What kind of movie is "Hero"?

Thirteen years have passed. After the Chinese film market experienced the 100-million-yuan club trend in 2010, by 2015, we had already entered the 2 billion-yuan box office box office. Gate, the annual box office total has reached nearly 30 billion yuan, becoming the second largest box office base in the world after North America. I believe that in the near future, maybe even this year, the Chinese mainland film market will become the world's number one. Of course, such remarkable achievements are closely related to the continuous and in-depth development of China's market economic system, but at the beginning of film marketization, we will always mention such a historical commercial blockbuster - "Hero".

In recent years, the box office of Zhang Yimou's movies has been gradually occupied by the movies of many sixth-generation and even cross-industry directors. Not only that, the overall level of his movies is also inferior to "Hero" and his previous works. Quite a few. Many people say that the reason why Lao Mouzi filmed "Hero" in 2002 was entirely because of the huge impact of Ang Lee's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" released in 2000. I think this is a personal bias. Bar! I remember that the first issue of "Focus" hosted by Jiao Xiongping was an interview with Zhang Yimou. When asked about this, Zhang meant that he had already had this plan, but after seeing "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", this catalyst He just put his long-held ideas into practice, but conspiracy theorists can always find reasons. For example, time has changed, so of course Zhang can say whatever he wants.

Putting aside these rights and wrongs, let’s just start from the perspective of the movie itself and let’s see if “Hero” is as bad as the public’s reputation says. The story prototype of the movie is actually quite old-fashioned. After all, the story of assassinating Qin has been reflected to varying degrees in various literary and artistic works. However, this time Lao Mouzi did not want to tell the story in a single line. He created a similar story. The reason why a "genre" is added to the narrative method of Rashomon is because compared with Rashomon's group narration, but in the end there is no agreement on the definition, the narrative method in "Hero" only uses three stories, and finally One story tells the truth, and the first two stories are just a chess game between Wuming and King Qin that is either deliberately hidden or inexplicably guessed. It does not realize that everyone in Rashomon just stands in a corner of the story and tells the "horizontal view" Or a "sideways looking" approach.

Whether you praise or criticize such a "simplified version" of Rashomon, it will make the story more interesting and more dimensional. It is not a one-line straightforward narrative. If you can continue to If we dig deeper, perhaps we can interpret it from the perspective of deconstruction. History itself is an unreal bamboo slip. After being written by the ruling class, it will reflect the right to speak of that class. Some people say that under the candlelight of history, the beginning of every dynasty is a sage, and the end of every dynasty is a sage. It's a rot beetle. The director here uses a three-level combination of nameless deception, King Qin's speculation, and revelation of the truth, and finally derives how to solve the problems caused by the truth. History here appears more complicated and difficult to understand, and the complex nature of this But it is brought about by the most contradictory conflicts of interests in human nature. King Qin wanted to conquer the world, unify China, and end the disputes among the countries, but such a beautiful vision would inevitably bring about bloody wars and cruel deaths. This was the entanglement and tremor in King Qin's heart, and Can Jian gradually realized it in his heart. The cruel truth, this historical truth extends to the assassin Wuming's heart and leads to the core tragedy in the film.

However, I believe that the most shocking thing about this film is definitely not the narrative and story, but Zhang Yimou's control of color and image. Coupled with Tan Dun's soundtrack, the film feels even though the screen is It will not look outdated in another fifty years, as someone once said: "Omit the story in the movie and just splice together the beautiful shots in the movie, and it can be completely used as a travel film." Zhang Yimou's early years His work as a photographer indeed had a great influence on his later film creation as a director. The strong contrast of red in his debut film "Red Sorghum" and the control of the large white snow scene in the mountain village in "My Father and Mother" all contributed to his work. It gives people a strong sense of visual impact. Regarding this point, we will analyze it in detail later when we work on Zhang Yimou’s picture style.

The use of color in this film is two-way and multi-dimensional. Among the three narrative levels mentioned above, the film uses three main colors: red, emerald green, and plain white. Warm red and super-cool emerald green are both surreal tones. Such a use of color also complements the unreal and uncertain nature of the narrative, while the plain white in the third stage represents a plain and calm tone. truthfulness and restraint in the narrative.

The most watchable fighting scenes in this film are, in order, the battle between Wuming and Changkong in the chess hall, the Qin Army's Archery Library, the battle between Feixue and Ruyue Populus euphratica, and the battle between Canjian and Wuming's Bihu. In several fighting scenes such as the battle between Feixue Broken Sword and the storming of the Qin Palace, they not only used traditional Chinese martial arts fighting scenes, but also used the interweaving and impact of colors under the background of classical poetic atmosphere. This strong sense of color is difficult to find in previous action scenes. Although Zhang's extensive abuse in his subsequent "House of Flying Daggers" led to the overall decay of the film, the huge impact produced by this artistic concept is It is worthy of our remembrance and admiration.

I just talked about Tan Dun’s score. The reason why I am willing to regard this movie as a classic is that the score of the movie accounts for one-third, and the rest is the visuals and scene scheduling. As a leading master in the Chinese film scoring industry, Tan Dun is recognized in the industry mainly for his previous scores for "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and this film. Of course, he also later composed the original soundtrack for Feng Xiaogang's "The Banquet". The main melody in the soundtrack is mainly played by the violin, but unlike ordinary violins, in order to express the flavor of the Qin Dynasty instrument, Tan Dun specially tuned the four strings of the violin down four degrees, giving out a unique Chinese style. Therefore, when we hear the performance of Western musical instruments paired with the strong Chinese style pictures, we do not feel out of place, but feel a strong affinity. The desolate and sad feeling in the soundtrack is even more intoxicating in the characters in the movie, and This is the unique artistic presentation of movies.

Finally, let’s talk about the theme of this film that may be the most criticized! In fact, some people call this movie a martial arts movie or an action movie. I always don't agree with this, because the action scenes in the movie are just images, but the essence of the movie is a strong historical sentiment. This is Zhang Yimou as a fifth-generation actor. Directors have a unique sense of historical vicissitudes, including Chen Kaige, who filmed "Jing Ke Assassins the King of Qin". Some people think this is because their generation has experienced the same era of idol worship and heroic statues as the Qin Dynasty. This is their lingering dream of "the world". In fact, the mainstream proposition or overly official discourse consciousness in "Heroes" made many intellectuals at the time feel that the film had an image of being submissive to power consciousness. However, such a mainstream discourse is not an excuse to maliciously criticize the film, even in Hollywood. , there are also a lot of mainstream discourse works, and "Forrest Gump" back then was the concentrated representative of the "American Dream".

Whether it is Zhang Yimou's status or dissatisfaction with "Hero" itself, it is difficult to erase a work that is both artistically and commercially significant. You can say what I said about this It is an article reversing the case. You can also say that I am a die-hard fan of Lao Mouzi (in fact, I also criticize movies like "House of Flying Daggers" and "Three Guns"), but when we objectively use the most basic movies If you use artistic evaluation standards to enlarge every detail in "Heroes", you will definitely see more than just the word "天下" written by Can Jian.