Believe it or not?
Movies, there are also "post-holiday syndrome".
In addition to the two giant gifts leading the way on National Day, the rest is lackluster.
It was also a small piece of news that brought Sir some new expectations
Xu Haofeng's new project was established.
The new story is still about the Republic of China, Tianjin, Wuguan, and Wushu.
It is reminiscent of his series of masterpieces and the increasingly delicate virtual martial arts society in his lenses.
Some people say that Xu Haofeng is the hope of China's "post-martial arts era".
The two blockbuster works that Chinese martial arts films have entered a turning point are his.
One is Wong Kar-wai's "A Generation of Grandmasters", written by Xu Haofeng.
The other is "Master", Xu self-written and self-directed, and even Wu Zhi has his share.
It's been six years since audiences last saw his work in theaters...
It's not that he's lazy.
On the contrary, his creative energy is quite exuberant.
After "Master", with the frequency of one film in two years, he wrote and directed two martial arts films,"Hidden Behind the Knife" and "Poetry Eyes Weary Tianya", which gathered Chen Kun, Zhou Xun, Xu Qing, ChunXia, Huang Jue, Song Jia...
Look at the appearance, excellent.
I was waiting to see.
But these two parts are ill-fated... Fixed file, withdrawal of various tosses until now, there is no exact release news.
Sir thought, if you divide Chinese film fans into two kinds.
One is to like Xu Haofeng.
The other is that I have never seen Xu Haofeng.
No matter what kind of person, today's story is necessary to tell.
It's to relive it or to start a new world.
It doesn't matter if you're a boy or a girl, whether you like martial arts movies or not.
Because Xu Haofeng has never stopped at martial arts films:
"The Master"
01
propriety
The starting point of Xu Haofeng's film stories is often "tradition".
Title, Master.
It is about vertical inheritance, but the story begins with horizontal development.
In the movie, it is Wing Chun's descendant Chen Zhi (Liao Fan) who travels north from Guangdong to Tianjin and wants to make a name for himself here, which is a spatial transformation.
Outside the film, it is the director's breakthrough in genre.
At the beginning of the movie, the traditional word "rules" is broken, tearing the tip of the iceberg of the jianghu.
The rules of Tianjin
Kicking the pavilion wins or loses, the martial arts hall must be entertained
It can be said that the first half of the sentence is the title.
A sentence of "Tianjin's rules" explains the martial background of the story thoroughly.
What rules are these, and why should they be kept?
In 1912, the first martial arts hall of the Republic of China appeared in Tianjin.
In 1932, Tianjin, the capital of martial arts, attracted small fists from all over the world to find ways to come and make a name for themselves.
Chen Zhi is one of them.
As the only descendant of Wing Chun, Chen Zhi came to Tianjin alone and wanted to open a martial arts hall, strengthen the gate school, and repay the ancestors.
These all sound routine.
Even, much like an entrepreneurial story.
As an "entrepreneur", Chen Zhi wants to know the authorities in the industry. He wants to visit the docks, and he wants to find Zheng Shan'ao (Jin Shijie), the head of Tianjin Wuxing, and ask him for guidance and protection.
But the difficulty is that the prefix of the above sentence is "Tianjin's".
According to the rules, you have to follow the local rules.
At that time, Tianjin Wulin had two characteristics.
One is that famous teachers are everywhere, and the other is that the group is exclusive.
At first glance, these two characteristics represent the elite and the right to speak.
actual?
The former is a hint of the withering of martial talents; the latter is the beginning of inner decay.
In the case of the original novel, this is an era of "out of the master and not out of the apprentice", each faction has a famous teacher, and there is no successor.
This situation is a bit more reminiscent... Anyway, you Chen Zhi is a foreigner, and if you want to open a martial arts museum, you have to follow the rules.
The first step is to kick the pavilion.
Tianjin's nineteen martial arts centers, with the ability to play more than half, are eligible to open.
But it is also a "paradox" for outsiders to kick the pavilion - if you succeed, the reputation of Tianjin Wuxing will be ruined, and who will tolerate you?
So, a scapegoat is needed.
Old Zheng gave Chen a dirty idea... You recruit a local apprentice, let him kick the gym, win is yours, can not tolerate him.
Do you think it's black?
Then you listen further.
Kicking the gym is also exquisite, kicking to the eighth house, the major martial arts halls will jointly invite a world-class master to come out and repair this person (apprentice).
However, even if the apprentice even kicks the eight schools, he will recognize it, and the master can establish a name and open the museum.
Hearing this, is it hairy?
Dare to love any industry to get out of place, all need to be sacrificed.
You need sacrifices to play kung fu, and you need sacrifices to make mobile phones...
The story has not been laid out much, but just a little explanation of the rules, this martial forest, this society, this unbreakable cowhide face, this vicious and inhuman Lizi, it is enough to make people sigh.
Xu Haofeng, is it not strong?
Listen further down, it's darker.
It turned out that the apple that had been mothed had been broken from the inside.
Any industry must have hardware, and the hardware of the martial arts hall is kung fu.
But does Tianjin have real kung fu now?
Yes.
Can it be passed on?
No.
As the top player in martial arts, Zheng Shan'ao knew what the problem was.
There are no talents in the martial arts, because we don't teach the truth
The rules of martial arts, the secret transmission of boxing, the maximum true transmission of two people in a lifetime.
But the martial arts hall is a collective teaching!
Your martial arts are private transmission, and you can't really pass on the museum when you open the museum, isn't this cheating money?
It can be said that the emergence of the martial arts has shown the decline of martial arts, but on the contrary, everyone feels that this rule is the truth, and there is nothing wrong with it.
So you thought it was just a martial arts movie?
This realistic proposition of constructing all codes of conduct with "rules of conduct" and ensuring the "normal" operation of the industry is the meaning of the film.
Let's go back to kicking the gym.
Although Chen Zhi vaguely felt that something was wrong in his heart, people couldn't help themselves in the jianghu... He still found an apprentice.
This apprentice is a porter named Geng Liangchen (Song Yang), a poor man who is suitable for learning martial arts.
More appropriately, he seems to be mentally ill-intentioned... He coveted his master's wife.
Just to look at the woman, Geng Liangchen agreed to learn martial arts.
Don't you laugh at him, think carefully about many industries, how many people are in order to learn a real craft?
Inner involvement allows you to enter the industry, anxiety makes you enter, comparison makes you enter, security allows you to enter...
Many people are not as good as this geng brother
Although his motives for entering the industry are not pure, he is a wizard.
It takes three years for others to practice their old-fashioned housekeeper's gadgets.
Geng Liangchen, one year touched the doorway, two years can actually kick the museum.
So.
This story is to see how new people are bullied?
And that's not all.
The old man just bullied the new person, that is play, not the right thing.
New people are not the focus, they can be in place, and then go to the top, is the top priority.
Guess who the supreme master who will be invited by the martial arts hall will be?
It is Zheng Shan'ao, who is about to retire, Master Zheng.
In order to be successful, he must win beautiful.
In other words, not only to win, it is better to cripple the other party.
So, are there still good people in this society?
...... Let's set our sights on the protagonist of the story, Chen Zhi, who seems to be like a good man.
No, it seems to be a good person.
I have jobs to do and women to raise
What a pain to provoke you?
He is good at self-cherishing with brooms and raising obscurity.
Before he could make a name for himself, he had already put himself into the sleeve of the jianghu and rotated happily according to the rules.
Under the fame, it is to pretend to be a pig to eat a tiger, to send a sheep into the tiger's mouth, to be a calculation and conspiracy that cannot be stopped, and to be a sinister means that cannot be put on the table...
Therefore, the jianghu in Xu Haofeng's eyes is society.
Unbreakable rules, like a mystery, some people nested, some people decoded.
And when will a set of jianghu collapse?
The director said, "He must not have replaced a weapon with a weapon, he is a morality that replaced a morality." ”
This is a bit puzzling.
These people don't seem to have any morality, what new morality can be replaced?
Who can resist the whole decaying jianghu with the strength of one person?
Is it this new man named Geng Liangchen?
He is a porter, uneducated, likes teachers, does not understand the rules, and is about to die on the streets of Tianjin...
Does he deserve it?
02
Note new
Many people see the "tradition" of the first time above from Xu Haofeng's movie.
But Sir, always see the "new".
I saw both the novelty of martial arts and the outside of martial arts.
But since we are talking about martial arts, let's first talk about the novelty within martial arts:
The praise and controversy of "Master" basically come from one aspect.
Action scenes.
It's an action movie that doesn't have Via all the time.
There's no sharp sword, or Hollywood-style quick editing, more of a regular spectator martial arts show.
You don't feel irritated by listening to ornamentality.
Xu Haofeng is good at burying symbols in the action, and strives to reconcile more fashionable or modern youth temperament.
For example, the image shaping of Chen Zhi projects a lot of imagination of Bruce Lee.
Liao Fan was chosen to play, one reason is because of good acting skills, and another reason is that Liao Fan and Bruce Lee are similar.
But martial arts films, can not escape the shape.
Bruce Lee, one of wing chun's most well-known descendants, rarely has traditional Wing Chun martial arts in his films.
So the director wants a person like Bruce Lee to play the traditional Wing Chun and make up for the "film history regret" in his heart.
△ Behind-the-scenes documentary "Rubbing Hands with a Knife"
However, "Ip Man" filmed "inch", what did Xu Haofeng shoot?
In order to seek innovation, the director specifically went to consult the heir of the eight slashing knives under Ip Man, Liang Shaohong.
Therefore, there is this set of beautiful eight slashing knife methods in "Master".
It's not simply about being new for the sake of the new.
As a new martial arts director, Xu Haofeng has studied most Chinese weapons, so we can see from the most famous knife battle in the alley of the movie, eighteen weapons, knives, guns and axes, and hooks.
Even, there is a shield.
A pair of eight chopping knives, which are different as the story changes.
What the master played was the chapter law and the erudition.
The contest between the disciples is fate, life and death.
Therefore, when it comes to the link of Geng Liangchen, the eight chopping knives are not only a display of martial arts, but a live broadcast of life and death.
These are all seeking innovation in motion.
But if a good martial arts film is filmed in a high grade, it must also be quiet.
There is a saying in Wing Chun called "Stick Matchless Sound".
Just "snap" and the winner and loser are divided (kendo also has the same work).
If you've seen Akira Kurosawa's "Stick of Hearts" and "Tsubaki Sanjuro," you'll understand:
This kind of stillness brings out a sense of fatalism.
It may first come from the traditional truth, but also obviously bring out a kind of theatrical falsehood, and finally can always reach a kind of audience's true association of life.
With Lenovo, Xu Haofeng won.
As an audience, you think of the real world at the same time, Xu Haofeng's virtual world is also constructed.
After that, what Xu Haofeng gives, what you believe.
This is a kind of "literary stunt" of Xu Haofeng.
Just like in "Arrow Willow White Ape", you can cut a crisp pear for a woman, you can feel the unspeakable ambiguity of men and women in winter;
It is also like the funny paper armor in "The Trail of the Wokou", and it is reminiscent of the false big void in the workplace.
He almost casually fills his film world with all kinds of flavorful props.
The pixels are getting thinner and thinner, and the appearance of social people is becoming more and more specific:
In "Master", this kind of prop should not be too much.
For example, crabs.
Next to the Tianjin River, crabs are cheaper than rice.
The teacher is not good at anything else, so she loves to eat crabs.
Geng Liangchen, who successfully kicked the pavilion for the first time, came to Master's house with two crabs in the middle of the night and celebrated with Master and His Wife.
For this reason, it also attracted the anger of the master's wife.
Chen Zhi on the other side explained that he should be happy to be scolded by the master, because the next day, the master will teach something new.
All three laughed.
The master-apprentice relationship probably has a more intimate softening from this time.
In "Master", there is also a pair of armor.
It is the so-called world-class master Master Zheng, who has been enshrined for many years.
This armor of the former dynasty first-class warrior handed down from his ancestors was the glory of his warriors.
But does he really care about this glory?
The ancients said that heroes look at the times, business looks at the times, and now people say that entrepreneurship looks at the times, and job hopping looks at the times.
Zheng Shan's proud thoughts, the martial people can't read it, and the social people will understand it as soon as they hear it.
The martial arts hall will fall
The future lies in the military
The picture in this article comes from the network
Editorial Assistant: Super rich mother-in-law