A foreigner who was sold to the mountains

The news about trafficking seems to be endless until the development of the Internet and various criminal investigation methods in recent years.

For example, the news that "female college students were trafficked to the elderly, 17 closed the pigsty" was heartbreaking.

A teenage girl, who should have a brilliant and beautiful life, was ruined.

This is simply a "blind mountain in reality".

As early as 2007, the Blind Mountain directed by Li Yang told the story of female college students being abducted.

There is also the document Waiting for You hosted by Ni Ping, in which we can also see all kinds of human tragedies caused by trafficking.

Women and children, it seems that the victims have always been such a "vulnerable group".

Have you heard the story of kidnapping foreigners?

Isn't it incredible?

The film we are going to talk about today tells the story of an American soldier who was abducted to the Yi people-

Heaven bodhisattva

The film 1987 was written by Hong Kong director Yim Ho.

Yim Ho, the general in the new wave of Hongkong.

1978, Yan Hao set off a new wave in Hong Kong with a film "Drinking Coffee with Chili Pepper", and then he successively created movies such as Burning Night, Time flies, Rolling Red Dust, Chess King, The Sun has Ears, and I Love Kitchen.

As Yim Ho's fifth work, Tianzun is in a very embarrassing situation.

Although a strong production team-Lv Le for photography, Zhao Jiping for music, and Zhang Shuping for production designer has been launched, these people are outstanding in China films, but the presence of finished products in the audience is very low, and even Douban has only been marked and seen by 100 people.

But in fact, when we watch this film through rough and dark images, we will find that it is a film full of primitive mystery and national landscape.

At the beginning of the film, we were shown the living environment and the tradition of ideas of the Yi people.

After seeing the plane of American soldiers, the Yi people shouted, "God's skirt has fallen!" " "

But some of these Yi people have "seen the world" and recognized that this is not a god, but an "airplane foreigner".

I just think it will be normal here.

As a result, the only "sensible" began to speak clearly with his own set of theories.

"The ancestors of foreigners are sheep, so their eyes are yellow. We used to be a family and lived on the top of the mountain. Later, in order to compete for grass and water, we made enemies and foreigners moved to Myanmar. "

It should be mentioned here that the background of the film is set in World War II, but the film does not tell much about the war, but pushes it to the background.

The prospect is 1956, the slavery practiced by the Yi people in Liangshan before the democratic reform.

In the slave society of Liangshan Yi people, the class relationship among slave owners, slaves and other laborers is manifested through strict and complicated hierarchical relations.

Members of the whole society are divided into four basic levels: Nuohe, Qunuo, Aga and Xiaxi. "Nuohe" is a black barbarian, a noble, and basically a slave owner.

This grand social background has always been the characteristic of Yim Ho's works.

His core theme is that little people can't escape their tragic fate in the face of bad social environment, and he has constructed an unusually full and profound special landscape on the screen.

For example, the narrative time and space spanned from the mainland in the 1960s to Hong Kong in the 1990s, telling the story of Wang Yisheng's chess-obsessed movie Chess King.

The little guy in Buddha is an American soldier named Pete.

At first, he just went to the Yi people to investigate the pilot who crashed at the beginning and was responsible for transporting his body back to the United States.

During the investigation, we witnessed a funny absurd drama similar to "foreigners worship the emperor".

Heiyi is so arrogant and fluent that he can be a rapper.

Peter told the commander in black that he hoped they could help the American investigation, just like an official gesture.

He said he didn't know as much as your beard, and you knew more than his hair.

Tut tut, translating Jianghu.

Having said that, the leader was happy at once.

Considering that "they worshipped me after six days and six nights", I specially ordered to entertain them with a big gift-

Fruit rope. (Hospitality etiquette)

Slaughtering five animals in front of distinguished guests is the highest standard for Yi people to entertain guests.

It's true, but Peter couldn't help eating when he saw the animals being killed. If he doesn't eat, he will get angry.

Sin is accepted, but Pete has also found a way to make money-

There is a lot of money and opium here, and local people will easily exchange these things for things that are worthless in our eyes, such as a few needles, such as a ball of sewing thread.

When Peter saw this scene, he immediately had a brainwave, took off the broken button on the military uniform and put on a beautifully made silver ring, with the Yi sister beside him.

It's a great deal. It's a huge profit.

Peter reflected on his present situation. Being a soldier doesn't earn much money at all. He retired too early and changed careers too early. If he wants to get rich and marry, he will have to take a crooked road.

Seeing that Peter and his good friends are about to embark on this road of exploitation, the abacus has been laid.

As a result, twenty minutes later, "smart" American soldiers were put into sacks and became slaves.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. That's what Yim Ho did. He painted a layer of "legendary story" and revealed the most simple and profound heart.

The strangeness of the plot and the strangeness of the characters' identities are all included in "Tianzun".

Peter, who failed to make a fortune, was tragically sold for three taels of silver.

However, in the future, his name was no longer Pete, and he became a wretched (the Yi people called slaves) and a foreign wretched named Latie.

Latie stayed in the Yi people for exactly ten years.

In this decade, he changed from a soldier to "a talking cow and a dog without a home." .

He has to pick firewood and plow the fields, so he can only run around the village barefoot.

Seeing him like this, an old woman took the initiative to give Lati the clothes left by her husband who died twenty years ago, and told him, "It is better for a poor man to have a pair of pants than a naked god."

Because he injured the leader of the other side in a duel, Latie was rewarded by his master, and his status rose instantly, which was highly respected by the Yi people.

He even has someone he likes-

Another "wretched", Niu Niu.

Niu Niu's appearance made him completely unwilling to run away.

Latie even gave Niu Niu her most precious gift-the stamps on her clothes when foreigners were flying.

He likes to make cups with white radishes and "brew coffee" with wild fruits, so Niu Niu picks those fruits for him regardless of thorns.

Latie was shaved "Tianzun" (a unique hairstyle of the Yi people) and put on a shawl "Chaerwa" woven with raw sheepskin, just like an authentic Yi people.

There is a strange tearing feeling when reading "Tianzun": guns are heard outside the mountain, but the land grab and slave grab in the mountain is still Cedek Balai style.

Especially when watching beautiful and delicate Niu Niu being dragged out of the sack like an animal, it is hard to imagine that this happened in the forties and fifties.

Later, Lati's "cheating" was discovered by the owner, who beat him up and sold him to the poorest local boss.

His love with Niu Niu, before it started, naturally went sour.

He no longer has decent clothes to wear, nor does he have a pair of shoes in winter. His foot was cracked with cold, so he sewed up the wound with a borrowed needle.

It was not until the democratic reform in 1956 that his life took a turning point.

At this time, he met Niu Niu again. She's divorced with a little girl.

The two finally came together.

I thought the story would end like this. But in the end, Lati will be sent back to his real home and be called Pete again.

Niu Niu didn't want to, and kept crying.

But Lati went back.

Will he come back?

Maybe, maybe not.

Anyway, the beautiful and sad girl will always be waiting for him.

It is worth mentioning that "Tian Bodhisattva" is adapted from the memoirs of an American meritorious pilot in the 1950s, all of which are true stories.

Although the film takes the bizarre story as the narrative shell, it does not make the Yi people mysterious and spectacular, nor does it belittle the ethnic minorities blindly and exaggerate their backwardness and barbarism.

On the contrary, it also recorded the long tradition handed down for thousands of years with simple feelings, and sincerely and profoundly described love, friendship and homesickness.

Yim Ho also showed a valuable spirit of realistic reflection in TianZun, which has far-reaching humanistic value.

In Tian Bodhisattva, we first saw a foreigner enslaved and "domesticated" until he gradually adapted to the Yi people.

It's great that Yim Ho reversed the colonial history of white people in 1980s.

But because of this reversal, this film has also become a "forbidden film" for a period of time.

You know, in the 20 years since 1972 Nixon's visit to China, Sino-US relations have gradually entered the "honeymoon period" from thawing. It is understandable that the content considered at that time affected Sino-US relations and failed to be shown in the Mainland.

But now that the movie is released, you can watch it on domestic video websites. In the current period of Sino-US relations, it is inevitable to have another taste to look at this "Tianzun".

Text/Pippi Film Editorial Department: Tong Yunxi

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