1994 was an incredibly dazzling year in the history of world cinema.
This year gave birth to classic films such as "The Shawshank Redemption", "Forrest Gump", "Pulp Fiction" and other classic films, and the competition for the Oscar was fierce.
This year, there have also been many well-known word-of-mouth masterpieces in the history of film in China.
Zhang Yimou made "Alive" and Jiang Wen made "Sunny Days", both of which shined at international film festivals.
Compared with these films, there is a domestic film of the same year that is not very eye-catching, but it has become a highly divided work under the test of time.
More than twenty years later, it is still the pinnacle of domestic films, and it is still difficult to surpass -
Back to back, face to face
Director: Huang Jianxin / Yang Yaya
Writers: Huang Jianxin / Sun Yi'an / Liu Xinglong
Starring: Niu Zhenhua / Lei Kesheng / Li Qiang / Period / Wang Jinsong / Ge Zhijun
Genre: Drama
Release date: 1994-09-10
Duration: 148 minutes
This is a realistic film directed by Huang Jianxin and Yang Yaya, adapted from Liu Xinglong's novel "Autumn Wind Drunk".
On Douban, 90,000 people evaluated, scored 9.5, and was shortlisted for the Douban Movie TOP250 list.
This is a film that profoundly reflects the Chinese officialdom, some people say that it is a modern version of "The Appearance of Officialdom", and some people say that it is a male version of "The Biography of Zhen Huan".
Its scale is so large that it is absolutely impossible to release it today.
However, in that year, it won many awards such as the best director of the Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Film Festival and the best feature film of the Beijing University Student Film Festival.
Niu Zhenhua, who played the male lead, won the Tokyo International Film Festival Emperor for his wonderful interpretation.
The story in the film revolves around Wang Shuangli, played by Niu Zhenhua.
Wang Shuangli is the acting curator of a cultural center, and he has worked diligently for three years, dreaming of becoming a full director.
Whether it is the colleagues around him, or the wives and fathers at home, they all recognize his ability and think that he is bound to win.
On this day, the Organization Department came to the museum to conduct a poll and let everyone vote for the curator in their hearts.
Wang Shuangli thought that he must be the best candidate, so he confidently wrote down his name.
But within a few days, the results came out and he was confused:
The superior transferred a person surnamed Ma from other places to be the curator and concurrently serve as the secretary of the party branch, and Wang Shuangli's wish was shattered.
Even if he was not convinced, Wang Shuangli still had to accept this result.
This new horse curator is a farmer, and he looks honest and honest, and he has no heart.
After coming to the cultural center, he was in charge of personnel appointment and dismissal, while Wang Shuangli was in charge of finance.
The horse and the king shared an office and sat opposite each other, which was quite confrontational, and a silent war began.
The first trick is to borrow a knife to kill people.
On the first day of registration, Director Ma told his superiors that he wanted the unit to arrange accommodation.
When Wang Shuangli learned about it, he immediately said that The accountant Li in the museum had just bought a house and could let him move out and give the house assigned to him by the unit to Director Ma to live.
But as soon as he turned his head, Wang Shuangli told Li accountant the bad news, and claimed that it was director Ma's arrangement.
This trick of killing people with two sides and three knives and borrowing a knife not only sold the personal feelings of Director Ma on the surface, but also aggravated the contradiction between Director Ma and Accountant Li behind the scenes.
The second trick is to exclude dissidents.
Wang Shuangli served as the acting curator for three years, and his ability was outstanding, and he won a group of fans in the museum.
The first ones are Accountant Lee, who works in finance, and "Monkey," a temporary worker who works as a photographer.
But at the same time, there is also a person named Lao Luo, who was punished by Wang Shuangli for messing with the relationship between men and women before, and he holds a grudge against Wang Shuangli.
After the ma curator came, Lao Luo immediately defected to the camp of the ma curator.
When buying a desk for Director Ma, Lao Luo took the initiative to handle the matter.
But he did not resist the temptation of money, took the opportunity to enrich himself, and spent the money of the unit to buy a chair for himself.
When Wang Shuangli and Li Accounting learned of this matter, they did not immediately debunk it.
At the end of the month, when the salary was settled, Li Accountant publicly accused Lao Luo of corruption, which made the entire cultural center known.
Such a disturbance not only hit Director Ma's henchman Lao Luo, but also embarrassed Director Ma himself, which can be described as killing two birds with one stone.
The third trick is to hide the knife in the smile.
Director Ma loves photography and, although his skills are not perfect, he is very enthusiastic.
When the local flood disaster occurred, the leaders of the city and the director of the Cultural Bureau, Director Leng of the Cultural Center, Director Ma of the Cultural Center, and others went to the scene to offer condolences.
During the condolence activities, Director Ma also took many photos of the scene.
After the flood ended, the Cultural Center held a photography exhibition to share the moments of flood relief.
Wang Shuangli took the initiative to select a photograph for Director Ma, framed it and placed it on the wall.
On the surface, it seems that Wang Shuangli is helping the curator to earn performance, but in fact, there is a hidden mystery.
In this photo, the city leader is dressed cleanly, there are people holding umbrellas around him, and there is no half mud spot on his clothes, which is in stark contrast to the people on the front line of the rescue.
When the leader saw this photo, he thought it was deliberately satirizing, and he was naturally furious.
After these three moves, Director Ma lost all his prestige among his subordinates and lost trust in front of his superiors, so he was quickly transferred from his post.
In this way, Wang Shuangli thought that the position of curator was already in the bag.
But unexpectedly, soon there was an accident:
After consultation between Director Leng of the Cultural Affairs Bureau and Deputy Director Xu, it was decided to transfer Xiao Yan, the secretary of the Director of the Cold Bureau, as the director of the Cultural Center.
Xiao Yan was not only in charge of the appointment and dismissal of personnel at the Cultural Center, but also in charge of financial power.
Wang Shuangli not only did not get the position of curator, but he was also completely emptied.
Wang Shuangli thought left and right, and he didn't know what he was doing wrong, why the superior leaders would not trust him.
But after this incident, he was completely open and no longer participated in the power struggle in the official arena.
"Man, I feel that I can't do it in politics, and I always have to find some spiritual comfort in life."
Wang Shuangli returned to the family, properly handled the contradiction between his daughter-in-law and his father's daughter-in-law, practiced calligraphy when he had time, and lived a relaxed life.
In fact, Wang Shuangli is a very capable and methodical person who can properly handle various problems in work.
He can be said to have been born for the officialdom, and handled the relationship between superiors and subordinates very properly.
Not only did it solve the long-accumulated debt problem of the cultural center, but also to improve the relationship with the construction unit, and built the city's first dance hall, which was unanimously praised by all levels.
Even when encountering the most difficult "backdoor" relationship, Wang Shuangli has his own ingenious way to deal with it.
Director Leng once gave Wang Shuangli a problem: he wanted to arrange his daughter into the cultural center, but he did not want her to take the public examination.
Wang Shuangli not only had to meet the requirements of the bureau chief, but he did not want to show the "going through the back door" too obviously, so he came up with a foolproof strategy:
Externally, he announced an open competition for qualified candidates to take the exam.
Internally, he had already teamed up with ten judges who participated in the evaluation, so that they would score the same average score for each test taker.
In this way, all interviewers score the same, and the test scores are naturally invalid.
This method not only highlights the fairness and impartiality of the Cultural Affairs Bureau's employment, but also satisfies the requirements of the leadership through the way of concealing Chen Cang, and vividly reflects wang Shuangli's shrewd and sleek characteristics.
Some people may wonder: Since Wang Shuangli's ability is so outstanding, why can't he be transformed into a curator as he wishes?
In fact, all this is secretly operated by Deputy Director Xu of the Cultural Affairs Bureau.
He had coveted the position of Director Leng for a long time, so all the able people who were in charge of Director Leng had become a thorn in his eye.
Only by making the performance of Director Leng worse and the reputation of Director Leng stink will he have the opportunity to replace him.
Under such circumstances, Wang Shuangli, who can do practical things and create achievements, has become the enemy of Deputy Director Xu, and he naturally will not help Wang Shuangli to turn positive.
Interestingly, under the calculation of the final boss Deputy Director Xu, Director Leng soon stepped down.
He finally got his wish and became the director of the Cultural Affairs Bureau.
At this time, Director Xu thought of Wang Shuangli again, and wanted to promote him to the director of the cultural center and let him create performance under his own hands.
Will Wang Shuangli choose to return to the official arena of deception or insist on the life of idle clouds and wild cranes?
The film ends up with an open-ended ending, with each viewer filling in the answers in their own minds.
This film, which was born 28 years ago, is not outdated today.
The official struggles, open strife and conspiracy calculations in the film are embodied through vivid and vivid characters, exposing the official culture that has existed in China for thousands of years.
In order to set off this theme, the film sets the office address of the cultural center in an ancient building.
Whenever the camera cuts to the majestic building, coupled with gloomy background music, it makes people feel gloomy and oppressive in an instant.
At this time, these old ancient buildings in front of us are like the official culture that has existed since the old feudal era, and people are overwhelmed.
It is worth mentioning that in addition to the main line of the official struggle of Wang Shuangli and others in the film, there is another dark line, that is, Wang Shuangli's family contradictions.
Wang Shuangli lives with his father, wife and daughter, and three generations of people living together inevitably have various disputes and problems.
The older generation has a preference for sons over daughters, but they cannot be reborn under the family planning system.
In order to have an extra place for his grandson, Wang Shuangli's father actually wanted to feed his granddaughter to drink cigarette oil and turn her into a mute.
After the wife knew, she had a big fight with her father-in-law, and then took her daughter back to her mother's house.
In order to solve this problem, Wang Shuangli had to come up with the same set of methods in the official arena -
Through the transaction of money and power, he obtained the fertility quota given by the hospital certificate, and successfully resolved the family conflict.
Although pedantic and stubborn, Wang Shuangli's father is also a person who is good at conspiracy and calculation.
He used his shoe repair work to easily bring down his son's competitors in a way that sold misery and incited public opinion.
Through these two trivial matters in the family, it can be found that the survival and handling of the officialdom have penetrated into every link of Wang Shuangli's life.
Since he is already a member of the officialdom, it is no longer possible to escape the vortex of deceit and open strife in this life, which is also the saddest detail of this film.
The title of the film, "Back to Back, Face to Face", refers to a state of two-sided, three-knife, mutual calculation.
Power struggles in the official arena overlap and overlap, and forces are intertwined.
The culture of the bureaucracy has continued from ancient times to the present and has never been broken.
No matter how strong Wang Shuangli's work ability is, in the face of the power struggle of Deputy Director Xu, he is just a pawn.
He has worked diligently for many years, and his fate can only be in the hands of others, and he is determined to live or die without a word from his superiors.
Has anyone ever thought that Deputy Director Xu, who has eyes in his hands and eyes, may just be a small chess piece of whom?
*This article is written by Ah Wei