The online movie "Death Sword" will be launched exclusively on Tencent Video on July 24, which is another costume martial arts action movie by director Zhang Meng born in 1989. In 2016, his self-written and self-directed similar work "The Golden Seven Darts of the Water Margin" has attracted widespread attention in the industry, and it is believed that "Death Sword" will also be a "phenomenon-level" network movie.
In the Central Plains Wulin of the Tang Dynasty, the "Eight Masters" of the Tang Dynasty were killed one after another in the past twenty years, and all of them died under their own unique skills, and for a time the rivers and lakes set off a bloody storm. As a small catcher of six doors, Duan Xiaofeng used his super memory and reasoning ability to step into the whirlpool of jianghu world alone, and a long-sealed jianghu bloody case was gradually uncovered by him.
This "Death Sword", which is positioned as a new school of martial arts, organically integrates according to the form of ancient costume martial arts films + the core of suspenseful detective films, creating a "long sense of suspense and jianghu" type full of jianghu morality and brain-burning reasoning.
The movie "Death Sword" is divided into two parts. The upper part, "The Rise of the Deadly Sword", is more like a martial arts conference written by Jin Yong, starting from the killing of the great hero of "the great hidden in the city", and gradually opening the curtain of enmity and hatred between the "eight masters".
Xue Lishi, who was working on the field, was killed by his own stunt "Canglong Breaking"; "Demon Sect Elder" Zhao Chengfeng was also killed by his own "Wild Wind Flame Sword". As one of the eight masters and also the general capital of the six doors, Ye Wuji decided to go to Yangzhou to investigate in order to find out the perpetrator, while his apprentice Duan Xiaofeng was expelled from the division for some reason, but he also embarked on the road of investigating the murderer behind the scenes. Since then, several major martial arts masters have appeared one after another, accompanied by the doom of being killed.
In the process of advancing the story, the appearance of several pairs of CPs added an element of emotional entanglement to the film. The first pair of CPs is Ye Wuji and the only female shangguan hong in the "Eight Masters"; the second pair is Duan Xiaofeng and Wang Feiyan, the daughter of Dongfang Bin, the leader of the Demon Sect and one of the eight masters, the two met by chance, and Wang Feiyan had a crush on Duan Xiaofeng; the third pair was Duan Xiaofeng and Sun Ying, the little sister of the "Avengers Alliance"; the fourth pair was the male CP Duan Xiaofeng and Fa Xiaozhou.
The emotional clues of these people are developed in parallel with the clues of blood, revenge, suspense and so on, which adds a touch of tenderness to the cold-blooded and dark fighting atmosphere, and at the same time plays an important role in the advancement and development of the story. The use of emotional clues is also often seen in Jin Yong's martial arts works, and from this point of view, the design of "Death Sword" is similar to the idea of Jin Yong's works.
In the upper part of the film, the overall rhythm is not fast, and the soundtrack and light and shadow play a very good role in the delicate depiction of character relationships and emotional clues. The colorful Yangzhou City, the graceful Xiaoxiang Pavilion, the towering Demon Sect Base Camp, with scenes full of classical beauty and cool and dazzling special effects, make people want to enter the jianghu world to find out.
The second part of the movie is the tense rhythm of the rapid development of the plot, with the evolution of the story and the deepening of the investigation, the plot climax of the old affairs of the Eldest Sun family, the magic cult storm, the Emei faction behind the scenes, etc. has been presented one after another, and the film has gradually approached the truth of the matter in the advancement of the plot layer by layer.
In this process, Duan Xiaofeng, the "strongest brain", as a growing character, experienced the murder of his master, the murder of his brother, and the reversal of his lover, and finally solved the final mystery of the whole case, and completed his own maturity and growth. Whether it is from the character shaping or plot advancement, the film is very complete in design and arrangement, and each actor's role setting has its own characteristics, with a distinct personality, which shows the intentions of the main creative team.
Overall, "The Sword of Death" is a very well-made work. Its main creative team strives for excellence, not only strictly restoring the props and scenes with reference to historical materials, but also presenting the world of light and shadow is completely cinema-level texture. In terms of the use of special effects shots, it is said that the film's post-special effects shots reached a record of more than 400 in the history of the University of Net, and most of them were used as a supplement to martial arts shots. According to director Zhang Meng, using more "dazzling" special effects to show more "real" martial arts actions not only creates an imaginative sense of the jianghu, but also allows the audience to recognize the world they see.
In the choice of actors, it can be said that there is also a unique vision. The whole crew did not have a well-known traffic student, but the newcomers picked the beams, gathering a new generation of actors such as Liu Yuqiao, Ming Junchen, Guo Kai, and Confucius. However, whether it is from the appearance or to the acting skills, most of the main actors still complete the requirements of film production relatively well.
"Deadly Sword" combines a variety of genre elements and comic style, and vividly shows the themes of martial arts and suspense through lively fights and ups and downs. If you have a soft spot for martial arts movies, you may wish to experience the ups and downs of martial arts and explore the ultimate secrets of the jianghu on July 24.