Large scale you cook.
But if the protagonist this time is a pure Asian face, a yellow person.
Wouldn't it be a bit of a shame?
Not an island action movie.
Serious American drama, but also won the praise at home and abroad.
After a long time, Sir couldn't help it, and wanted to give you amway in advance before the broadcast was finished.
Warrior Season 2
Warrior Season 2
Featuring bruce Lee's posthumous gimmick, Sir pushed the first season a year and a half ago, and now Douban has 8 points.
It seems that all recognize its quality.
Now that the second season has arrived, the reviews have taken to the next level.
Douban 9 points, IMDb 8.6, extranet all praise.
It is worth mentioning that at the beginning of the launch, it caused a lot of controversy.
Although endorsed by Li Xiangning (bruce Lee's daughter).
But in the story, the protagonist of Bruce Lee's shadow, Ah Shan, is played by a Japanese-British (a somewhat rough version of Zhao Youting).
From the director to the actor, it is also a Hollywood team, mainly Asian.
Some of the characters in the play are good in Cantonese, some speak Cantonese at the construction site, and the mixed expression of Chinese and English makes people sometimes play (but it is also said to be a pleasure for Cantonese audiences).
Coupled with the broadcast in Cinemax, it is destined to be a large scale, such as beheading, bed drama (especially the bed scene of Asian faces), all arranged.
You know, Cinemax's premium channels often play erotic shows late at night, so they are also called "skin-a-max" (exposing the most skin).
So you can say —
From the beginning, "Warrior" has had the prejudices and fantasies of Hollywood Westerners about the Chinese community.
But, at the same time, it should be pointed out that -
This is almost the first work to feature Chinese as the protagonist and tell the history of early Chinese immigration in the United States.
Its key scenes often stem from various injustices against the Chinese in the United States.
The latter, in particular, gives it a deeper meaning in the current broadcast.
Its existence is more valuable than what it says.
So what else to say?
Look.
01
Blood and Bone from the first season
Sir will help you recall the first season.
In 1878, a quarter-American Chinese Ashan (Andrew Koji), a quarter American who speaks fluent English, travels from Foshan to San Francisco to find his missing sister Xiaojing.
As a result, they were involved in the conflict between the local Chinese gangsters "Hewei" and "Longzhi".
He did not turn his mind to join "Hewei" (obviously, Hewei's dress looks more fashionable, more like a modern gangster), and became friends with Xiao Zun, the young master of "Hewei".
But his sister Xiaojing, who was now the mistress of the boss of the "Longzhi" gang, changed her name to Meiling.
Relying on her own body and strategy, she is already the actual ruler of the "Longzhi" gang.
Because of the entanglement of opium trafficking, two major gangs in Chinatown are about to clash.
On the one hand, there is righteousness, on the other hand, there is affection, and Ah Shan is not left or right, and he is embarrassed by himself.
……
Familiar people can see that this kind of "foreigner" story that integrates the elements of Westerns, the choice between love and righteousness, is very Bruce Lee, from "Big Brother Tangshan" to "Raptors Across the River" are all this flavor.
Of course, the "Bruce Lee" flavor of the action scene is also sufficient.
beat.
Get off the boat and hit the immigration officer, the action is sharp, punching to the flesh.
Fight against troublesome gangsters, challenge kung fu masters, have different styles, and look like they all have the shadow of boxing and Wing Chun.
But as he played, Sir saw the difference.
In "Warrior", there are fewer tricks, and the sense of actual combat is stronger——
"Although we wanted to show the beauty of kung fu, I still wanted the fight in the play to look like a street fight. Because both sides are street gangs, this is the opposite of the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon set.
I don't want everything to look pretty—no metalwork, no whimsy. When characters are beaten and stabbed, they should look like they have been beaten or stabbed.
We wanted to subvert the imagery of all Hong Kong kung fu films – in those films, everyone seemed to know kung fu. What we want to show is that there are only a small number of people who have actually been trained in kung fu, and everyone else is just a thug. ”
So.
So that whether it is the protagonist or the dragon set, there is always a moment of hanging on the color.
This realistic style is accompanied by an acoustic soundtrack with an electric sound.
That's pretty much adrenaline, you know.
But compared to the cultural motif of punching gangsters and kicking foreign enemies in the past, the background of "Warrior" is more complicated, and it can even be said that it was born for Bruce Lee .
History of early Chinese immigration.
It spends a lot of time showing the shocking and tragic situation of early Chinese immigrants in the United States, and the mixed background of the times.
First and foremost, discrimination against the Chinese.
The first season, the opening.
Chinese immigrants disembarked, from the contempt of immigration officials to the unwelcome attitude of local whites.
△ chink, chingchong, are all insulting words
Secondly, it is violence, which is full of malice from the official to the private sector.
Whites often carried out violent attacks on Chinese, preventing them from going to work, and even beatings and murders everywhere.
△ Directly hammering innocent Chinese workers
And out of Chinatown, if the Chinese and the white people have a dispute? That's great...... This case is a Chinese mistake, what other unsolved case? The same counts on his head.
And the police inspect the brothel, if you see a Chinese domestic worker is not pleasing to the eye, you can shoot a headshot, by the way pee on his body, explain?
"He attacked the police, and I was scared to wet my pants."
Therefore, in the world outside of Chinatown, whether the Chinese are pigs or dogs, it has nothing to do with the legal system, work rights, and living benefits.
But inside Chinatown?
That's the world of Chinese gangsters.
Brothels, opium, casinos... Violence is rampant, gangs are unified.
And the cheap workers that the capitalists need, the stability where the politicians need, the gangsters can provide.
If there is a murder here, the police dare not take care of it, and they are very provocative... The duty is to help the gang collect a corpse.
At this time, Ah Shan was still a muddy little pony boy.
While looking for his sister, he listened to the boss's instructions, cut down a person, collected a protection fee, and took a small drag with a white woman.
Of course, this is the "warrior", and Bruce Lee's ambition to create this story may not stop there.
At the end of the first season, "Hewei" and "Longzhi" decide to engage in a contest to resolve the dispute.
As a forced force for a whole season, Ah Shan became a representative.
But just when Sir thought that he would continue his gangster line, take advantage of the competition promotion and salary increase to the peak of his life, and even become the legendary big man.
He lost.
Get punched.
He was so badly injured that he lay in bed and survived on opium.
He was expelled from the house like a waste.
In the end, I had to go on the upgrading route of ordinary Chinese...
Hit workers.
Haha, no routine.
The sublimation of the story also takes place here.
He became a "strong coolie" and also saw the life of a real "strong coolie" in the factory.
These ordinary Chinese migrant workers, who have no skills, have left their hometowns and come to the United States to sell coolies.
Live, a full bed is not available, only two squeezed one (meaning 12 hour shifts per person).
Work, what a hard job.
Wages, half of the whites, will be hated by the whites.
Also, there is basically no medical coverage.
Apo, a co-worker who shares a bed with Ah Shan, has a leg injured by a machine, and Ah Shan helps him buy medicine for him.
But when he came back the next day, he had lost his breath.
△ Pay attention to the despair on Ah Shan's face
You think it is an exaggeration, but in fact, it was the survival of Chinese workers in the United States in the 19th century.
There is no place for a lifetime of hard work, and the death of a guest in hunger and cold is the end of suffering.
Stimulated by the tragic reality, Ah Shan realized (but forgive this is a fight drama, his understanding is very limited) -
I'm going to use my fists! Fight! Protect these compatriots who are weaker than me!
His enemies finally changed from hostile Chinese gangsters to vicious Irish contractors who oppressed the Chinese.
After a long circle, he finally returned to the embrace of bruce Lee's film spirit:
Punish the evil and promote the good, help the weak and help the poor.
So what's the second season?
To avoid spoilers, Sir can only say:
Ah Shan must be fast, faster.
Because time is not waiting for anyone.
02
Blood and tears from the second season
Note the time and place at the beginning, San Francisco, 1878.
when? Thirteen years after the end of the American Civil War.
It was also the gold rush period, when the United States opened up to Chinese immigrants, and San Francisco's Chinatown was built for about thirty years.
Why mention this?
Because first, it marks that the United States has officially entered the track of rapid economic development, and the demand for labor has increased significantly.
The Chinese, cheap, hardworking, and easy to use, are the most affordable laborers in the eyes of capitalists.
But second, three decades of Chinese immigrants have made this group an invisible presence in the eyes of some Americans— especially the underclass whites who have been robbed of their jobs.
In the film, this group of Irish immigrants who hate Chinese also have their own "legitimate reasons" for Chinese exclusion... Oh, the Civil War was fought by us, and as soon as the war ended, the rich used the Chinese to squeeze us out?
This year, an even more important event happened.
In 1878, the U.S. Congress enacted the Chinese Exclusion Act.
This infamous bill was initially opposed by enlightened politicians and capitalists, including then-President Hayes.
But individual politicians and groups were too inciting, all kinds of speeches, lobbying, so four years later, in 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed.
This is a systemic discrimination against Chinese immigrants that has lasted for more than 60 years, and it is also the beginning of the history of Chinese blood and tears.
"Warrior", just the point in time of the card.
Let's see what happened in San Francisco at that time, the place at the forefront of the Chinese exclusion movement.
Therefore, it is not only a fight and kill, it is also very responsible, radiating outward from Chinatown, through multiple dimensions, trying to show you the complex face of the society at that time.
San Francisco version of the Qingming River Map? No, not so harmonious.
As mentioned earlier, low-level Irish immigrants, because they were robbed of their jobs, hated Chinese workers, and always committed violent crimes;
But the perspective changes, because they do not work, their wives and children often face starvation and eviction.
They are structurally contradictory to the Chinese and do not die.
Ordinary Americans, the division is also serious.
Some are sympathetic to the Chinese and willing to help them, such as the mayor's wife Penny.
She has Chinese servants, and she also sympathizes with the women in the brothel, hoping to help them liberate, and...
She also dragged herself into bed with Ah Shanpai without prejudice.
Some see the Chinese as the "yellow peril", such as the police, politicians (principals, vice mayors, etc.).
Although politicians discriminate against the Chinese in their hearts, whether they are "Chinese exclusive" on the surface is two things, that is, "the comprehensive proposition of urban development", is political capital, and can be profited from.
The attitude of the capitalists is also ambiguous:
With Chinese workers, the salary is low and cool; but it is also easy to be smashed by caucasians, annoyed.
Well, the old inner volume is up.
And the Chinatown gangsters in the play have become the embodiment of justice without face.
"Justice" is the basic condition, and they do not have the "face" of justice, let alone the "identity" of justice.
Therefore, all people must live.
If people don't give you a formal job, the crooked cult will have to survive (and even sometimes kill people and set fires to the Chinese, which is more ruthless than the Americans).
Well, the second season background is finished.
Say Ashan.
In order to eliminate the shadow of the previous violent blow, Ah Shan went to the black boxing arena and continued to upgrade, preparing to fight monsters.
The villain soon emerges.
An extreme folk Chinese exclusion group, the "Teddy Boys".
Gangsters like to cut chinese scalps with knives.
Well, Ah Shan decided to take the initiative and risk being targeted by the police.
This is the first scene of the second season to make people watch bloody.
It's not a metaphor, the blood is really going to spew out...
So what is the meaning of "warrior"?
In the first season, he fights for himself and the small collective, finds his sister, and heads out for the gang.
In the second season, he fights for his countrymen.
Sounds melodious?
But you have to know that the difference is in —
This drama is very careful to sculpt each compatriot. Their stories have a real basis, and they are by no means dead runners.
In Chinatown, in addition to the gangs, there is another group of people.
For example, the brothel owner Ya Cai.
The prototype is Ah Toy, a famous trafficker in Chinatown, one of the rich Chinese women in San Francisco, who funded behind the scenes and wanted to buy legal assets belonging to the Chinese outside of Chinatown, but was blackmailed by whites.
In the play, she is a brutal heroine who can go out in the middle of the night with a single knife and kill two strong Irish men (really, the picture is extremely brutal).
Another example is Wang Chao, an intelligence peddler in Chinatown.
Behind this smuggling business, this man is also sneaking to support his white wife and daughter.
In other words, who are they?
He is a successful person who works hard in a foreign land, has the will to embrace the mainstream of American society, but also has the love of his compatriots.
Remember when you said earlier, "Time is not waiting for anyone"?
In the second season, the hand that grabbed the throat of the Chinese community became tighter and tighter.
The mayor began to make it clear that he wanted to oppose Chinese crimes and strongly support chinese exclusion.
Thus, the Irish could do things openly, beatings, intimidation, violence began.
On the chinatown side, Mei Ling's Longzhi Gang and Ah Shan's Hewei Gang, the contradiction continues to deepen, and the Longzhi Gang's allies, the Fenghai Gang, are also becoming more and more arrogant, a bit of the meaning of the Three Kingdoms competition for hegemony.
On the one hand, the general environment is getting worse and worse.
On one side is his own people still pulling his crotch.
Because the compatriots are not contentious and fragmented, Ah Shan may be forced into the position.
You must also notice that this play is not only racist, but in fact, the role of female characters is also respected.
Meiling and Yacai will play a more important role.
Notice the poster of the second season, where the brothers and sisters sing to each other.
They will inevitably step onto the same stage to meet the great era of more twists and turns brought about by the Chinese Exclusion Act.
03
The sword-rattling drama outside
In 1935, Xia Yan wrote in "The Contractor":
"An American writer, Solow, once said in a book that under every sleeper of the American railway lies the body of an Irish worker. Then, I also think that every spindle in the Toyo Factory is attached to the ghost of a Chinese slave. ”
See, even Xia Yan, who is closer to that history, does not mention that when the names of the Irish were recorded on the sleepers of the American railways, there were more Chinese laborers, and even their names were not left.
Half a century ago, when spinning spindles in the Toyo Factory were entangled in the spirits of the wronged, countless Chinese laborers could not even make a sound in the thriving infrastructure and factories on the east coast of the Pacific.
Like, they never existed.
△ Chinese workers who helped cut the U.S. Pacific Railroad by half the time to complete are not allowed to appear in the group photo
This group of people who have been overlooked by history.
"Warrior" is giving them a voice, even though it's been more than 100 years later.
△ Drama Chinese gong Apo's words before his death
This is history, and it has passed.
But what has not changed is that every time, when the Chinese find the possibility of inhabiting, they will face the malice of being instigated.
During the gold rush, California imposed heavy taxes on the Chinese, robbed them of their wealth, and forced them to change careers;
During the construction of the Pacific Railway, the Chinese undertook the hardest work, and the mortality rate was as high as 10%;
In the era of the Chinese Exclusion Act, the Chinese became "locusts", "labor thieves", and slaves of monopoly capitalists.
Not to mention the passage of the Peggy Act in 1875, which prohibited contract workers and prostitutes from immigrating to the United States, do you know what the subtext is?
When a woman is required to prove that she "will not be a prostitute" in order to immigrate to the United States, no woman can immigrate to the United States.
At that time, it was also illegal for Chinese and Americans to intermarry, which meant the institutional sterilization of Chinese in the United States.
Behind the ellipsis are countless similar histories of Chinese exclusion.
Its length of time may not be much shorter than the American Dream.
Because of the so-called American dream, there have been countless Chinese involved in it, but it has been stubbornly forgotten.
This work, under the banner of "Bruce Lee's legacy", seems to have a meaning when it is broadcast at the moment.
Today's confrontation between China and the United States is actually the result of the resurgence and blind spread of prejudice.
That's the scariest part.
But it is also the spirit of Bruce Lee's legacy, the reason why the warrior became a warrior -
Don't use stereotypes and prejudices to package the opponent in front of you and then defeat him.
Warrior, just to defeat prejudice itself.
The picture in this article comes from the network
Editorial Assistant: Gilmour's Gyro