On January 22, the online movie channel of the genuine video platform of the movie "Zhang Sanfeng" was launched. The film, starring Wu Fan and Liu Yan, appears to be the story of Tai Chi Zhang Sanfeng. Why do I use the word "seems" here? Because in "Zhang Sanfeng", the male protagonist ultimately calls himself Zhang Sanfeng, and on the other hand, this movie adopts a typical fantasy narrative, and there are many fictional components, and I have doubts in my heart to take this kind of fantasy fiction as Zhang Sanfeng's story.
Therefore, for the film criticism of the movie "Zhang Sanfeng", we need to solve a problem first, can Zhang Sanfeng, a character between history and fiction, be handled in a mysterious narrative way? To answer this question, we need to return to an old question, can a character like Zhang Sanfeng between history and fiction be treated as a character in the way of the martial arts of the past? My answer is yes, it can be handled in a martial arts way. Why?
Because the traditional way of martial arts still writes people as people, the rivers and lakes where people are located are still people's own rivers and lakes, rules, and human beings, rather than superhuman and supernatural. In the jianghu martial arts, the characters follow the Confucian spirit in traditional Chinese culture. This feature, especially Mr. Jin Yong's martial arts novels, is the most representative value. Therefore, the use of martial arts to deal with the role, still let the role is the person itself, is the culture itself. The jianghu is not too transcendent of reality, on the contrary, the jianghu is another realm level of reality.
In contrast, the biggest problem with the fantasy narrative is that the characters are distorted, especially the sense of reality in the dimension of reality. Wuxia narratives are constructed to be real. The fantasy narrative fundamentally refuses to construct the truth, and strives to construct the bizarre falsehood. In the end, these bizarre falsehoods hurt the story itself, making the whole work feel like a fabrication. Specific to Wu Fan's "Zhang Sanfeng", the biggest failure is actually a fantasy narrative that hurts the basic principles of the character's authenticity.
For example, the heroine appeared, equipped with a big bug, and super able to fight, super can spit silk. This big bug can be described as a full appearance, and there are many scenes. From the perspective of the occult narrative, this kind of big bug fight scene is of course good.) However, in the treatment of the character story of "Zhang Sanfeng", the whole work is distorted at once. Because in the dimension of nature, there can be no such big bugs that listen to people's words and can fight. This way of transcending nature suddenly empties the entire play.
For another example, the biggest villain in this "Zhang Sanfeng" actually achieved rebirth and combat effectiveness upgrades through the way of "lotion liquid". This is also a typical fantasy narrative. This kind of narrative content that transcends nature is bound to cause a certain amount of disgust among fans. When you need to see a logically reasonable story, this "lotion" method suddenly breaks the logical rationality. The villain actually uses this supernatural way to achieve gorgeous upgrades, so can the story content behind it continue to make things up and upgrade others?
That is true! Later in the story of "Zhang Sanfeng", Zhang Sanfeng, played by Wu Fan, has achieved an upgrade in combat effectiveness by falling into the water. The world of martial arts, at least, is still childish. For example, in Jin Yong's "Eight Parts of the Heavenly Dragon", the combat effectiveness of the virtual bamboo is upgraded, and at least someone must pass on a little qigong mind method, and also maintain the superficial principle of material invariance. When it comes to this mysterious "Zhang Sanfeng", even this childish truth is not told, and it can be upgraded by directly falling into the water. This mode of upgrading and fighting monsters can only be done in a narrative controlled by fantasy.
The biggest problem with fantasy narratives is logical falsehood and emptiness. Logical rationality is the basic premise for establishing a reasonable story. Fantasy narratives are often logically and logically hard. In the face of this situation of hard injuries everywhere, fans can only feel that the film is made up. And based on the fabricated content, no matter how much jianghu, culture, and the like are shouted, they are all just applying to the east and pasting fake gold leaf on themselves.
For actor Wu Fan, he has released several martial arts-based online movies in succession. The actor seems to want to go the way of a martial arts actor. However, martial arts films must solve a fundamental problem, that is, what to fight. In Wu Fan's movie "Broken Gold", I gave it to positive fans, thinking that "Broken Gold" was fought for brotherhood, although it was not new, but in the end it was standing, or there was a realistic emotional factor in it. However, in this mysterious "Zhang Sanfeng", why did Lao Zhang fight?
A story based on the fantasy of fiction, saying that why the male protagonist fights and makes up the big sky, is empty. This state of retreat and emptiness creates a dry martial arts content itself, and Wu Fan becomes a flowery martial arts action performance. Based on this, what kind of jianghu is also talked about in the film is pure self-deception. Jianghu people, people also. Fantasy, or human? (Text/Ma Qingyun)