The novels and movies of "The Sound of the Wind" are like two flowers blooming on a vine, which is a bit of a "two flowers bloom, one branch each". It tells the story of the underground communists in the Japanese and pseudo-Japanese periods, who successfully sent out important information in the harsh political environment, overstepping heavy imprisonment and suspicion, and avoiding their colleagues from being captured by the Japanese army. However, the content and emotional capacity of the novel "The Sound of the Wind" are far from being reflected in just 2 hours of film.
The Mai family's novel is a labyrinth of narrative and a lament for the human will. The novel "The Sound of the Wind" puts the characters into an extreme closed environment, and completes a counterattack of faith in the contrast and choice of life and death, success and failure, strong and weak, amorous and ruthless.
Life and death werewolf kill, life game with no choice
The background of the story of "The Sound of the Wind" is Hangzhou during the Japanese and pseudo-japanese periods, because of its close proximity to Shanghai and Nanjing, convenient transportation, and relatively weak Japanese troops, it has become an important stronghold for the secret activities of the secret agents of the Kuomintang military command and the underground organization of the Communist Party.
Several protagonists of the novel: Wu Zhiguo, director of the Military General Staff Department, Jin Shenghuo, director of the Military Classified Division, Li Ningyu, chief of the Translation and Telecommunications Section of the Military Aircraft Department, Bai Xiaonian, secretary of the Commander, and Gu Xiaomeng, a member of the Translation and Telecommunications Section, were suspected by the Japanese army precisely because they participated in an operation of leaking secret electricity, and were uniformly detained in Qiuzhuang to find out the "old ghost" of the members of the Chinese underground organization who leaked information. In order to find out the "old ghost", the representatives of the Japanese side and the puppet government did everything to the extreme, bringing strong physical and mental oppression to these five people. In order to protect the safety of the members of the CCP's underground organization, the "old ghost" must pass on the information that the Japanese army has discovered before the gathering of heroes. This is a seemingly impossible game of life and death between the strong and the weak.
In the novel's journey, the Mai family believes that the shell (story) of "The Sound of the Wind" is a room escape game.
From the background, China and even the world in 1941 were desperate, the situation in World War II was unknown, and mankind was in a chaotic world with endless smoke and smoke. From a small environment, the beautiful Qiu Zhuang is actually a hell in the personal world, everyone is looking for ghosts, evil against evil, dogs bite dogs, plant stolen goods, plots, fights, human nature is destroyed, and animal nature is great. The real "old ghost", who bears heavy responsibilities, is in prison, has no helpers inside, and has no external response, and seems to be able to endure humiliation and burden and sit still. With the limit approaching, she fought with her life and fought back, and finally did not fail in her mission.
The five of them are in the beautiful and remote Qiuzhuang small building, and can only testify against others and leave themselves alone, which is more like a werewolf killing game that does not know life and death.
The werewolf (the old ghost of the CCP underground organization) must clear his werewolf suspicion in front of the god (The Japanese army) and several other players, and if necessary, lead the disaster to the east, so as to send out information in a limited time and win the game. In this process, careful observation, dexterous response, and powerful expression are indispensable. Other players, on the other hand, also have their own identities, some are the same lurking half-aware divine cards (members of the military command), and some are villagers who do not know anything (traitors), their perspective and information are limited, but they also need to prove their innocence and identify werewolves in order to cast werewolves out of the game.
In this life-and-death werewolf killing, there is no room for a single mistake. Once a flaw is revealed, it will be caught by God and other players, and then ticketed out. Wu Zhiguo was taken out and tortured because in the examination of notes, it was found that the handwriting of the old ghost basically matched. Although he still did not admit it under the heavy sentence, and vigorously refuted it, winning a glimmer of life for himself, the suspicion on his body was still the most important. And the real old ghost Li Ningyu, like walking on a steel wire rope full of sharp knives, can only move forward, and there are many dangers.
The Japanese officers, relying on their intuition, thought that Li Ningyu was an old ghost, but when there was no evidence, they set up a situation of Wu Zhiguo's fake death to test Li Ningyu, and publicly exposed it, so that everyone could expose and report it.
Jin Shenghuo: I can't imagine, I can't imagine, I have worked with her for so many years, and I am actually a communist.
Gu Xiaomeng: I don't know if she is a communist bandit, but I hope she is not.
Secretary White: Are you sure she's an old ghost?
Standard werewolf killing speech. It is also a battle of wits and arguments, but this game is not entertaining at all, but just to survive. The five were caught up in this game of life, and under the strong pressure of the Japanese army, they had no choice but to follow the rules of the game, make their speech and performance more normal, and let themselves out later.
The old ghost Li Ningyu finally died, because he could not stand Hihara's suspicions and suspected poisoning, and used death to prove his innocence. In this game of life and death werewolf killing, she seems to have lost. But since her goal was not to survive, but to send the intelligence out and keep more Communists alive, she won. The werewolves win.
Female mythology and national fables based on Jokgang
Being held in the heavily guarded Qiu Zhuang Xiaolou is the oppression of the powerful against the weak; the ministers, division chiefs, and commanders' secretaries, each with a higher official title than the old ghost Li Ningyu and the military commander Gu Xiaomeng, is the high-ranking person's contempt for the low-ranking person; three men and two women, the guards and interrogators are all men, and they are all frivolous and discriminatory against women, which is the implicit coercion of gender. In such a contrast between strength and weakness, Li Ningyu and Gu Xiaomeng became the only two winners in this game of life, the former won the security of colleagues and the victory of the revolution, and the latter won life.
Among the five detainees, Li Ningyu was an old ghost who was a member of the communist underground organization, and Gu Xiaomeng was a member of the Kuomintang military command, and they were all secretly engaged in anti-Japanese work of intelligence transmission in the Japanese puppet government. If it weren't for this game of hunting, they might never know each other's true identity for the rest of their lives.
The environment is harsh, the situation is urgent, and the life is critical. It was in such a seemingly impossible harsh environment that Li Ningyu and Gu Xiaomeng used human will and wisdom to complete a female counterattack. It seems to be weak, but it hides strength; it seems to be in a dead end, but it has won a glimmer of life for itself.
If Gu Xiaomeng relies on her family lineage (her father donated a plane to Wang Jingwei) and the image of a pampered lady she has created to hide her identity, Li Ningyu relies on a cautious and thoughtful way of doing things. Precautionary, as early as the weekdays were not exposed, she was privately practicing Wu Zhiguo's characters, and the messages were also used in Wu Zhiguo's handwriting, and she acted cautiously. Finally, at this critical juncture of life and death, I relied on handwriting to earn a glimmer of life for myself.
Although the Japanese officer Hihara did not let down his suspicions about others despite the solid evidence of Wu Zhiguo's handwriting. But Li Ningyu at least through this hand, completely muddyed this beach of water. After that, she had no helper outside, and when she could not send the information out by all means, she cleverly tested Gu Xiaomeng's identity and used threats, requests and other means to let Gu Xiaomeng, who had escaped from Hihara's suspicions, pass on the information for herself.
The last threshold for Gu Xiaomeng to successfully pass on the information was Li Ningyu's death. Li Ningyu took poison to prove her innocence and accused Hihara of her doubts and harm to herself, although this can greatly alleviate everyone's suspicions, but she knows that when the opening of the Qunying Association is imminent, the Japanese will not easily relax. At this time, Gu Xiaomeng's whistleblowing suddenly confirmed Li Ningyu's old ghost identity, but at the same time, he also completely cleared his suspicions. Therefore, she was able to go out to help Li Ningyu pass on information in a fair and honest manner, and avoided the tragic incident of the Japanese army's cleansing and suppression of the CCP's underground organization gathering.
In fact, all the people involved in qiuzhuang's case, including the high-powered Commander Zhang, including the Japanese officer Hihara, who flaunted his might, and Wang Tianxiang, a traitor who was inflamed and dependent, were dead. Only Gu Xiaomeng, alone, survived and won the victory of this game; and Li Ningyu, who died as she wanted, was also the winner of another level.
This brutal life-and-death werewolf killing ended in the victory of two weak women. Is it deliberate that the author portrays the hidden CCP underground party old ghost and the military command agent as a woman?
In the turbulent world of 1941, women were naturally less socially powerful and less aggressive than men. This is their latent protective color. On the outside, it seems weak and deceitful, but in fact, it is stronger and firmer than men on the inside. Under the oppression of the powerful, we will see the tricks and tricks, use our own wisdom and strain to jump out of the dark abyss and realize the resistance and counterattack of the weak.
This is actually a national symbol as well. Using the victory of Li Ningyu and Gu Xiaomeng, two seemingly weak anti-Japanese fighters, it is a metaphor that the Chinese nation, which has suffered great disasters and has been bullied, will also win the victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan through its own wisdom and firm will, and restore the independence of the nation. It is precisely this kind of music that the author uses to interpret a heroic philosophy and national fable.
Deep down is ruthlessness: the power of faith
On the waist seal of the novel "The Sound of the Wind", the author Mai Jia's words are printed:
It seems that I wrote a group of ruthless people, and this is precisely my most affectionate work.
The whole novel of "The Sound of the Wind" is full of this tension of bipolar transformation. The confrontation between the weak and the strong, the choice of life and death, the reversal of success and failure, the ruthless and affectionate judgment, as the plot of the novel unfolds, gradually subverts the reader's original cognition, and in the suspense and continuous reversal, presents the complex ideological connotation of the novel.
In such an era, whether it was engaging in underground work and pretending to be obedient, or forgetting the hatred of the country and the family to truly submit to the Japanese invaders, it was a livelihood of licking blood on the tip of the knife. Being ruthless and indecisive everywhere is obviously going to kill you. Since ancient times, there has been a lot of emotion and hatred, so every character in the novel is actually ruthless.
The old ghost Li Ningyu was ruthless. Her husband is long dead, but she and her brother pretend to be husband and wife, in order to hide their eyes and ears and pass on information. For the sake of the revolution, she rarely went back to see her two children, who were permanently stationed in the office. In order to pass on information, she is commensurate with Gu Xiaomeng's sisters, but in a critical moment, she will still use Gu Xiaomeng's handwriting to pass on information, in case she is discovered and harms herself. In order to achieve her goal, she did not even care about her own life, her body was affected by her parents, and at the last moment, even her own life was calculated precisely.
The second wife of the old man is ruthless. She was the second wife of the former commander Qian Huyi, who was also a good maiden, but she volunteered to be placed next to Qian Huyi in this special way for the needs of the revolution. And under her leaks, the successful blood laundering tiger wings filled the door, making Qiu Zhuang a murderous mansion.
Gu Xiaomeng was ruthless. Her father was a giant in Chongqing, and the military commander Dai Kasa asked her father to break into Wang Jingwei, and she could have escaped under his father's arrangement, but she chose to stay and play a secret chess game. Secretly trained, made the appearance of a clumsy lady, and even pretended to fall in love with a drama actor and steal information. After the victory of the War of Resistance, she married Pan Lao (Li Ningyu's ostensible husband and brother) who pretended to abandon the communist party and had children. When the Kuomintang was defeated and retreated to Taiwan, she could have followed Elder Pan to the Liberated Areas, but she resolutely shed her second child in her belly, abandoned her husband, and fled alone, traveling thousands of miles to Taiwan.
However, the ruthlessness of these people is precisely because of the depths of affection. Because you have the most beloved things in your heart, you will be ruthless with other things, and only in this way can you guard the deep affection in your heart.
Their affection lies in faith. How people act, take responsibility, and even sacrifice for their fate and duties under the weight of faith, in the wildness of their hearts— these seemingly ruthless people give us the answer.
In the face of the common anti-Japanese goal, the underground communists represented by Li Ningyu, like Gu Xiaomeng and other military command agents, believe in driving out the invaders and realizing national independence. So they can ignore the previous accusations, they can be ruthless to others and even themselves. After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan, due to the different beliefs of the political parties, they parted ways and continued to struggle for their respective beliefs, and even if they lost, Gu Xiaomeng did not want to turn back