"Kung Fu 3D": martial arts and Zen in Gotham Walled City

Mckenzie 2022-03-24 09:01:41

If "Yangtze River No. 7" is a special case of Stephen Chow, who is single and lacks father's love so far, a childhood knot broke out, then "Shaolin Soccer", "Kung Fu" and "Journey to the West" can be regarded as Stephen Chow's "Three Movies in the 21st Century" "Music", the three films have a high degree of consistency based on the author in terms of face (visual effects, music) and lining, and "Kung Fu" ten years ago is the link between the three films, and to a considerable extent A glimpse of the unique aspect of Xingye's film path - ten years ago, the annual box office total of Chinese films just exceeded 1.5 billion, and "Kung Fu" received 125 million. As a special effects action blockbuster, it was converted just after its tenth anniversary. It is reasonable to change it into 3D format, and it still seems to be hearty and enjoyable now.

The "Pig Cage Walled City" in "Kung Fu 3D" is more immersive under the three-dimensional effect. This distinctive landmark even makes people find the prototype - the "Longchang Apartment" in Shanghai, indeed, "Pig Cage" The appearance of the cage city is consistent in the cultural blood of Shanghai and Hong Kong. Starting from the classic Shanghai comedy "The Seventy-two Tenants", these many tenants are "urban villages" under the jurisdiction of "chartered women" and "chartered public servants". "The story model (there are similar descriptions in the earlier Shanghai films of the Republic of China), has been up and down in the literary and artistic works of Nanyue Province and Hong Kong for many years (Shanghai residents who went to Hong Kong after liberation continued this way of life and cultural memory), and then Coupled with the "attack from the side" of Kowloon Walled City, a special historical site in Hong Kong, the setting of this grass-roots mixed-use building is already ready to come out in Xing Ye's mind - the various tenants also condense the memories of Xing Ye's childhood, with a profound reality. The foundation, so all of them are flesh and blood, and come alive.

From the perspective of cultural functions, the "Pigcage Walled City" is actually the "Gotham" city in "Batman" - both are places where the city chooses to live, the fish and the dragon are mixed, the government is absent, and the crime is rampant. They have all given birth to superheroes who are chivalrous and righteous (of course, "Pigcage Walled City" is a condensed representative of the city of the Republic of China in the film). The emergence of Gotham was built on the basis of the American metropolitan culture that had flourished in the 19th century (a rewrite of New York). China's urban civilization (Shanghai and Hong Kong) was only in the ascendant in the middle of the 20th century. "Zhai" as a representative is also in line with the macro social and cultural reality.

Of course, Ah Xing in "Gotham Walled City" will not be a Broth Wayne (Batman's real name)-style asset elite. Ah Xing must be a counter-attack Diaosi rooted in simple Confucian-agricultural culture. It is also in line with Zhou Xingchi's consistent image of a small person, and his kind-hearted nature has given him enough foreshadowing to return to the prodigal son, so that he can successfully complete the transformation of a superhero.

The title of the film "Kung Fu" directly points out the type of the film. Ah Xing's obsession with Kung Fu since childhood and his stunts have been developed by accident. First of all, it is a release of Xing Ye's childhood Kung Fu complex, and secondly, it is completely in line with the usual Chinese martial arts novels. Routines - get a secret book when you are in the main corner, and then work hard to get the invincible player all over the world. Of course, "Kung Fu" has made a playful expression on this, but the narrative context is the same. As an unparalleled martial arts wizard, A Xing himself assumes the responsibility of "the One" (Harry Potter with a scar on his forehead), and only he can save "Gotham Walled City" from water and fire - in the end A Xing's white clothes in the big battle reminded people of "Rising from the Dead" Gandalf who changed from gray robe to white robe ("The Lord of the Rings 2"), and Dongfang Invincible has long said, "You have science and I have magic power. ” (“The Undefeated East Rising”), when Bruce Wayne, who had a car and a house in Gotham City, put his high-tech underwear on his head, our Ah Xing could only rely on the Boxer. The "magical power" of the style is transformed into the exit - in essence, the skills of Gandalf, Batman and Axing are no different, magic, sci-fi, and kung fu are just different ways of dreaming in movies (Goro's gossip stick master's sentence before his death "" The greater the energy, the greater the responsibility", once again consolidating the heterogeneous and homologous relationship between Axing and Meiman superheroes).

The martial arts actors in "Kung Fu" have a lot of background, and interested friends can search for themselves. In the whole story mode, Xing Ye has also created a complete martial arts chain: Crocodile Gang-Axe Gang-Three Masters in the Walled City - the world is in short supply - chartered husband and wife - fire cloud evil god - 2.0 version of Axing, we can clearly see the influence of Cantonese fragments (and "The Shining"), every latecomer in the chain is more powerful than the former Master, the whole story thus presents a distinct "fighting monsters and upgrading" style of video games, and this is the classic structure in martial arts novels - if we look ahead, we will find the team fighting monsters in Shaolin Soccer, and The three major slaying paragraphs in "Journey to the West" are almost identical to those in "Kung Fu", and the trilogy obviously follows an increasingly clear and simple model of "destroying monsters and upgrading". I can't help but think of the cartoon "Kung Fu Kid" I watched when I was a child. The protagonist Jin Mi Yiguan studied and fought monsters. In the end, "after all the hardships, I finally became a boxing master!"

The first master sweeper in "Tianlong Babu" once explained The relationship between Buddhism and hostility, the stronger the martial arts, the more vigorous the hostility, and the Buddhadharma is the only way to resolve hostility. "Journey to the West" aside, from the perspective of the trilogy, the Zen monk martial arts in "Shaolin Soccer" is only turned into a football miracle (this setting has long been shown in the mainland movie "Kyoto Ball Man"), and when "Shaolin Football" In "Kung Fu", we found that Buddhism and martial arts have been integrated into one. When Ah Xing's second meridian penetrated and cultivated peerless martial arts, he actually became the spokesperson of "Buddha". The fire cloud evil spirit is submissive (the palm effect is no less than Batman vs Superman).

The highest level of martial arts is Zen, otherwise, the story of martial arts will have no "other side". Film writers who are famous in the world film circle must have their own "other shore", otherwise they can only crawl on the ground and cannot rise up (in this regard, Xing Ye is stronger than many mainland film writers, the latter often stop and settle for cheap critique of reality or another stylized retelling of history and culminates in a game of power imagining). The Zen-like transformation of Buddhism after the Han Dynasty happened to give Xingye a natural picture of the other side-Which one of the stories in "Five Lantern Festival" is not "nonsense"? "Epiphany" has been extreme to the realm of "putting down the butcher's knife and becoming a Buddha on the spot", isn't it the most bloody plot twist? I haven't verified Xingye's beliefs, so I guess, it should be a spontaneous Buddhist consciousness derived from the simple beliefs of the Chinese folk-for Chinese writers and artists who lack religious soil, this consciousness is very precious.

With the other side of Zen, even if you end up in the mundane, it is no longer just the "ego" in your heart. At the end of "Shaolin Football", "everyone has the ability to practice" the street ending of turning martial arts into a daily supernatural function, which is similar to that in "Kung Fu". In the end, the harmonious and peaceful street scene is no different at all ("Gotham Walled City" was finally reborn from ashes), and in "Journey to the West", it is the home of the master and the apprentice all the way to the west for the livelihood of the common people.

The faith of Zen is also the return of Axing's belief in kung fu (actually reminded of Tarkovsky's saying "Only by firm belief can be saved"), the simplest hero complex in childhood, and finally can open an optimistic flower The Golden Lotus of Doctrine - With this kind of thought, Ah Xing has a Buddha affinity, how can he be a treacherous person? Ma Zuori in "One Step Away" thought that he could do wrong, but every time he found that he always had good intentions in his heart and was "one step away" from doing bad things, but he didn't know that A Xing, ten years ago, had already exhausted his sorrows.

In terms of details, "Kung Fu" also gave Xing Ye plenty of creative space. I haven't counted them, but I estimate that "Kung Fu" is probably the star master's work with the least number of shots. The technique of "Bixing" runs through the whole film, and Zhang Hui's novel-style "beginning after a long call" is used repeatedly. Master Xing has carefully designed many wonderful characters to appear in the bridge, plus many stage-style scenes dispatched by long shots. The sense of shape also makes "Kung Fu" an excellent stage to show Chinese Kung Fu. Also a film of the Republic of China, "Kung Fu" does not show any narrowness in audio-visual language, and it depicts the specific time and space of the convergence of Chinese and Western cultures in a fascinating way. In terms of music, the composer Huang Yinghua used ethnic music such as "The Order of the Generals", "Donghai Fisherman's Song", "Knife Club Suite", "Heroes Overcome the Dadu River" and other folk music (these pieces were all born \ re-arranged before the "Cultural Revolution" Red China), also made the local national characteristics come to the ears.

The comedy setting of Xing Ye’s childish innocence also left classic episodes in “Kung Fu”, such as the part where the charter wife and Ah Xing imitate the racing car chase, which reminds people of the similar description of Edgar Allan Poe (“The Plague King”) "In the sailor borrowed the nautical password outside the tavern to run the order); and the concave shape of A Xing when he robbed the dumb girl, echoed the poster of the old Hollywood movie "Top Hat" behind him, all of which left a deep impression on people (classic props Lollipop's dramatic intensification also adds weight to the humble love narrative).

Speaking of this, I have to say that in a world of "Martial Arts" and "Zen", it is difficult to place love, so the love in "Kung Fu" is rather a childhood memory of a child playing a family - as such Li Lu, love is indeed becoming more and more "old and nowhere to be found" in the Xingye trilogy, and in "Journey to the West", it can only be abandoned at the end (I regard "Journey to the West" as Liu Zhenwei's work).

Will the love scenes become more and more tragic in the future works of Xing Ye? can you? won't it?

Let's go back to "Kung Fu" itself, all the stories are based on that martial arts secret book, and when I think of this, I often hear Wu Zhuangyuan's deafening question in "Tang Bohu's Autumn Fragrance": "So, in Where can I buy it?!" Uh~ Uh~ Uh...

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Extended Reading
  • Everett 2022-04-24 07:01:05

    It didn't even get 8 points! Angry 5 stars! —————————————————— 8.5, waiting for the day of 9.8

  • Emma 2022-03-22 09:01:38

    Revisit. The technical aspects of art, soundtrack, and photography are among the best even among the top Chinese-language films. Master Xing continued to tell a simple story of a small man punishing evil for good with the best performance of his career. Time will prove that "Kung Fu" is Stephen Chow's best movie, and it far exceeds the second best movie. If he wants to cross his peak, I am afraid that he can only rely on "Kung Fu 2".

Kung Fu Hustle quotes

  • Sing: No more soccer!

  • Brother Sum: Ever killed anyone?

    Sing: I've always thought about it.