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I don't like to watch horror movies, but I prefer psychological thriller portrayal movies.
But this type of film often becomes a forbidden area for many directors, what is a horror film? Like a Japanese ghost movie or like a Chinese zombie movie? Hollywood has always put the needs of the audience first, they know what kind of horror movies the audience likes, so they concoct movies such as "Chainsaw Horror" and "Horror Wax Museum". But the reason I don't like this kind of movie is that they are pursuing a sensory stimulus, not a psychological game, and themes like American Psycho and The Silence of the Lambs are different from these horror movies, and their portrayals of characters are more real and weird.
In general, I still don't like to watch thrillers, some time ago to the cinema to see "A Quiet Place" on the discovery, this film is full of novelty, but there are many loopholes, Chinese watching movies is very picky about details, so the reputation of different areas is very different.
A Quiet Place
China's horror films are lackluster, and most of them are shoddily made, which has some connection with the country's failure to classify films. But we really can't do much interesting things, more than a decade ago, we still have the "See ghosts" series brought to us by the Peng brothers, but now in the era of the Chinese market blowout, we are more inclined to the visual experience brought by special effects movies, and even Hollywood and other genres seem to have reached a bottleneck.
"Hell"
The great Kubrick didn't hesitate to make The Shining, and while there are very few directors like him who don't repeat the subject a second time, we can still see people like Robert Altman and Ang Lee who are constantly challenging themselves, not repeating the rules, not frying leftovers.
The Shining
This should also mention the serious lack of genre films in the current Chinese market, I remember that after the release of "City of Philharmonic Music", word of mouth was polarized, which is a normal phenomenon, after all, the audience of song and dance movies in China is pitiful, and no Chinese director dares to make them. Similar to the cold situation in North America in "Billy Lynn's Halftime War", foreigners do not understand Ang Lee's oriental restrained emotions. But the strong reliance of Chinese audiences on scripts and special effects is really frightening, and "The History of the Demise of Romanticism" only disrupts the order and adds a lot of film aesthetics throughout, and the audience calls out bad movies. This kind of situation Wong Kar-wai and Hou Xiaoxian have also encountered, the two are very famous, but the audience just can't understand, why? The reason is also that Chinese audiences are exposed to too few genre films.
The Demise of Romanticism
When I talk to foreigners about movies, I find that they watch no less movies than some veteran movie fans, and they are not fanatical fans, but just leisure to pass the time. So we have to think deeply, after more than a decade, Chinese audiences may not even understand "Master of Hypnosis", let alone a tepid drama like "Manchester by the Sea".
Manchester by the Sea
Roadside Picnic
Every year, the Chinese film industry is supporting new directors, and we can only see industrial works such as "Roadside Picnic", but in fact, the film is just like a group of lonely people's carnival, in the circle, will be proud and dissatisfied, outside the circle, will be unknown. I've always wanted audiences to embrace different types of movies, which is not easy, when I was 16 years old, I first came into contact with vampire movies, only to find that this type of movie will really impress a lot of people, first, it is really not dull and good to watch, and second, it can also be said to open a new era. The movie is Francis Coppola's Four Hundred Years of Vampire Zombie Horror.
Coppola and daughter Sofia
Francis Coppola, big and small awards, have won almost all the prizes, and the "Godfather" series is famous enough to be famous in film history, not to mention the great anti-war themes like "Revelation Now". Their families are all insiders, and the rumor of an Oscar per person is really not a joke, a screenwriter, a photographer, an actor, a director. Coppola's daughter Sophia was even more stunning with her debut film "Lost in Tokyo", which can imagine how magical genetic and cultural transmission is.
"Four Hundred Years of Vampire Zombie Horror" is the most important movie before Coppola gradually retires, it is charming and deep, gorgeous retro, and it is like a dream after watching it. At that time, in terms of production lineup, none of them were fuel-efficient lamps. The actors are even more outstanding, Gary Oldman, Anthony Hopkins, Winola Ryder, Keanu Reeves, Monica Bellucci, these actors are all people who can carry the big flag today.
More or less, later like "Night Interview with the Vampire", "Van Helsing", "Twilight" and other genres are influenced by this movie, Coppola's original intention in making this film is also to give himself a challenge, after all, vampire themes are not so common, especially in the 90s.
Even if "vampires" are so popular in Western countries, only a few curious directors in film history are interested in this, and the earliest "vampire" film in history appeared in 1922 by the German director F. W. Mauna's "Nosferatu", this film and "Four Hundred Years of Vampire Zombie Horror" are based on "Dracula" as a lead, at that time, such a strange movie did trigger a lot of public opinion, but after the subject continued to derive, the word vampire began to become flooded, even bland.
In Western legend, the first vampire in history is the "Count Dracula", who was a warrior on the battlefield, but lost his lover because of his speech, so he questioned his faith, vowed to fight against the gods, and turned into a monster that sucked human blood for eternity. The film boldly follows historical legends to re-portray the character of Dracula.
Set in the background of Dracula became a vampire four hundred years later, the young London lawyer Jonathan was assigned to the Romanian Dracula's castle to deal with his real estate procedures in London, how to expect that his fiancée and Dracula's dead lover looked similar, Dracula was imprisoned by love for four hundred years, he saw the hope of his own rebirth, so he imprisoned Jonathan, turned into a young appearance to go to London, and thus began an unforgettable love.
At the heart of the film is still redemption and love, Dracula loses his self and faith because of love, he is a man who is obsessed with love, and for this he does whatever it takes to reunite with his lover. This is a complex and pathetic character, and we can see that Coppola portrays this character with care, whether it is from his obsession with Mina or his rebellion against the outside world and the loneliness of the self, which proves the immortality of this character.
I certainly like the performance of Gary Oldman, who never symbolizes a character and looks at himself more like "only bad actors, no bad characters." Every action he makes, every look he makes, seems to melt you, and we're deeply in love with the character, even if his love is too obsessive, so what? Just like Mina, from heart to soul, she was trembling for this man.
Of course, I also like Winola Ryder and Keanu Reeves, for such a perfect two people really can't resist, that is their best years, Winora Ryder has not yet filmed "Edward Scissorhands", Fang Rong is still there; Keanu Reeves has not yet become a savior in "The Matrix", and then look at the present, I feel that the people are gone, and I have feelings.
Coppola's shot of "Dracula" is the embodiment of tragedy and at the same time a perfect existence, so many of his aesthetic colors are contrasted with bright red and black. The red robe was very impressive, and in the dark castle, the white-haired Dracula climbed on the city wall in a red robe, with ghostly eyes and wrinkled face, changing the image of the previous fangs. Later, Gary Oldman transformed into a modern metropolis, with a top hat, black-rimmed glasses, a dress and a body, and a high-class person, which is fascinating. It seems that after that, a large number of vampire movies began to change the ugly image, and then became a handsome teenager, which was somewhat out of the ghost setting, but the market demand gradually expanded, and people were closer to the perfect fantasy state of vampires.
This is evident from "Night Interview with the Vampire" and "Twilight", and even in American dramas such as "The Vampire Diaries" and "True Love Is Blood", where people such as Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt and Robert Pattinson are the perfect embodiment of vampires as human beings, and audiences always expect to find some kind of fantasy in such people. On the other hand, the existence of "vampires" is destructive, but Western society will always turn a certain fantasy into reality, and then derive a series of cultural outputs, from this point of view, the cultural characteristics of the East are more obvious, but never found a breakthrough.
Therefore, there is no doubt that "Four Hundred Years of Vampire Zombie Horror" has become the most classic vampire work since the New Era in a sense, it has everything you want to see, romantic love, handsome protagonists, unforgettable plots, dark and beautiful scene configurations. When everything is organized together, Coppola balances everything with his aesthetic, so that we can see the beauty and disillusionment of the film.
This movie must be a tragedy, only under the tragedy can derive great love, which is a bit like the standard model of Shakespeare's classical drama, but in order to create a dramatic climax, people spare no effort to separate the male and female protagonists, but only then can we return to the reality of sadness, every time we think of this story, we have regrets, and we will cherish the feelings we have.
"Vampire Zombie Thriller 400 Years" is one of the earliest horror genre films I have ever been exposed to, in fact, it is more like a romance film, and its core is very humane, it does not bluff, does not deliberately create atmosphere, but just mixes horror elements in a poignant love story. In fact, in the end, we are all people who long to be loved, longing to be like Count Dracula, for love, thrilled for four hundred years, just to wait for that one person.