On November 25, 2017, at the 54th Taiwan Film Golden Horse Awards, "Blood Guanyin" won the Best Feature Film Award.
Coincidentally, on November 14, just ten days before the film won the award, Tsai Ing-wen, the leader of Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party, was exposed to help the Qingfu Group embezzle up to NT$2.4 billion in the famous "Qingfu Case" of the century. In the event of a solid decision, Taiwan's political situation will undergo earth-shaking changes.
At this point in time, the Golden Horse Awards awarded the grand prize to such a film is meaningful.
The film begins with a large chunk of purple as the main color. In the West, purple is a symbol of elegance, nobility, charm, mystery, depth, maturity, and the most common color used by cardamom girls, with a strong feminine quality - which is equivalent to telling you plainly: "Blood Guanyin" is a big heroine movie. In China, purple is a symbol of authority, such as the Forbidden City in Beijing, which is also known as the "Forbidden City", and the saying that "purple gas comes from the east", which also implies that the film is a game of power.
Often walking by the river, how not to get wet shoes?
The Tang Mansion in the movie is completely supported by women. Lady Tang, Tang Ning, and Tang Zhen are three women circling between the official scenes, and you can imagine how difficult it is to survive.
The cause of the story is that Tang Zhen helped Miss Lin family to hide her private affair with the male servant, and was discovered by the Lin family's parents, and then the Lin family was tragically destroyed. Such a story is common in magazines such as "Zhiyin", and it is conceivable that if the title is changed, it must be "a lonely rich woman is obsessed with a negative male servant and a rake." However, the director has excavated the height of political criticism and human nature analysis by such a strange story of "zhiyin body", and also brought out a strong feminine character.
The film unfolds through strange cases, but it is not trapped in the strange love story, but shows the intrigues and dark scenes between the officialdom. This is also an important reason why the film can jump out of the fixed routine of strange feelings and murder, and go further and dig deeper on practical issues.
After the homicide in Lin Province, the police intervened in the investigation and found that there were still doubts behind it, so through the murder case, a larger corruption case was found, and the Tang Government, the county magistrate, the legislator, and the Construction Bureau were all involved. The director did not adopt a single linear narrative technique, but adopted a bit of information flashback, that is, the early stage is not all to give information, through the way of flashback, constantly give the information to all. In the film, led by interrogation confessions, character memories, news reports, and police investigations, the information is constantly completed in a dot, so as to construct the whole plot in the mind.
It is also through such a dotted flashback, starting from the Lin family massacre, that a large web of official interests with the Tang Dynasty as the core is gradually unfolded. The forces of various officials on the Internet are entangled with each other, alluding to the terrible situation of collusion between officials and businessmen that is common throughout Taiwan's political arena and is taking people's lives for the sake of profit.
The film's portrayal of the form of the officialdom is very delicate.
I often walk by the river, how not to get my shoes wet? There is no high emotional intelligence, and if you want to gain a foothold in the official field, that is no way!
Tang Fu did the Eastern Banquet to invite the wife of the president of the Legislative Yuan, and the lady said that she "did not like the form of self-help" and had to change it immediately, and she had to serve more thoughtfully than her mother. The county magistrate's wife praised the jadeite on Mrs. Lin's body and sent it to the door tomorrow. What should I do if Mrs. Tang's funeral dress is said to be pajamas? Do it all over again! This is officialdom! The most serious social pathology is that no one thinks it is pathological at all. These small details depict the common phenomenon of flattery, commercial blowing, and mutual comparison in the official arena.
How big is the volume of a woman's heart
The three women in the Tang Mansion, with different personalities, each holding up a piece of the sky.
How big a woman's heart is, I'm afraid the woman herself doesn't know.
The story begins with a scene in which the Lin family and his wife come to Tang Mansion as a guest, which seems to be a casual scene, but outlines the different personality characteristics of the three heroines. Tang Zhen bumps into Tang Ning in the back garden with two brothers 3P, but when Mrs. Tang asks, she lies and hides the past. At this time, Mrs. Tang had already seen through the lie, but when the guests were present, she did not say that it was broken. A scene, seeing Lady Tang's scheming and Tang Ning's pungent and uninhibited, also saw Tang Zhen's hidden forbearance.
But in the film, there is a more critical character at this time, that is, Miss Lin.
Miss Lin, who is also thoughtful, also holds the bottom line of seeing through and not saying broken, and keeps her mouth shut. Subsequently, there was a massacre in Lin Province, and all the suspicions were aimed at Miss Lin's boyfriend. But in the process of helping the maid, we see her with a different kind of emotion, which we can see as the unrequited love of adolescence. Among her personality characteristics, there are simple, passionate, as well as forbearance, jealousy, she is not only a girl, she is also a flesh and blood woman. In the end, she took the initiative to seduce the male servant in the process of helping the maid run, and the two staged the "train warehouse war", which was a release of the role that had experienced a long period of repression. And the actor Wen Qi's performance in this scene is very brilliant, and the opponent play directly seconds the opposite actor.
The theory of motivation in psychology generally believes that human behavior is not a single-purpose action, but contains multiple triggers such as emotion, body, social environment, etc., and there are also individual differences in it. Well, the three women in the movie, their behavior not only reflects the environmental factors in the movie, but also has a distinct personality reason.
The character of Tang Ning was shown off by his mother as a success product for many years, helping her mother to maneuver between the official scenes. Seemingly happy, but so lonely all day long, so that they can only rely on sleeping pills to fall asleep every day. It can be seen that the character's heart is very disdainful of what he has done, but he has to do it. Characters with contradictions are characters with distinct personalities. From the character, we can see the tearing feeling between people and their deep dissent when facing pressure, which is the reason why this character can leave the paper and shine on the screen.
In the process of repression and release of the two characters, the director completed the film's exploration of women's sexual psychology.
Tang zhen is suppressed out of the adolescent woman's fascination with the male body, she is not obsessed with the specific object of the male servant, but because the male is a hazy existence for her. In Tang Ning, we see more of the lack of security of adult women, who have been looking for security from men, so captain Liao, who is full of justice, can pose a fatal attraction to her. Wu Kexi, who once had a wonderful performance in "Goodbye Wacheng", has a fiery and restrained performance, and he is very accurate and in place.
The role of Mrs. Tang is the top priority of the movie. In the play, she plays the dual role of mother and head of the family, as a mother she has to consider her daughter, but as the head of the family, she has to take into account the overall situation, between greater gains and losses, interests, and even to make a choice between family affection and family, perhaps only a seasoned actor like Hui Yinghong can play such a woman.
Although Lady Tang is fierce and skillful, she is a believer in Buddhism. Such a persona is full of contradictions, and it is also a shining point in the character. While depicting the characters through Buddhism, the film also gives the most basic Buddhist view of good and evil.
The cycle of reincarnation that cannot be escaped Cannot be avoided
The opening scene is a commentary, an old woman in front of the stage to tell the basic concept of "reincarnation of good and evil, karma".
Along with the title of the film, it is the most famous "Six Reincarnation Diagrams" in the Buddhist thangka, and the big ghost with green fangs in the middle is called the Lord of Death, who is a symbol of impermanence. The original picture is the position of six reincarnations and twelve impermanences, and is put into the small statue of the three daughters of Tang Province, expressing the basic buddhist view, that is, the reincarnation of good and evil, karma and karma. Since the iron law of the ancient Heavenly Dao, no one can escape.
The Guanyin and Shrines that appear in the film are also important props, especially the Guanyin statue.
The statue of Guanyin officially appeared twice, the first time at a banquet at the Tang Mansion, where Madame Lin gave it as a gift to the Wife of the Legislative Yuan, at which point Guanyin was broken. The first layer of the meaning of the broken hand Guanyin is to hint at the hostile relationship between the two. The second layer of allegory brings out the Buddhist allusion to Guanyin's broken hand. Legend has it that Guanyin's father, King Myozhuang, fell ill and had to use one arm as a medicinal guide. Guan Shiyin's two sisters are unwilling to cut off their hands to save their father, only Guan Shiyin sacrificed his arm, which cleverly echoed the ending of the movie. The second appearance is in Tangning to find an official of the Construction Bureau to take the land, and the Guanyin statue at this time is no longer a Buddhist idol, but a symbol of power and desire, which is also the symbolic meaning carried by the title of "Blood Guanyin".
The film "Blood Guanyin" integrates elements such as politics, women, and religion, and while criticizing politics, it brings out the director's thinking on good and evil, crime and punishment. The real problems it reflects are very specific and cruel, and the reason why it was able to win the grand prize was that the Golden Horse judges were also deeply shocked.
Wen 丨 Yunxiu