Around 1974, a movie called "The Instrument of Sand" was released in the Japanese film and television industry, and as soon as the film was broadcast, it caused a great response. This work can be regarded as the top of the pyramid of the Japanese film and television industry, but such a work is considered inappropriate for release in China.
The Instrument of Sand is an adaptation of the mystery novel of the same name, which focuses on the murder of a young and promising composer in order to cover up his father's leprosy.
Although the film "The Instrument of Sand" is very popular, its road to release in China is not smooth, and there are two voices in the preliminary review, the first of which feels that this film can expose the darkness and ugliness of capitalist society, have positive factors for the development of society and people's thoughts, and support distribution. The second voice feels that the negative impact of the film is large and it is not recommended to be released. But the end result is that the latter voice wins, and the fact that they are right.
When the Yomiuri Shimbun serialized "Sand Ware", the copyright to the book was bought by Shochiku, but for some unknown reason, "Sand Ware" was postponed until 1974 before deciding to start filming. At that time, the Japanese economy was greatly affected, with oil prices soaring and prices soaring. The arrival of the financial crisis made people at that time panic. Under such factors, if the plot of the novel of the same name is copied to reflect the critical spirit, it is somewhat inappropriate in the current society.
As a result, the screenwriting team made a big rectification of the packaging of the appearance in "The Instrument of Sand", except for the basic plot that did not change. The first is to change the current background time under the film to change the time to the current 70s or so. The second point is to further optimize the composer's identity, portraying him as a particularly talented person in music. The final point is to alleviate the negative image of Kazuka Hideyoshi, delete the plot of other crimes in the novel of the same name, and change his motive for killing Kenichi Miki to a last resort.
The plot of the film twists and turns, and at the climax of the plot, He Yingliang plays his own song "Fate" in his personal concert, and at this time, the picture turns, and there is a tense meeting in a police station, and a policeman is reporting the investigation of the case to everyone. In this episode, the police station and the concert rotate in space and picture, and the third narrative line of the Honura father and son wandering the streets of Japan in their youth is displayed in front of the audience. The parallel montage passages of this third narrative line account for a quarter of the entire film, and the audiovisual means are used to the extreme in this film, so that the audience can deeply understand the hearts of the people after watching it, and make people cry.
In this film, the screenwriter cleverly connects the four seasons of Japan with the fate of the characters. The purpose of this is to give a layer of universal connotation and national color to the personal fate experience of He Yingliang before the war, so that it can be lowercase and larger, and the misfortune of He Yingliang alone can reflect the true portrayal of the majority of the Japanese population at that time, so that people who saw the film at that time will resonate.
The film also makes one of the most important changes to the original work, that is, to tilt the center of the film to the direction of fatalism, and He Yingliang's character is also a certain defense of those crimes that hide history, which is very different from the spirit of critical realism embodied in the novel of the same name before the adaptation.
"The Instrument of Sand" eventually passed the Chinese censorship and was allowed to be released on the mainland, but the process was also completed under very contradictory circumstances, with the audience crying in the cinema, while the newspaper on the other side was publishing "What do you think of the "Instrument of Sand"? The article allows us to recognize the fundamental nature of capitalist free competition, the survival of the fittest, and the predation of the weak. In a way, the film "The Instrument of Sand" is a combination of a critical film and a revealing textbook.