To be honest, when I first walked into the movie theater, I had great expectations, hoping to see a different Lao Mouzi, leaving the color team aside, and returning to the story itself. "Shadow" is indeed better than "The Great Wall". One is the five-color sea battle, rude. One is black and white ink and wash, which is elegant; the other is about war scenes, the fight between humans and monsters, and the screen is full of hormones. One talks about the treacherousness of the court and the human heart, the game between the deity and the shadow, and the human heart floats. But stripping away their differences in image expression, Lao Mouzi is actually changing the soup instead of the medicine.
As soon as the film came out, it was black and white, very clean. The narrator said: Xiao Ai is facing the most difficult choice in her life. It starts with suspense. I would like to praise this point. This kind of beginning is very focused, so I didn't interrupt the whole process of watching this movie. In the film, the walls of the Dudu Mansion are covered with ink paintings, and the palace hall is covered with calligraphy and ink stains. There is an ambiguous and gloomy beauty between light and shadow. The ink and wash costumes are beautiful, elegant, chic, and imagery. The clothes are fluttering in action, and the patterns look hazy and elegant. If they are placed alone in a certain role or a certain scene, the atmosphere and embellishment are good, but the problem is abuse. Everyone’s costumes, from the king to the ministers, from the dancers to the lady of the captain, all use ink-and-wash costumes, and they are printed. I can’t help but want to talk about the background of the story and the title of the characters set in the movie. It is estimated that the era is probably the Three Kingdoms period, and printing, dyeing and weaving technology is a modern thing. The ancients used to dye monochromatic colors, which is why they have such exquisite brocade techniques and embroidery skills. Although it is the main ink and wash, this kind of large-scale ink and wash is no longer the main feature, but you can't see anything except ink. The large amount of ink and print on the clothing constitutes a sense of absurdity with the background of the story, which makes people a little acting. . Feelings are force images and images. For the so-called beauty and elegance, the director chose a monotonous way of contrast, losing the appeal of expressing the complexity of the story.
I understand that the director wants to express Chinese elements. For example, ink painting, piano and ensemble, Tai Chi yin and yang pictures, exquisite screens that were popular in home decoration during the Song Dynasty...These are all cultural elements that we are familiar with, love, and hope to be passed on for a long time. These metaphors, taking one or two of them, are wonderful embellishments in the movie, but they can only be embellishments, not overwhelming. Just like ink painting, its essence is actually left blank. As an artist, the biggest creative difficulty is not lack of talent, but to control one's desire for expression. This point is the same whether it is a movie, a novel, or a music painting. If the artist can't control his desires, and pack the things he likes and present it to the audience, it will only turn the movie into a human brain hole show.
The yin and yang picture of Tai Chi in "Shadow" is what I most want to complain about. The giant Tai Chi picture on the boat was shocked and a bit contrary. Also deliberately there is the design of raining in the secret room tiankeng. In the sinkhole, the raindrops poured down the dim light, and the ground was a huge floor with Tai Chi Yin and Yang diagrams. The real body of the governor and the shadow stood in the front of the battle, one holding a stick and the other holding an umbrella, and they practiced and cracked the Yang's sword technique. Water droplets, action, fluttering clothes, elongated lens, familiar taste, familiar "Hero". All fighting scenes are re-enactments of heroes, the realism of martial arts has become a secondary performance, and the elegant movements have become the main thing the director wants to express. More than four close-ups of Tai Chi Yin and Yang pictures, at least ten minutes of fighting scenes, just like this, under the blessing of rain, the film's rhythm slowed down, and then slowed down, losing the compact main line of a film, and focusing on the various forms of the film. Kind of details. I understand that Zhang Dao wants to use Tai Chi to express the ebb and flow of power and emotion, and change each other, to imply the relationship between the real body and the shadow, and to imply the change in the line of love. But metaphors really can only go to the end, and misuse is boring. The rain in the film, although there is a pavement at the beginning, but it rains upside down, rains in confrontation, rains in dialogue, rains in fighting, rain in siege, rain in the city, rain in the secret room... I know the director I want to express the gloom, the sinister heart, the desire for wanton growth, knowing that this is Jiangnan, and also knowing that it is a strategic need, but the endless chaotic scenes make people a little crazy: when can the rain stop? In short, Director Zhang piled everything up so full that it almost overflowed the screen. Dongpo meat is full of color, fragrance, and cultural allusions. But if you can eat ten bowls of Dongpo meat in one go, are you greasy?
Restraint is a big reason why many movies are so good that people want to watch them again. For example, in "Lust Caution", it was the pigeon egg ring that finally defeated Wang Jiazhi, which symbolized wealth and promise. This is an important prop, but in the movie, except for the ring screen that flashes on the finger when the wives are playing mahjong, only the pigeon egg that appears at the end of the film is left. Every time the screen flashes the ring close-up, it is not random. Whatever appears casually, the character's psychology changes every time the ring appears, and the plot advances. This kind of restraint so far allows the audience to take a break and enjoy the fun of thinking.
The main line of the story is the life and death game between the real body and the shadow. Here I must praise Deng Chao. He proved his acting skills in this movie. He played the two roles of the real body and the shadow, and he completely let you see that they are two people, and you will never admit it wrong. In addition to makeup skills, it is more about the presentation of his body language and facial expression control. Sun Li is also not bad, the psychological changes of a woman's derailment, the embarrassment and self-blame between the two men, and the uncontrollable desire of the young woman between her eyebrows, these performances are here. A three-way game, a bloodbath, everyone is fighting for their own demons. The king wanted to be able to truly control the government and eradicate the governor who had the power to overpower the lord; the governor wanted to recover Jingzhou, wash away the humiliation of being defeated by the enemy generals, and set a new level of merit for immortality; the shadow wanted to be free, and wanted to return to the state. I want to go back to my mother's hometown and enjoy the dignity and pleasure of being a person. This is a simple story about people being degraded to chess pieces by desire, then various calculations and struggles, and finally being swallowed by desire. But the story itself is too thin, and many parts of the plot appear blunt. The governor was injured and could not show up to the public. He hid himself in the dark room and let the shadow appear in front of the people instead of him. (However, apart from Mrs. Wada Zhan, no one can prove his identity.)
In the movie, Sun Li’s role is actually the most complicated. She is the envy of everybody’s Madam Captain, and her husband Qin Se and Ming. At the same time, she is also a kind-hearted mistress who sympathizes with her underlings. She is an ordinary woman with normal desires and longing for a strong body to rely on. . She should be the most critical character in the game between the real body and the shadow, but unfortunately this role is flattened in the latter part of the movie. She can use Peisan to comprehend the tricks to crack the Yang's swordsmanship, and she can fight with her husband in person. She has martial arts (at least in the screen); the secret of the Governor replacing herself with shadows was told to her from the beginning. , The governor told her his final arrangements for the shadow, which means that the governor’s mansion never shy away from her. She is not a naive little white flower. As a lady of superb status, her life is closely linked to conspiracy. At the end of the film, in the hall, the killing started. She gasped, sobbed, and shrank in fear. Compared with the image created in the first half, these reactions were completely different from what the character of a lady should have. This character was finally flattened and turned into a decoration, reduced to a trophy under the struggle of men.
The feminine consciousness is not to let Sun Li simply derail, or Guan Xiaotong’s bluffing in the court, nor to let her kill the enemy in person. Director Zhang thought that setting the role of the eldest princess of the crazy girl and giving her a tragic ending is feminism. However, Granny has been repeating it, and she was still worried about making her a concubine before she died, so she was determined to wash her shame with blood. But isn't the point about making a relationship? Isn't it being given out as a gift to survive in the cracks of politics? Isn't her brother that she should hate most? Isn't Master Lu who proposed to marry him? Although these two female characters have a lot of shots, they have limited motivation for the storyline and the characters are not three-dimensional.
In short, the film spends a lot of metaphors, repeats the emphasis, and then spends a lot of time presenting on the side branches. I am afraid that everyone does not understand the deep meaning, the characters are slightly flat, and then the most critical storytelling is reluctant to go around. skip. At the end of the movie, Sun Li hesitated in front of the gate, overlapping the scene when the opening narration said, "Xiao Ai is facing the most difficult choice in her life". The suspenseful ending is still suspense. Probably what the director wants to convey is: conspiracy will be infinite reincarnation. . The whole movie wants to convey things that are complicated, but the story is not very appealing. It shows human nature, but lacks a deeper analysis, and lacks reflection on the conspiracy and the evil of human nature. After watching it, I feel that as a traditional cultural propaganda film, the film is exceptionally qualified; as a feature film, Director Zhang has to spend more time on the plot and the inner exploration of the characters.
(PS: This film review is my most intuitive feeling after watching the movie. It was written on my mobile phone in the cinema hall. Anyway, this is the most expensive movie I watched this year, but the price is not high? The main propaganda is "Yin-Yang Aesthetics" and "Ink and Wash Chinese Style". With rave reviews, my expectations have been raised. Unfortunately, this aesthetics did not impress me. On the contrary, I think it is pretentious and too crude in visual expression. Therefore, my complaints are mainly aimed at aesthetics. Regarding the controversy about the message, I will write a diary when I am free to discuss various bugs. In fact, I am very gentle, afraid of being said to be mean, and the female form is in the umbrella. Jingzhou comes with it. The blood bank, the hall killing...Is this restrained, didn't you write?)
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