The reason why the "Assassination Case" is remarkable is first of all because the assassinated man, Ma Xinyi, has a prominent position. Ma Guanju, the governor of Liangjiang, was one of the nine most important vassal officials in the late Qing Dynasty. Ma's predecessor and successor are both the same person, that is, the famous Zeng Guofan. From this, it can be seen that he has a high position. Secondly, the circumstances of this case are surprising. The assassin was hit by a heavy guard in broad daylight, and he did not escape after he succeeded. Furthermore, although the case alarmed the highest levels, Cixi ordered Zeng Guofan and the chief of the Criminal Department to have a joint trial, but in the end the case was scribbled and the assassin was cut open, but the facts of the case did not come to light. Therefore, there was a lot of talk in the market. At first, the speculation focused on the political struggle, but soon there were stories about brotherhood and love triangles being put on the stage, so the focus was quickly shifted. The various interpretations since then are basically based on the latter two. It's just that the popularity of this case among the people seems to be inferior to another more real and bizarre peach-colored incident: the case of Yang Naiwu and Xiaobaicai.
The so-called political murder mainly means that Ma Xinyi is generally regarded as the man who was used by Cixi to check and balance Zeng Guofan, who was gaining momentum, and this man had a shallow foundation but was very strict in governing the army, so he offended the Hunan army, so he was sent by them. Assassination. In my opinion, this may be the closest thing to the truth. At that time, there was a vivid rumor that after Zeng Guofan destroyed the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, he had hidden a lot of money in an attempt to replace it with the Qing court, while Ma Xinyi was sitting in Nanjing and was tracking down the whereabouts of the "treasure", and was killed at this juncture. The statement in the "case closing report" after the trial at that time was that the assassins had a grudge against Ma Xinyisu, so they colluded with pirates to assassinate. This obviously lacks a sufficient motive for committing the crime. All of these statements do not mention that the assassin has a personal relationship with Ma Xinyi, let alone a love triangle. To be sure, these are all arranged by literati, and it is difficult to say whether there is someone behind it.
The Romanceists arranged Ma Xinyi and the assassin Zhang Wenxiang as brothers with different surnames from rough backgrounds. In order to create a dramatic conflict, they created a "second child" and the wife of the second child who had an emotional entanglement with Ma Xinyi. Interestingly, in various versions, there are several names of this second child. At first glance, they are fictional characters: Dou Yihu and Cao Erhu. In Zhang Che's version of "Thorn Horse" written by Ni Kuang, they were written as Huang Zong. The second child played by Andy Lau in "Vote for a Name" changed his surname and was called Zhao Erhu. The so-called heroine was obviously made up too. Zhang Che's version had a very foreign name called Milan, and the character played by Xu Jinglei had the same name as the dress, called Liansheng.
What's more interesting is that Wang Jing's Jingyi Company also made a third-level film based on this theme. The film is called "The Naked Ling Chi of the Ten Tortures of the Qing Dynasty". Of course, it is extremely bloody and pornographic. The screenwriter seems to have deliberately turned Ma Xinyi into a psychopath who had been sexually abused in his youth to prove that he had mastered Freud's theory.
The classic version of the Spurs story is, of course, Zhang Che's 1973 film of the same name. The film's director Zhang Che, screenwriter Ni Kuang, action designer Liu Jialiang, and actors Di Long, Jiang David, Chen Guantai, etc. are all temporary choices. The large-scale production of this Shaw Brothers film seems to be a little rough today: the plot clues are simple, the war scenes have almost no special effects, and the single action seems long and monotonous, but it was groundbreaking at the time. It swept the Golden Horse Awards that year. Moreover, the budding of "violent aesthetics" has directly affected younger generations such as John Woo, and the grudges and hatreds in it have also made director Chen Kexin unforgettable to this day, and he is determined to remake a "Famous Name".
Although the movie "Thorn Horse" also focuses on depicting the entanglement between men and women that director Zhang Che is not good at, the most prominent thing is the brotherhood. This can be seen intuitively from the English name of the film "BLOOD BROTHERS". "Putting the Name" was born out of this film, of course, it can't get around the brotherhood. To sum up the gist of the stinging horse, the life of a brother is life, and everything else can be killed. Furthermore, "brotherhood" is defined as the belief in the supremacy of the people in the rivers and lakes. "If outsiders disturb my brother, they will kill them, and if my brothers disturb my brothers, they will kill them." It is also relevant.
Of course, the great director Chen Kexin has invested hundreds of millions of dollars and recruited a lot of star actors. Obviously, he is not satisfied with the remake of "Thorn Horse". The director's efforts to break through the old version can be seen from the changes in the script and the change of the title in the middle. Even the eldest brother played by Jet Li is no longer the real Ma Xinyi, but has changed a name that more bluntly hints at the character's fate - Pang Qingyun. Obviously, the director wants to tell us that "Thorn Horse" is just a frame, and he just uses this shell to tell his own story.
Different from Zhang Che's strong and lively pleasure and hatred, Chen Kexin told a story about "human nature and desire" in a dark and tragic tone. The so-called brotherhood, the love of men and women, and even the dream of rising to the sky, are finally destroyed by the complex human nature and endless desires. This can be said that Chen Kexin, who is good at filming "literary dramas", has given the latest thinking and connotation to the story of the thorn horse, which is also the difference between "the name of the man" and "the thorn horse" and even "the true color of the hero". There is no good or bad here. As for which viewers prefer, it can only be left to history to test.
It's a pity that it is indeed difficult to translate the "Certificate of Voting" into English, but the English title of the film "WALORDS (God of War)" is a bit too improvised. It looks like a video game no matter what.
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