Mediocre, I understand the obscure "Nie Yinniang" so and so

Note that this is not a film review, just a movie guide, for the first time to see the film film directed by Hou Xiaoxian in a mainland theater, what reason to miss it.

Since its release on August 27, in less than a week, the movie "Assassin Nie Yinniang" has successfully occupied the pages of new and old media, triggering a "battle between pretending x and anti-loading x", some people were moved to tears and praised, and some people fell asleep and cried out bored.

The luxurious star lineup of Shu Qi, Zhang Zhen, Zhou Yun, Ruan Jingtian and his wife Mu Cong (face blind patients said that they saw the staff to know that the young man played by the mirror was his wife Mu Cong, and the handsome bodyguard was Ruan Jingtian); Filmed Chinese mainland and Taiwan, as well as Japan; As a literary and art film, the investment is as high as 90 million; Under the operation of commercialization, it is a "pure art film" with a personal style... It is not surprising that word of mouth is polarized.

In the controversy, the box office of "Assassin Nie Yinniang" exceeded 40 million in the first week, and some insiders analyzed that the box office of "Nie Yinniang" may surpass "Daytime Fireworks" and become the highest-grossing award-winning literary and art film.

In this controversy of "pretending x and anti-loading x", the mainstream moviegoers who are regarded as "mediocre" by high-cold film critics can be treated with what posture if they do not reject this movie that picks the audience because they are disliked?

As a member of the philistine crowd, before deciding to worship the "immortal work", I learned from various sources that the biggest feature of this film is "slow pace and obscure", so in order to better experience this "creation with my back to the audience", I previewed the following background lessons -

First, read the original. The story of "Nie Yinniang" is based on a "Legend" written by Pei Chun in the Tang Dynasty, with a total of more than 1700 words in the literary version, which is docked with children's shoes that have been trained in ancient Chinese in the compulsory education stage, which basically does not cause reading obstacles. However, there is a big difference between the film and the original work, in addition to the main characters, the film has basically jumped out of the scope of the original work, and also completely stripped the content of the original fantasy zhiwei, the reason why I read the original work is to grasp the background of the times from a macroscopic perspective.

It is necessary to understand the times in which they live. The background of the story is not the Tang Dynasty that most Chinese people are familiar with, but the Middle Tang Dynasty that was torn apart after the Anshi Rebellion. It is said that many viewers subconsciously cannot understand the Tang Dynasty, which is divided into feudal towns, which is also one of the reasons why they cannot be integrated into this film.

Second, read the script. The full text of the script is about 15,000 words, the main characters are less than 20 people, and the intimate creative team has specially released a character relationship diagram (see the following figure) in order to take care of the audience who is spoiled by the Hollywood narrative model. Compared with the original work, the film script changed the assassination target to his cousin Tian Ji'an (Zhang Zhen).

"Assassin Nie Yinniang" character relationship diagram.

The most time-consuming but also the most important lesson is to revisit Hou Xiaoxian's classic works: "The Man from the Wind Cabinet", "Love the Wind and Dust" and "Sea Flower". "The Man from the Wind Cabinet" is the foundation work of Hou Xiaoxian's film aesthetics, and watching this film is to lay the foundation; The story of the pair of young lovers of green plum bamboo horses in "Love Wind and Dust" will make you believe that not holding hands, not kissing, not having abortions, not believing in vows, not vowing dan vowing not to hissing and splitting lungs, you can also understand the importance of the mirror teenager to Nie Yinniang, and Nie Yinniang's intolerance to Tian Ji'an; The opening 8-minute long shot of "Flowers on the Sea" will make you smile when someone says that Tian Ji'an tells Hu Ji about the gorgeousness of Nie Yinniang's life.

After watching the three movies of "The Man from the Wind Cabinet" + "Love Wind and Dust" + "Sea Flower", it takes a total of 340 minutes, that is, 5.6 hours, plus reading the original work and script, it takes at least 7 hours. If you're only going to the theater for entertainment and don't want to bother with a movie, try the 4-minute stop-motion animation short "Prequel to The Assassin Nie Yinniang" and the Taiwanese version of the 2-minute trailer.

Finally, before running to the theater full of expectations, there are two small skills to master: 1, be sure to watch the evening show to ensure a quiet viewing environment, don't forget, the theme of "Assassin Nie Yinniang", which has been sharpening a sword for seven years, is "one person, no kind"; 2, be sure to have enough sleep on the day of the movie, because this is a movie that makes you "sleep in the scenery of the Tang Dynasty" without paying attention.

But in fact, all of the above homework can be omitted, as the screenwriter Zhu Tiantian said, this movie is not as difficult to understand as everyone says, it is just a story about a lonely girl who can't kill her beloved and can only leave in the end.

It is said that when it was screened at the Cannes Film Festival, "Nie Yinniang" received such an evaluation: "Sleep very comfortably, wake up and say good", recently a big V recommender who challenged "Nie Yinniang" commented slightly jokingly that the masterpiece and the divine work are no longer enough to describe it, it must be a fairy work. Hou Xiaoxian is of course a master, and the film must also have the value and significance of existence. There is such a film, you have also seen it in the theater, it is enough.

Chen Si, editor of the New Media of the Beijing News, according to public information

Editors: Li Xueying, Liu Zhe