On the big screen of Hong Kong films, the "horror theme" film works with different styles have won the favor of many fans.
In the 1980s, the "spirit zombie film" that combined "kung fu elements" with "spirit story" became a trend in the creation of Hong Kong films of an era.
After entering the 1990s, segmented "urban horror films" also began to rise in the box office market step by step.
"Midnight" and "Strange Talk Society" are classic works of this period. The "Yin yang road" series pushes the development of "segmented urban horror films" to the peak.
After the new millennium, the "Three Changes" series became the final peak of "segmented urban horror films". With the emergence of "See ghosts", the "philosophical horror films" that express human nature and metaphorically describe society through "ghost things" have begun to become the mainstream of creation on the big screen of Hong Kong films.
In 2008, Zheng Yijian and Yu Wenle jointly starred in a work with a strong metaphorical horror theme - "The First Commandment".
The sharp camera language and ingenious plot structure make the story of "The First Commandment" confuse the eyes of many viewers. Through different angles, the interpretation of the story of "The First Commandment" has also stimulated the interest of a group of fans.
Next, according to my own understanding, I will also talk to you about the story of the First Commandment. My point of view may be different from what you think, but I believe that the following interpretation of the First Commandment will definitely give you a new understanding of this movie.
A good story should be like an "iceberg", although it only shows one-eighth of the whole, but it can let the audience experience the seven-eighths hidden under the water.
The story of the First Commandment does this perfectly.
Let's first comb through the "one-eighth" story revealed in the film shot.
The story of "The First Commandment" has always been based on the character of "Li Guoqiang" played by Yu Wenle, and the lens of the film has always been shown with "Li Guoqiang's perspective".
Three months ago, Li Guoqiang caught a driver "Chen Fulai" driving without a seat belt in an underground garage. When the ticket was issued, Li Guoqiang found that there was a "female corpse" on Chen's car.
Li Guoqiang wanted to arrest Chen Fulai, but was shot down by Chen Fulai. Chen Fulai originally planned to kill Li Guoqiang, but unexpectedly, the "female corpse" on the car suddenly sat up. Chen Fulai was frightened by this scene. Li Guoqiang also seized the opportunity to shoot the suspect to death.
Because of his injuries, Li Guoqiang stayed in the hospital for 49 days. After being discharged from the hospital, he returned to the "police station" to report, and the leader also took the opportunity to talk with Li Guoqiang.
In the "parking lot shooting" on that day, Chen Fulai, who was killed, was a criminal suspect in a "serial murder case", and the serious case team tracked it for 3 years, but did not find the result, but was mistakenly hit and cracked by Li Guoqiang.
However, the leaders believe that there is a problem with the confession provided by Li Guoqiang, and according to the forensic report, the "victim woman" has been "dead" for more than 3 hours at the time of the crime.
But Li Guoqiang was very sure that when he saw the "female corpse" sitting up, his confession was not a problem and was completely correct.
Seeing that Li Guoqiang was so stubborn, the leaders had no choice but to transfer him to the "Miscellaneous Affairs Section" to work.
The "Miscellaneous Affairs Section" is a department dedicated to handling "psychic cases". The "police station" receives some "alarm" calls every day. If it is a "homicide case", it is handed over to the "Criminal Division"; if it is "drug-related", it is handed over to the "Anti-Narcotics Section"; if it is a "traffic accident", it is handed over to the "Traffic Section".
However, there are always some citizens who will call the police because of "supernatural events" and "evil ghost attacks". The "Miscellaneous Affairs Section" is responsible for such cases.
Under the modern social environment, the superstition of "ghosts and gods" is nothing more than people scaring themselves. The main job of the "Miscellaneous Affairs Section" is to help whistleblowers enter science and dispel superstitions.
Because it is an insignificant department, the "miscellaneous affairs section" only has section chief "Huang Sir" (played by Zheng Yijian), clerk "Four Boys", and Li Guoqiang, who has just been transferred.
The first precept of the "Miscellaneous Affairs Section" is to "firmly believe that there are no ghosts in the world." Li Guoqiang understood that the leader transferred himself to the "Miscellaneous Affairs Section" to let himself forget the supernatural phenomena he had witnessed before.
The work of the "Miscellaneous Affairs Section" is boring, and Li Guoqiang does not want to stay here. So he went to the leader and planned to change the confession of the "parking lot shooting" and try to be transferred back to the criminal unit. However, it was rejected.
It turned out that Huang Sir had always wanted to resign, but because no one was willing to take his place, the leader had not approved it.
This time, Li Guo emphasized the "miscellaneous affairs section", and Huang Sir once again offered his resignation and sent a gift to the leader. In the end, the leadership decided to let Huang Sir leave the "Miscellaneous Affairs Section" at the end of the month, and let Li Guoqiang replace Huang Sir's position.
During the investigation of huang sir's case, Li Guoqiang found that the first commandment of the "miscellaneous affairs section" was to "firmly believe that there are no ghosts in the world", but in fact, there are "ghosts" in the world.
In the process of handling a case, Li Guoqiang also witnessed the scene of the "ghost upper body" murder. Huang Sir told Li Guoqiang that the "upper body of the evil ghost" will also harm many people, and catching the "evil ghost" is as meaningful to this society as catching the "bad guy".
Li Guoqiang did not understand why Huang Sir resigned when the work was so meaningful. However, after listening to Huang Sir's past, he also began to understand Huang Sir's decision.
It turned out that huang sir, who used to be, divorced his wife because of work. Now, Huang Sir found that no matter how hard he worked, he could not compare with the beautiful harmony of the family, so he decided to quit his job and remarry his ex-wife. Work can't accompany him for a lifetime, but his wife can.
In order to fulfill Huang Sir, Li Guoqiang decided to stay in the "Miscellaneous Affairs Section" and shoulder the heavy responsibility of "descending demons and ambushing monsters" and maintaining social order.
Time flies quickly, and there are still two days to go before the end of the month, and Huang Sir will soon be able to leave his job. However, at this time, a major case occurred.
First, several female students, bizarrely "committed suicide". Subsequently, Nurse Guo of the hospital also mysteriously disappeared. Huang Sir suspected that these cases were the work of "evil spirits". After a step-by-step investigation, Huang Sir found that Chen Fulai, the suspect who was killed in the previous "parking lot shooting", became an "evil ghost". Using the "ghost upper body" method, harm people everywhere.
After some investigation, Huang Sir and Li Guoqiang determined the location of the "evil ghost", who was hiding in a girls' school. Li and Huang rushed to "catch the ghost." However, the "evil ghost" used the trick of "ghost upper body" to cause a large number of casualties, and then attached himself to a "female policeman" and fled the scene.
Huang Sir stayed at the scene to take care of the injured, and Li Guoqiang went to chase after the "possessed female policeman", but in the end he was lost.
At night, Li Guoqiang and Huang Sir successively returned to the "Miscellaneous Affairs Section", only to find that their colleague "Si Zai" had been killed, and an address was left at the scene.
The two knew that this was a provocation by the "evil ghost". After dawn, the two men came to "arrest" the "evil ghost" according to the address left by him.
At dusk, Li Guoqiang returned to the "police station" alone and reported to the leaders on the day's actions.
It turned out that after dawn, Li Guoqiang and Huang Sir rushed to the address indicated by the "evil ghost", but there was no one here. The two decide to ambush here, hoping to wait for the "evil ghost" to appear and kill him.
The two waited from early morning to noon, from noon to afternoon, and finally, a person came here, this person is no one else, it is Huang Sir's ex-wife.
Li Guoqiang believes that Huang Sir's ex-wife has been possessed by an "evil ghost" and wants to shoot him to death. However, Huang Sir moved his compassion and stopped Li Guoqiang.
In fact, the "evil ghost" was possessed by Huang Sir's ex-wife, and when Huang and Li were arguing, the "evil ghost" was possessed by Huang Sir. Forced to do so, Li Guoqiang had no choice but to shoot and kill Huang Sir.
After telling the story, Li Guoqiang also took out three relics of Huang Sir: documents, guns, and wine pots.
The leader picked up Huang Sir's wine jug, poured a glass of wine, tasted it, and found that it was water. The leader handed Huang Sir's wine jug to Li Guoqiang and announced that Li Guoqiang was officially appointed as the "chief of the miscellaneous affairs section".
Holding the wine jug, Li Guoqiang returned home with a sad face. The reason for his sorrow is not the death of Huang Sir, but because of his own lies, which were recognized by the leader.
The jug is wine, not water. When reporting on the work, Li Guoqiang told a lie, and the leader also returned a lie to him.
Back at home, Li Guoqiang began to recall the truth of the whole incident.
It turned out that when Li Guoqiang chased after the possessed "female policeman", he was put on the body by the "evil ghost". Now Li Guoqiang, the body is inhabited by the soul of the "evil ghost" Chen Fulai.
Chen Fulai used Li Guoqiang's body to kill the four boys of the "Miscellaneous Affairs Section", and deliberately left an address to introduce Huang Sir into it and kill him.
After recalling the whole process of the case, the possessed Li Guoqiang remembered a story: a hunter went up the mountain to catch a bear, and he thought that the bear was either black or white. In the end, the hunter was killed by a grizzly bear.
The "evil ghost" thought that his opponent was either Huang Sir, the "white bear", or Li Guoqiang, the "black bear", but in the end, he was calculated by the leader of this "grizzly bear".
The leader usually looks like "can't see the mind, only knows how to eat and drink", but in fact, he is good at calculation and has long seen through everything.
The leader knows that Li Guoqiang has been "evil ghost" at present, but he has still promoted him to be the "chief of the miscellaneous affairs section". After all, finding an "evil ghost" to deal with a "ghost" is far more effective than finding someone to deal with a "ghost". Moreover, finding an "evil ghost" to propagate the "First Commandment" is obviously more convincing than finding someone to propagate.
This is the story presented in the film lens. If, you think that's all there is to the First Commandment, then congratulations, you've been successfully misled by the film's footage.
In this "First Commandment", director Tang Yongjian, using Yu Wenle's perspective, told a story of "police catching ghosts", but in some bridge details, the director repeatedly reminded the audience that what you see is not necessarily true.
For example, the "four boys" in a wheelchair are not actually disabled. The two men who chased each other at the beginning were actually policemen.
"Huang Sir" and "Leader" have always emphasized the "First Commandment", emphasizing that "there are no ghosts in this world".
This is actually the director reminding the audience that this is not a "ghost story", the so-called "ghost", but "Zhang Guoqiang" played by Yu Wenle, who is deliberately tricking the ghost.
If there are no "ghosts," what is the story that the First Commandment is meant to tell?
Next, let's talk about another "seven-eighths" story hidden in the First Commandment.
In the movie, in addition to telling Huang Sir and Li Guoqiang to "catch ghosts" together, at the same time, a large number of shots are also performed on the daily life of Li Guoqiang and Huang Sir.
If the story "related to ghosts" is an illusion, then the truth of the story must be hidden in daily life without the participation of "ghosts".
Li Guoqiang was injured and hospitalized, but after being discharged from the hospital, he found that his girlfriend "Ah May" was pregnant. When Li Guoqiang was not at home, there was often a "math teacher" who sent Ah May home.
When Huang Sir investigated Chen Fulai, he found that Chen Fulai was a cram school teacher. When Li Guoqiang met Chen Fulai in the "parking lot", Chen Fulai seemed to be very interested in the photo of Ah May.
The appearance of these bridge details seems to push the story of the film in another direction.
Below, according to my own understanding, I will sort out for you what kind of story is told in the "First Commandment" without "ghosts".
Li Guoqiang's girlfriend, Ah May, has an affair with a math teacher. Li Guoqiang used his "police identity" to investigate the math teacher, and as a result, he found "Chen Fulai" who opened a cram school.
Li Guoqiang thought that Chen Fulai was the math teacher, so he planned to take revenge on him. In the parking lot, Li Guoqiang shot and killed Chen Fulai, and also falsified the scene and set up a bitter meat plan to frame Chen Fulai as a "serial murderer."
However, the leaders found clues from Li Guoqiang's confession.
In the confession, Li Guoqiang was shot 5 times in the body at the time of the crime, and both hands and feet were injured by Chen Fulai. However, after that, Li Guoqiang "killed" Chen Fulai with a gun. In the injury report issued by the hospital, Li Guoqiang seems to have only "injured his right hand".
The leader talked to Li Guoqiang and interrogated the doubts in the confession, and Li Guoqiang insisted that there was no problem with his confession.
Chen Fulai was "dead," which can be described as "death without proof," and the leaders had no other way to deal with Li Guoqiang, so they had to first transfer him to the "Miscellaneous Affairs Section" and secretly observe.
Back at home, Li Guoqiang fell asleep while washing clothes. In the dream, he dreamed that he had killed Amay, and Amay turned into a "ghost" and crawled out of the washing machine.
After waking up from the dream, Li Guoqiang saw a math teacher and sent Ah May back. At this time, he found that he had "killed" the wrong person, and Chen Fulai was not the object of Ah May's cheating.
After "wrongly killing" Chen Fulai, Li Guoqiang's heart began to be tormented by fear, and he was worried that his confession had too many loopholes and the leaders would find out the truth.
Li Guoqiang, who could not bear the torture, came to the leader to confess, planning to revise the confession and tell the truth. However, in the leader's office, Li Guoqiang met Huang Sir by chance.
In order to resign, Huang Sir gave gifts and bribes to the leaders. Li Guoqiang found that some problems can actually be solved in a special way. Huang Sir can leave by gift-giving, then he can also rely on gift-giving to settle the loopholes in the confession.
Of course, it is not enough to rely on gifts alone, but also to deal with the problem of things. Huang Sir wants to leave, in addition to giving gifts to the leader, but also to find a colleague who can take over his position.
And Li Guoqiang wants to smooth out the loopholes in the confession, in addition to giving gifts, but also to erase all the "clues related to the case".
In order to sweep away all the clues, Li Guoqiang began to commit crimes in a frenzy. Students who had attended the "Chen Fulai cram school", nurses who examined Chen Fulai and Li Guoqiang' injuries, and these figures related to the "parking lot shooting" were all killed by Li Guoqiang and disguised as "suicide" to ensure that "there is no proof of death".
The successive "suicide cases" have attracted the attention of Huang Sir. Huang Sir followed the clues and found Chen Fulai.
Chen Fulai had a case in the criminal group, and he was once sentenced to prison for having a relationship with "an underage female student.". However, in the previous "parking lot shooting", Chen Fulai was believed to be the murderer of a "serial murder case".
If this is the case, when the criminal team first investigates the "serial murder case", it should be able to find Chen Fulai from the "suspicious person with a previous conviction". However, the "serial murder case" was investigated for 3 years and there was no progress, indicating that Chen Fulai had nothing to do with the "serial murder case".
Huang Sir shared the clues of his investigation with Li Guoqiang. After learning the news, Li Guoqiang was worried that his "killing Chen Fulai and planting bribes" would be exposed, so he designed to kill Huang Sir.
For the sake of safety, Li Guoqiang even removed the four boys of the "Miscellaneous Affairs Section" together, just in case.
After achieving "death without proof", Li Guoqiang paid bribes to the "leaders" and smoothly settled everything. The "leader" drank the coffee sent by Li Guoqiang, and the wine left by Huang Sir also became dull, like water.
After solving all the problems, Li Guoqiang returned home and remembered the story of black bears and white bears, many people think that the world is black and white, and a person is either a good person or a bad person. But in fact, many people are gray like "leaders", and this kind of person is also the most deadly.
After Huang Sir's death, Li Guoqiang took over the post of "Chief of the Miscellaneous Affairs Section". In the previous case, Li Guoqiang was the only survivor, and the case he told was a "ghost story", the story of a "miscellaneous section chief" bravely fighting the "evil ghost" Chen Fulai, that is, the "one-eighth" story that we intuitively saw through the lens.
Although there are some logical loopholes in this "one-eighth story", these are not important, as long as the problem is all pushed to the "ghost".
This is my personal understanding of the First Commandment. Of course, there are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand readers' minds, and each person has a different understanding of the story and holds a different perspective. This interpretation of mine is also only for friends who love movies, as a reference for understanding the First Commandment.
In addition to the clever layout of the story design, in terms of camera scheduling and sound effect soundtrack, this "First Commandment" is also very good.
Tang Yongjian, from Singapore, worked as a director and screenwriter for "The First Commandment". Horror films have always been the subject of Tang Dao's mastery. Before "The First Commandment", Director Tang's "Maid" and "Ghost, Ghost" were all in the Asia-Pacific Film Market and received good market response.
In 2008, Tang Yongjian collaborated with Hong Kong film producers on "The First Commandment". The story of the film has been brewing in Tang Yongjian's heart for a long time, and the filming of the film took only 18 days.
Although "The First Commandment" was only filmed for 18 days, the effect presented was extremely wonderful.
It is worth mentioning that although the production level of "The First Commandment" is excellent, the box office performance is dismal.
Because the film contains a large number of "bloody" and "horror" scenes, this "First Commandment" has not entered the mainland box office market.
In the local film market of Hong Kong films, this "First Commandment" only received more than 30,000 Hong Kong dollars at the box office.
After 2000, the Hong Kong film market was in a downturn. In 2008, under the impact of the financial crisis, the environment of the Hong Kong film box office market also became worse. In such a market environment, "The First Commandment" suffered dismal box office results, which was really helpless.
However, the box office does not represent the whole of a film work. The high-level production still makes this "First Commandment" become an indelible Hong Kong film classic in the hearts of many film fans.