In 2015, Feng Xiaogang co-produced a movie with Wu Yifan, who is now a "prisoner".
The title of the film is very dragging, called "Old Cannon"
After the release, many people only remembered the "bumpy scene" of Feng Xiaogang and Xu Qing.
I don't understand what the title means.
This is the dialect of Beijing, which means to constantly move in and out of the bureau as a type of social class in daily life.
Generally refers to people with a violent and idle personality.
In short, it has to be related to force, fighting, and crime.
As the main actor, Feng Xiaogang calls himself an "old cannon" in the film and dominates an entire alley.
At the time, I thought he was hard enough and fierce.
It wasn't until later that I watched a film directed and starred by American director Eastwood.
It can be called the foreign version of the "old cannon".
But it's much fiercer than Feng Xiaogang——
The Mule
The story takes place in Illinois.
A farm covered with yellow cauliflower, an old man with white hair.
Earl was the owner of the farm, and he was alone with a rusty, broken pickup that looked just as old as he was.
He loves the broccoli flower more than his family...
He's a hedonist who loves the feeling of being sought after, and he's also a stereotyped old-fashioned man.
He hates the internet, the new stuff like mobile phones, because it always leaves him at a loss.
Seemingly beautiful, in the family, but a complete loser.
He was a disrespectful husband and father in the hearts of his wife and children.
The only sense of existence is maintained only by the hub of the granddaughter.
Eventually the farm went bankrupt, and it was the Internet that beat him down.
Desperate, choose to go to the family.
The crime only flows over time and does not pass, after he abandoned his family, which chose to exile him.
At his granddaughter's wedding, he was evicted by his family and left.
A young man began to talk to him, and he proudly boasted that he had driven his life's car across 41 states without a single ticket.
There was no old driver in America who was more cautious than he was.
So the young man offered him a delivery job.
This kindness is full of cunning, and eventually he is involved in a whirlpool of drugs and desires...
The movie "Mule" is based on the legendary drug-related case that sensationalized the United States in 2011.
It tells the story of an octogenarian who lives alone in bankruptcy and inadvertently becomes a "mule" transporter of a drug cartel.
Feng Xiaogang was 57 years old when he filmed "Old Cannon".
Eastwood was 89 years old when he filmed Mule.
He not only starred in himself, but also acted as a director.
There is a strong autobiographical flavor in the movie, with stubbornness in the bones and a helplessness that has to be obeyed.
Older audiences are known to Eastwood through the dart trilogy he starred in.
The brazen interpretation of the Western's backbone and humility is vividly interpreted.
Young audiences, on the other hand, were impressed by the "Million Dollar Baby" he directed and starred in.
The mental journey of the realistic and emotional boxing coach Frankie Dunn is breathtaking.
It is not difficult to see that Eastwood's creative spirit conveyed in the film is very admirable.
Full of white hair, his back was already not straight, and he stumbled when he walked.
But he never gives up, and relying on the old and selling the old will never appear on him.
It's a story about drugs, and it's also the subject of traditional crime movies.
But unlike in the past, the film focuses on the distribution of poison in the story, abandoning other elements.
The film is very gentle, there is no flying drug dealer firefight, no thrilling police chase...
There are even only a few gunshots in the whole film.
The movie title "Mule" is a collective term for drug carriers.
They are hired by drug dealers to transport drugs where they are needed.
Like a mule carrying a heavy load, it buries its head in its head, is diligent and earnest, and becomes a tool to be manipulated.
Earl was one of them, the oldest, but with his experience, he handled it safely.
He became the best of the mule community and even broke the record of the drug gang.
Eastwood is a master of character-making.
He applied all his brushstrokes to the character of Earl, whose image is not sympathetic at all, even abhorrent, in the film.
He abandoned his family, transported poison, prostituted...
At the same time, Eastwood painted him with conceit, paralyzed heroism.
In order to regain the sense of narcissism that everyone sought after, he used the money he earned from selling the poison of fate to rescue an overseas war veterans club.
Although this has something to do with earl's young military service.
But what is difficult to hide is the heroism that stems from Earl's heart.
It's also a passage Eastwood injects into the film about his true self.
In reality, he also served in the Korean War.
Eastwood's films rarely give a touch of hope, as does Mule.
After his wife's change and Earl's introspection, the family finally chose to forgive and accept him.
But the police also ruthlessly imprisoned Earl's calm mule.
In the end, he did not complete the compensation for his family, nor did he feel the warmth from his family.
From flower grower to flower grower...
Eastwood's concept and helplessness are buried in the film, and his disapproving attitude towards the Internet and mobile phones appears in many places.
The apparent resistance to these new technologies is linked to the key items in the film.
Drugs.
The Internet, mobile phones, they seem to represent some kind of new type of drug, stuck in people's hands, difficult to give up.
Earl had to use his phone to transport, but he couldn't even send text messages, but had to compromise.
In the film, Earl likes to call young people, "your generation", which undoubtedly reflects the gap between generations.
Advances in technology have diluted the emotional direct communication between people.
Instead, it is a message that passes across the screen without temperature.
In a sense, this reflects the current society, and there is a parasitic or even symbiotic relationship between people and mobile phones.
Obviously, Earl's generation is a generation that is gradually eliminated by society.
But if you taste it, it may be our generation that is eliminated...
At the end of the film, Earl is in prison and re-planted with his beloved broccoli flowers.
Because of the literal translation of his name, many people in China like to call him: Old Master Dongmu.
But I still like to call him Eastwood, not my maverick, but only my only respect for him.
Frankly speaking, this movie can't surprise you, but the old man will make you sigh.
After watching the movie, you will understand what is called the real "old cannon".
Faltering, old Ji Futuo.
Eastwood's dedication and values trumped the film.