Out of my viewing habits, I only watched the 180-minute director's cut. From this version alone, the director's skills are decent, the plot rhythm is reasonable, and the main line is advanced in place. Although the camera language, art costumes, and actors' performances are not too original or explosive, the overall is still impressive. Although Li Bingxian's monologue at the beginning is not amazing, it still has a unique shocking power; Bai Yunzhi accidentally became the acting responsibility of the whole film, and the last phone call at the end directly broke the question, which made people shudder.
Returning to the theme itself, the insiders, and it is this game, constitutes the most profound existence of the whole film.
Everyone has a desire, Maslow has made it very clear. But in this world, even a solitary pursuit of security is sometimes luxurious and scarce. In the first sentence of economics, the allocation of scarce resources is one of the basic ways of thinking in economics after rational people conduct cost-benefit calculations under the established rules of the game. Political power, economic wealth, and cultural discourse power are all scarce resources, and when these resources are intertwined with people’s desire for advanced levels, especially with the unique human “passion for the recognition of others” (Fukuyama) )" When they are mixed together, the breeding of all evils beyond imagination is inevitable. And those who want to be evil, do they have no cronies?
Therefore, the situation of the insiders is not simply a small circle of villains in the three worlds of politics, business and academia, nor is it limited to the vanity fair of the so-called social elites or successful people. It is the shackles that are brought to the human soul after the alienation of the deep desire. As Bai Yunzhi said in the film, no matter which faction is positive or negative, the logic behind the action is almost the same, "No one wants to die in obscurity in the countryside." Or, the general public is bustling with people, and who is not in this game? However, some people know how to rein in the precipice, some people are good at doing good with evil, but a considerable number of people have become slaves of their own desires, falling into a vicious circle of desire and evil.
In the movie, the prosecutor, who was trying to get ahead, finally got rid of the seemingly impregnable small group of villains after going deep into the "game". But the most embarrassing part of the whole film is also here. The motivated young man played by Cao Chengyou did not take this to enter a higher career sequence. Instead, he got out of it and opened a small law firm to make a living. In the face of Lee Byung-hun, who returned from prison, the two had the following conversation (partial lines were fine-tuned):
"Why don't you keep doing it? Prosecutor who seeks justice?"
"Do you want me to become like them?"
" A moth or a butterfly, how do you know if you don’t try it, if you don’t have the confidence, then I’ll go alone?”
At this moment, between the advance and retreat, the scene of the two smoking and looking at each other is full of the most intense aesthetics of the film.
Inside and outside the bureau, how can you know that it is not a blessing?
End note:
Actually, the game in the film has a second meaning. Bai Yunzhi said in the end of the call, our citizens, they don't care about justice, they really want to be just their snacks. Although he broke his right hand, he will use his left hand in the future. The contempt for the mass's ignorance, blindness, and ignorance and the belief that survival is the only standard vulgar philosophy is fully expressed by Bai Yunzhi's laughter. In front of the logic and method of how this society really works, we, perhaps, are just outsiders.
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