Chinese Box

Camron 2022-02-07 14:51:56

2007-09-15 22:30



"China Box" can be understood as the colonial mentality's reaction to the imminent loss of the colony that has occupied a century One point, the mentality of some British people working and living in Hong Kong will definitely not be as happy as the Chinese people. What are they thinking? The reporter John in "China Box" told me that he just wanted to die, he just wanted to die. So, the director gave him a box, a box that was slowly opened or closed from beginning to end only when the subtitles appeared in the film, I thought, let's use it as a coffin.



I am very disgusted that some people compare Wei An to the mainland, Jane to Hong Kong, John to the United Kingdom, and the advance and retreat of the three to the relationship between the three places at that time. Having said that, there are repeated slaughtering chickens and ducks in the movie. , the blood is hot, there is still a struggle when it is cut open, and if you still have a breath, you must be "free", right? But there is also a set of recurring scenes where a greyhound is being driven and trained on a machine, his eyes are dazed, his tongue has lost its cooling effect, and if it doesn't run, it will slide down and be caught by the machine or hanged by a rope. , it can only run desperately. I think it has no direction. It only knows that as long as it has a breath, it will rush furiously. It just wants to live. No matter what place or country, people, as the most basic elements of society, follow This dog is the same, so, no matter the British, the Chinese mainland, the Chinese Hong Kong people, in the big environment, in addition to struggling, what they put in is equal.



I'm used to watching romance, not talking about family and country, but about a few people in that box.



After the countdown to New Year's Eve on December 31, 1996, the student activists who rushed into the New Year's party committed suicide with guns in their mouths. That was not resistance. It was different from awakening the numb people with life and blood. What he did The incident is shit. He is actually very confused about what this place will be like when 1997 comes. He can't figure out the problem and just end himself, just like those stupid people who jumped off the building for love. The actor can't remember the surname Cheng or Zhang? I remember two things about him, one, he is now the husband of the famous Chinese actor Zhang Yan, has a child, a happy family of three, and two, he once acted in a third-level film with Sun Jiajun, Yang Fan, and Huang Qiusheng, probably Called a name such as human flesh barbecued pork, he played a weak man who was afraid of his wife, and was tortured by his lover.



Wei An is indeed very beautiful and atmospheric, Gong Li plays very well, those who say that her English is so bad that her grandmother's house is full of autumn chrysanthemum, can't understand the charm of Gong Li and Wei An, and I still don't know who can play. This role, in addition to Gong Li. Pei Gu, do you think that in Hong Kong in those days, there were plenty of meat-selling girls who were full of beauty, no brains, no brains and no way to use their strength. Wei An knew how to use her physical advantages to make plans for herself. . I don't think she loves anyone, John said she loves Mr. Zhang, wrong, she just wants to find a home for herself in Hong Kong, once she wakes up, even after ten years like this, Mr. Zhang won't marry her, she is Resolutely went to find John, what she said to John was: take me out of Hong Kong. A woman like her has no love in her heart. I have never believed that someone who has been a high-level courtesan on the court has any kind of love. Anyone who has one will find their way to death, like a Camellia, Wei An is smart, John is just her partner, tired An angry one to rely on.



Mr. Zhang, sometimes I think he is already a rare loving and righteous Hong Konger. He is the only person in this box who is qualified to say love. Although he has never married Wei An, he will introduce him when he meets the dignitaries. This woman is the secretary of my company. However, at that time, the customer was making a fuss in the bar, saying that his mainland mistress was cheap, and asked Wei An how much he could pay him. The moment Mr. Zhang picked up the stool and beat him, he shouted angrily: She is my wife! I'll kill you scumbag! I believe he loves Vivian. Xu Guanwen played Mr. Zhang with his usual unrestrained style. I regarded him as a cameo, but in the beating scene, this cameo was full of explosive power.



Jane, sells fake designer goods and pimps on the street. The cartoons I read while eating seem to be picture books like Fengyun. One of my favorite passages is very interesting. When John wanted to interview her and asked her what she thought about return and freedom, she replied. One sentence: "Freedom? What freedom! I can't even drink coffee." This sentence is my favorite line in the whole movie. Yes, foreign devils seem to have lost their hearts and souls when they lose HK, but I know that some people are struggling with the problem of food and clothing. No matter how much you cry, survival is the most important thing. Jane is like this, the pain and the blows she has endured can't stop her enthusiasm for living, and by the end of the film, by July 1997, she was still stopping passers-by on the street to promote her fakes. The scar on half of Jane's face can't hide Maggie Cheung's agile eyes. That era was also her heyday, and her masterpieces are like clouds, so the standard is naturally no problem. I just vaguely remember getting married and divorced by a French person later, and the French movie Blurred Robbery that I couldn't understand at that time.



William, that's the name. Jane told John about her scar and William, the protagonist of the first love story, and John found William who returned to Hong Kong to attend the funeral because his father died of illness. When the two met, he couldn't even remember the person Jane. The funny thing was that he told her that his wife was a miss Wang in his class. Jane cried and said why you don't even know me anymore, we used to exchange love letters and date in the woods outside your house. He shook his head blankly. Some people say that this is a substitute description of the British Empire getting tired of Hong Kong and abandoning it. I think this is too far-fetched, and I think Jane is lying. It's all just her wishful thinking. She fantasized about her first love story too beautifully. Some things happened and some things didn't happen. After a long time, the things that she had been looking forward to strongly were really stored in her mind, and Jane was like this.



John's friend Jim is played by American actor Rubin Blaze. I like the policeman he played in "The Predator" very much. The outline between his eyebrows and his eyes is a little like John Lone, but John Lone is not easy for the role Gaining weight and pretending to be bald, lol. He and John went up the mountain, John was riding the bike, he was sitting in the back, both of them were wearing nice hats and glasses, and they were talking and laughing in the mountain breeze, and John was sleeping in bed, and he played guitar and sang Some cute words made John laugh so much that he almost threw his pillow. I especially like these two scenes. In this movie, Jim is a comfortable man. He was driven out by his girlfriend and came to John's house to be a cat. He brought a 1997 vintage Red wine, after he knew about John's condition, he was afraid that Wei An would go to her immediately and ask her to come to accompany John and find an excuse to move out. In the story, some good friends are always needed to bring warmth to the lonely protagonist, don't they?



The protagonist of the story, John, seems to be very busy, busy with interviews and writing, busy pursuing Wei An, until 1997, when he stayed in HK to do the final data collection before leaving, he fainted many times and found that he had blood cancer, only 3 to 3 In 6 months, nothing can change, everything will change. He accidentally found a photo while interviewing a prostitute. It turned out that Wei An worked in a nightclub when she came to Hong Kong. Mr. Zhang was her pimp and often took her to get through high-level business relationships. He couldn't accept it for a while, so he ran to Wei An's bar and said in front of Wei An, Mr. Zhang and the full room of guests: This man is the agent of this woman, she has a price tag, you can contact this man. .. this uproar, John, like a child deeply hurt by everyone, leaned against the wall of the bar corridor and cried silently. Uncle JI is really a first-class master of nympho who kills Filmin and me and everyone sees a tear in his eyes, his IQ is equal to zero, I really can't imagine what kind of idiot John would be if someone else played it. john. Later, John apologized to Vianne, who was humming Black Market with Marlene Dietrich on TV, he was rejected again, the wind was on the road, the lanky shadow, the messy chestnut hair, the empty coat, walking through the crowd , HK is so big, and he can only go back to the small box where he lives. England, can't go back, he left Wei An's poems with a beautiful small seal, and the bloodstone town that represents everything is on it. The film ends with John's death, lying on the edge of the familiar pier as the ship passes by, he positions the camera towards him, rests his head on his hands, slowly closes his eyes...waiting to die. It doesn't matter who dies, who lives, who gives up, who perseveres, Charles watched as the British flag was lowered, the Chinese People's Liberation Army was stationed in Hong Kong, and this place started a new day. Wei An looked at the fish that had been cut open on the meat case, her heart still beating powerfully. This is not "man-made knives, I am fish and meat", this is the law of development of nature and society.



The original sound of the movie is very nice. I like Zhu Zheqin's suite very much, as well as Chen Sheng's happy gathering song. I remember when John went to Vivian's bar, the karaoke was full of popular songs of the time, and I heard Su Huilun's lemon tree and Du Dewei's unintentional harm. John walks through the streets, alleys, and subways of HK, and with some music with strong Chinese elements, it is so harmonious. It's no wonder that after this film, which is politically unreasonable, human-like, and unable to please the cunning judges, entered the Cannes competition unit, only the soundtrack of Graeme Revell won the Best Original Music.

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Extended Reading

Chinese Box quotes

  • John: You must get a piece of jade, and keep it close. Then your blood will go into the stone, and the stone will get into your blood. The blood will then become stone, and you will stop bleeding.

  • [last lines]

    John: Part of your life, you give me a moment. Me sure in spite of the past, and in spite of the future. This tick of our lifetime is one moment you love me.