Akira Kurosawa is a generation of film masters, all-round film genius, in his early film works "Wild Dogs" is not the best, but it is definitely worth the history of the kind of work, really have to admire the master god-like artistic creativity.
Released in 1949, the film tells the story of a Tokyo policeman who struggles to pursue a murderer after his pistol is stolen. It sounds like a simple story of a cop movie, but Akira Kurosawa has achieved the expression of an art film in the genre film.
In the film, he fiercely shows japan's post-war economic collapse and a large number of unemployed young people, which leads to the road of crime, thus showing the criticism of social phenomena and a high degree of humanistic care.
As a master among masters and a director among directors, Akira Kurosawa's works have influenced film creators all over the world, and has always been a generational teacher for contemporary directors.
"Wild Dog" tells the story of a policeman looking for a gun, in 2002 Lu Chuan's "Looking for a Gun" is also a story of a policeman looking for a gun, and in 2003, Du Qifeng's "PTU" is still a police gun hunting story.
So is there a connection between these three films?
Judging from the current reports, neither Lu Chuan nor Du Qifeng has said that their creation has anything to do with Akira Kurosawa.
Then, as a film of the same type, even if the respective creators do not express a certain connection, they still cannot deny the fact that there is a certain connection between them.
The 28-year-old policeman played by Toshiro Mifune in "Wild Dogs" finally tracks down the killer and finds that the person who stole his gun is also a 28-year-old youth, but he has no job and is just wandering in the city all day.
In addition to their age, the two had somewhat the same experience, and both retired from the army after Japan's defeat in the war. The difference is that after the character played by Toshiro Mifune retired, he successfully entered the police station, while the pickpocket who stole the gun was stolen on the train back.
It is also a post-war retirement, some people are successfully employed, and some people are abandoned by society, and they have had a completely different life since then.
In the final duel, two 28-year-old young men, both wearing the same style of white suits, under the strong light of the sun, could not tell who was who, like two sides of one person.
Imagine if the train was stolen by a policeman played by Toshiro Mifune, and the pickpockets could get a job smoothly, then their lives would not be interchangeable. This is why the policeman played by Toshiro Mifune feel sad about the life of a pickpocket of the same age as himself.
The policeman played by Jiang Wen in "Looking for a Gun" has been constantly chasing the murderer, and although a murderer was found at the end of the story, it can be seen from the surreal performance of the film and many details that the story also has a B side.
Good film critics pointed out that the murderer in the film is not the Liu stutterer who sells mutton powder, this person is just the B-faced personality imagined by the policeman played by Jiang Wen in his subconscious.
This inference can still find some details as a strong basis in the film, such as the policeman played by Jiang Wen and this stuttering meeting for the first time, stuttering is obviously talking, and Jiang Wen has to say that people are stuttering.
Therefore, the story of "Looking for a Gun" can also be seen as the protagonist fighting with his other personality, only this time it is expressed by postmodern expression methods such as surreality, dreams, and imagination.
This is the connection between "Wild Dogs" and "Gun Hunting".
The policeman played by Toshiro Mifune in "Wild Dogs" has received great help from a senior policeman in the process of pursuing the murderer, not only helping him find the real murderer, but even helping him explain the doubts in his heart.
After Lin Xue lost his gun in Du Qifeng's movie "PTU", the PTU action team led by Ren Dahua was also doing his best to help colleagues, and in the process, he showed the tacit cooperation between comrades.
For example, Ren Dahua took the new messenger soldiers to teach him how to do things, and the messenger soldiers helped everyone at the last moment, truly explaining what is "putting on the uniform is their own person".
And at the end of "Nogara Dog", the policeman played by Toshiro Mifune was not punished but was rewarded for cracking the black market for selling guns in Tokyo in the process of retrieving the pistol.
This is amplified a lot in "PTU", and the last group of PTU members in the story encounter the gang that is preparing to flee. After a fierce exchange of fire, the gang was all killed, and Lin Xue accidentally retrieved the gun, and finally had a romantic ending.
The difference is that the policeman played by Toshiro Mifune in "Wild Dogs" cracks the black market for buying and selling guns is reasonable in the plot, while the encounter with gangsters in the final ending of "PTU" is more of a coincidence and accident, and even Lin Xue's retrieval of the pistol is also a coincidence and accident.
This is the connection between "Wild Dog" and Du Qifeng's "PTU".
It is also a story of a policeman looking for a gun, because the creators express different footholds, and there are different film aesthetics.
Akira Kurosawa's "Wild Dogs" is the founding school of classicism, Lu Chuan is the academic expression of postmodernism, and Du Qifeng is the romanticism under his personal style.
In terms of movie experience, Akira Kurosawa and Du Qifeng are obviously a little more complete, perhaps this is the reason why they became masters, and Lu Chuan will only shoot worse and worse.