy and evil, kindness and self-interest, legality and risk-taking, all kinds of completely conflicting tendencies are constantly switching in the characters. Each environment itself, just like the large number of song and dance passages in "Gorgeous Office Worker" and the reinforcement of the "out of reality" attribute of the environment in the three films, is no longer a simple background, but has become a stage where human nature is exposed. "Three Lines" draws on Lu Haipeng's role to declare nakedly: Only by being completely mad and irrelevant to all rules and interests, without any entanglement in the heart, can one express the self in the contemporary environment and maintain the emptiness of the heart. , incarnated as a bystander who laughs and sees everything, a God who does not rise and fall in the mundane world.
Particularly worthy of special exploration is "Drug War". Du Qifeng used almost all of the space to show the confrontation between the police and the drug dealers, so that the two sides and the audience kept guessing the true position of Gu Tianle's heart - whether it was a cat or a mouse. Moreover, Du Qifeng pushed the confrontation between the two sides to the peak in the climax of the police and bandit shootout, and Gu Tianle's continuous repetition in this battle has become more and more unpredictable. And at the end of the death sentence, To Qifeng used a series of shots to completely and continuously emphasize the passing process of Gu Tianle's life, and then stopped the picture on Gu Tianle's last breath and his body without ups and downs. At this time, with the help of Gu Tianle, who kept spitting out a lot of information until his death, Du Qifeng gave the answer - Gu Tianle does not belong to any camp or position, and everything he did was not as a policeman or a drug dealer, but only as a An individual based on the primitive desire of human nature to survive.
At the same time, Johnnie To will also show the influence of the external environment in his films. Humans are conceived from the mother's body, but at the same time, they are also influenced by the external environment and develop their final character. This external environment, that is, mostly in the form of "the operation of the power system and the product of historical changes", was classified by To Qifeng as "contemporary Hong Kong society".
Therefore, changes in human nature are often closely related to the surrounding social background. In this regard, To Qifeng makes his films have both the origin of showing a wide range of objects and the timeliness of showing a specific reality.
For example, in "Gunfire" and "Underworld", To Qifeng showed the huge contradiction in concept and cognition between the protagonists at the grassroots level and the higher-level leadership. In "Gun Fire", the pistol becomes a metaphor for the character's mentality - when facing the opponent's killer, they can shoot with the pistol decisively, but when facing the order from the superior to "kill the colleague", They still had a hard time shooting. For them, foe and foe are a distinct thing - shoot at the enemy and not at the friend. But for the higher-level leadership, the enemy and the self are an existence that can be changed at any time according to needs-even if they were friends in the last second, as long as they are certified as enemies, they can be killed. Therefore, the lower-level protagonists cannot understand the upper-level leadership. In "Underworld", the lower-level members firmly uphold the rules of the Tiandi Association when it was established, and the brothers are united and united. But relatively, the superior leadership has already become an open and secret struggle driven by interests.
This "Blind Detective" also reflects To Qifeng's core theme.
First of all, To Qifeng built a very good script with the main and sub-line parallel. The main line consists of Johnston's investigation of past cases. The auxiliary line is the love between Johnston and He Jiatong.
In the first half of the film, the main line and the auxiliary line are juxtaposed, overlapping in storytelling, but not completely intertwined - the cases investigated by Johnston did not go deep into the part of Xiaomin, just in the gaps between the cases There is even a pen in the middle, but while investigating the case, Johnston and He Jiatong had a joyful exchange and interaction, which promoted the clues of their love.
In fact, Du Qifeng's move is by no means a mere narrative clue to show off his skills. By juxtaposing the two threads, he divides the world of the characters in the film into two layers. In the outer world on the surface, what we see is the lighthearted and humorous love between the two, but below the surface, there are distorted human nature manifested in each case - talent desire, jealousy, lust, etc. foot.
In this way, To Qifeng fully displayed this society: under the surface of the colorful and prosperous surface, the darkness of the cross-current is covered, and the nature of people in the society has long been distorted. This also matches the key setting of the movie: the word "blind" in the title - He Jiatong's naked eyes can only see the appearance, but Johnston's heart can see the truth in the dark, take him back to the crime scene, let him Direct contact with the victims and perpetrators, and look directly at the inner truth shot in the dark tones.
With the progress of the film, in the second half, To Qifeng began to interweave the main and auxiliary clues at a deeper level, resulting in internal connections, and together they spliced together the most important element of the film: crime caused by love. A series of disappearances of women investigated by Johnston are all crimes against lovelorn people and their weak love for female lovelorn people. Love is the auxiliary line of the movie, but at the same time it is the key case: the key points in the disappearance of Xiaomin constitute the motive for committing the crime.
Therefore, when Johnston began to focus on investigating the Xiaomin case, "love" became the common direction of the main and auxiliary lines. The clever thing is that the social pattern of the outer and inner layers is still continued here in the form of love. Johnston's gradual investigation of "the crime of continuous makeup derived from love", and the brisk sparring between him and He Jiatong in the surface daily life, are intertwined side by side. At first glance, the person in love should be like He Jiatong, the sunshine is positive, but there are many people who will be like Xiaomin, who will generate distorted hatred from love, and go to the dark side of love - monopoly, and the destruction that cannot be achieved by monopoly. The paranoid and extreme love under the influence of various factors is a certain essence of human nature-a complete distortion under the unsatisfactory desire and unsatisfied desire.
In fact, in the aspect of showing humanity in love, To Qifeng did not let Johnston stay in the perspective of a pure analyst and bystander, but made him a participant, and thus made him a person who showed humanity in love. a side. As a branch line, Johnston's love for female dancers has been interspersed in the plot. However, the female dancer married Johnston's colleague. And Johnnie Du purposefully created a Johnston in a state of lovelorn: how beautiful the female dancer in the very subjective street slow motion is, how much Johnston likes him, and how majestic the love is , the pain after a breakup is so penetrating. It was under such a penetrating heart that Johnston walked into the inner world of his heart to face Xiaomin, and for the first time got her affirmative answer to his own judgment. In his own breakup, Johnston's own love was distorted, and a dark side was created, so that he could empathize with Xiao Sensitive, and for the first time successfully stood in her perspective and connected with her, so that he could say "I was wrong about you before. ". In the first half of the film, To Qifeng used a large number of cases that had nothing to do with Xiaomin. On the one hand, it showed the inherent nature of human nature in society. On the other hand, it was also to repeatedly emphasize Johnston's case-handling method of "replaying the scene and empathizing with the prisoners". Lead out the "Johnston's Distortion" represented by the empathy with Xiaomin.
Therefore, Johnston, like the murderer Xiaomin who surfaced later and whose image was very different from the "victim" Xiaomin who had been forging for a long time, has a human nature that has been distorted and blackened after being trapped in love. Only by forming a common sense on this point can he detect Xiaomei's inner world, and finally see through the entire context of the case like an ordinary case.
The distortion of the human heart under the influence of external forces will make people go to extremes. This expresses the core theme of the film: "Blind and ignorant, it will kill people". Even if the eyes are not blind, if the heart is blinded, it will go to "total blackness" (Johnstonian) where nothing can be seen. And Johnston's mind sees the true essence of "all black" seen by the naked eye. Just like the goldfish that symbolized him, what he saw on TV was the tragic "reality" of his own kind being killed and cooked.
However, To Qifeng is not completely dark and pessimistic. In the part of the human nature of love, he finally left the bright ingredients. He Jiatong's love for Johnston was positive from beginning to end, and Johnston also quickly got out of the frustration of love and ushered in a new sweetness with He Jiatong. When he touched He Jiatong's face in the hospital, the connection from "the ugly girl in the world in black and white eyes" to "He Jiatong in reality" emphasized a kind of change in his mood that was more drastic than the plot. And the humorous love story between Situ Magic Treasure and the female dancer adds a lot of positive guidance to the human nature of love.
Obviously, in To Qifeng's view, there are many degenerate and extreme negative states in people's hearts today. But from it, the good side still exists, waiting for us to dig, and hope is still worthy of being embraced. Just like Johnston's last command to "save the child", although Xiaomin took revenge on Johnston who came to rescue him, he finally worked hard to give birth to a child. To Qifeng ignited the fire of hope. He stopped the close-up shots for a long time on the daughter of Xiaomin, who was adopted by the Johnstons. The adoption of her by the Johnstons will free her from the blood inheritance of the dark love and humanity composed of her great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother (Xiaomin). Towards a bright face of hope.
In addition, Du Qifeng also used the clue of food as an auxiliary expression of the theme. In the first half, the two of Johnston have been tasting various delicacies, but gradually, the delicacies began to have more and more intersections with the dark side-first as a weapon against the murderer of the coroner's case Lin Xue, and then as a "chef Azu and his friends". The main stage in the "Xiao Min" case. The change of food is exactly the theme of "Simple and delicious table, into the case".
At the end, Du Qifeng also completely integrated the main and auxiliary clues and made the final expression emphasis. Xiaomin and Johnston and his wife are very close, and the "food" element of eating appears again. The love between the couple was complete, and the prisoner who had slipped away reappeared. He Jiatong chased after Johnston's instructions. The existence of prisoners shows the inherent dark side, but at the same time, it is also intertwined with the light side. What we need is to extract light from the darkness and retain hope.
Furthermore, in the film, To Qifeng also uses a subtle way to connect the expression of human nature with the society. This connection is very contemporary at a specific time. Xiaomin's case happened in 1997, and the key point of Xiaomin's inner transformation was "Azu's immigration to Brazil". Time is a sensitive node, and Azu's immigration reflects the state of the people of Hong Kong at that time, which can have a deeper hint of the existence of historical events.
What does the expression here mean? In the context the film is trying to convey, what is it that has objectively changed Hong Kong's society, and ordinary people in it? Maybe everything is silent.
Even the "dining" element throughout the film may also have a similar dark schematic diagram. Hong Kong's food culture is deeply rooted and has a long history, especially street food, which is an important part of regional culture and has become the secular landscape of old Hong Kong. In many of the first Hong Kong movies, you can see the active figure of the snack, or become the protagonist of the plot, the center of the picture, or as the background of the composition to support the reality of the movie.
In "Blind Detective", To Qifeng first made snacks and delicacies a common background for connecting the whole film, manipulating Johnston to continuously express all kinds of praise for food. Then, as the plot progresses, the meaning of food deepens - it becomes the core of Xiaomin's case and a channel to expose the distorted human nature under eroticism and selfishness. When Johnston went to the restaurant, He Jiatong imagined the scene in which Johnston was poisoned. To Qifeng used the dark tones that he would only use when he "reveals the darkness of human nature", so that the inner and outer layers of this scene were exaggerated and funny that Johnston was foaming at the mouth. The difference also constitutes a typical expression of "the theme of food expression" - in contemporary Hong Kong, food is no longer the simplicity of the old days, and society is no longer what it used to be.
In fact, if we dig deeper into other works, To Qifeng has always been willing to make such metaphors. Even this is not Du Qifeng's unique personality. "Infernal Affairs", "Cold War" and "The Big Tree Draws the Wind" all have similar hints.
In Liu Weiqiang's "Infernal Affairs", with the help of the comparison between the second part and the first and third parts, Liu Weiqiang actually vaguely hinted at a deep meaning: Taking Hong Kong's return as a node, Hong Kong's "rules" and "traditions" are Completely disappeared, replaced by pure and undisguised violence and mercenary ---- With the end of the second part "Han Chen looking out the window of the return fireworks" as the dividing line, the gang's loyalty, Han Chen and Huang SIR The friendship of Chen Yongren, the fate of Chen Yongren, Liu Jianming's love and humanity have all moved towards a path of deterioration that has completely surfaced.
On the other hand, in "Cold War", most of the time, the film focuses on the open and secret struggle within the Hong Kong police system to emphasize "the legality of Hong Kong society", but at the end of the second part, The emergence of the mastermind behind the scenes has jumped out of the scope of the "active Hong Kong police system" - the purpose of all plans is the intervention of the senior officers of the retired police system on the candidates for superintendents. This "external remote intervention in the distribution of power in the current system" seems to imply "external intervention in the appointment and removal of Hong Kong officials".
In Du Qifeng's "Underworld", Du Qifeng showed a triad society that "the upper class is completely power-inspired, and only the lower class still adheres to the traditional spirit that has been passed down since ancient times". Triad leaders intervene in the selection and use power as a bait to guide triad members to take the bait, so as to achieve their own goal of "stabilizing Hong Kong", which can be regarded as a manifestation of the incentives for the degeneration of the upper classes of the underworld—with the introduction of the mainland public security. It can be said that John To has alluded to something similar to "Infernal Affairs" and "Cold War".
In "The Big Tree Draws the Wind", the director set up three characters to correspond to the three Hong Kong robbers in reality. In the film, Chen Xiaochun's character's happiness and grievances, like "no carnival tomorrow", are laid out in great detail----his dream of "before Hong Kong's return, the three thieves will join forces to do one vote", reveals that he The heart of "writing the final climax before everything is destroyed" leads all his crazy words and deeds, and gives his part the fatal tragedy of shattered ideals. In Lin Jiadong's role, the tragic disillusionment of his ideals is reflected in the sharpness and disposition he has already exhausted -- from planning a robbery, to his words and deeds. , while the heart of steel was also worn away, which made him feel sympathetic to the companion who betrayed him and was arrested. In the end, Ren Xianqi's role, his tragic failure is reflected in his efforts to make himself succumb to the new era and ultimately fail - in order to adapt to the changes in the access to the mainland market, he voluntarily gave up his once holding The pleasure of shooting guns at each other, laughing and scolding, putting on a suit to accept bribes and flattery is a new set of gameplay, just to make oneself able to survive in the new society, but such suppression of self is ultimately unrealizable, after all, he is Heroes of the old days, not sycophants.
It can be seen that in "The Big Tree and the Wind", although the three characters have different angles and different contents, they all have enough details and rationality in their independent parts, so that the "destruction" of the three people is stable. And solid-----as the three people of the old era, their heroic dream of wanton deeds of greed and hatred has gone to an inevitable collapse with the passage of time and the switching of times. At the end of the film, the director throws out the only scene where the three meet, emphasizing the final glorious disillusionment of Chen Xiaochun's ideal of "the three thieves get together and become a big one".
It can be seen that in these three Hong Kong films, the director did not make too many obvious expressions on the bright side---"Infernal Affairs" and "Cold War" maintain the general pattern within the Hong Kong underworld and the current situation in Hong Kong. Inside the police agency, the public security aspect in "Underworld" appears in the image of "cleaning up sins and maintaining law and order in Hong Kong". Of course, these ambitions may be overly expressed, and they are more guided by the overall construction of the film, rather than directly put on the table.
In any case, Du Qifeng's performance of human nature is still full of strength. This is also something he continues from a series of creations. And, this time, he has created a dramatic structure that is intertwined, yet neat and mellow, with clear logic, and skillfully balances the two completely opposite elements of joy and comedy and horror and darkness, without seeing too many blunt traces of transformation. . This is a well-deserved masterpiece.
This phenomenon in the creation of Hong Kong directors may be more suitable to be regarded as a controversial part in the creation of John To or contemporary Hong Kong directors. As creators, they have the right of authorship to express their personal thoughts in their works. And such personal thoughts are, of course, private and subjective. Based on the influence of various subjective and objective factors, everyone will have such and such ideas. In the face of the highly individual self-expression art of film, what we should discuss is perhaps to pay more attention to the "means of thought expression" rather than the "objective correctness of thought", and to be firm in each other's ideas. It will be easier if you think it is right.
Whether it is looking at the creator, or looking at the film, or even looking at all art, it will be easier and purer.
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