Text | Qingyan
Edit | Wang Zhuojiao
Lin Nansheng has not only become a comrade of our party, but even in terms of contributions, it is largely limited to the care and rescue of female comrades of our party.
The tasks he carried out, such as assassinating senior Japanese officials, covering the retreat of comrades-in-arms, and suppressing the rebellion of the organization, were more of a reaction to the Kuomintang military organization and his instinctive reaction as a bloody Chinese.
This is what makes "Rebel" feel most fresh in the environment of spy dramas with pearls in front and saturation of production: although from the first episode, we know that he will become a staunch Communist Party member, it is not until the 30th episode of the finale that Lin Nansheng has a clear statement that he wants to join our party for the first time - in the first two-thirds of the plot, he basically exists as the protagonist of the identity and mentality of the military command.
This is very different from the classic spy works we are familiar with.
Those films and televisions that we are familiar with, such as "No Regret Tracking", "Lurking", "Dark Calculation", "Kite", "Before Dawn", "Cliff" and "The Sound of the Wind", most of their protagonists have been staunch underground party members from the beginning. Even if a change of identity and belief is required, the process is extremely short, such as Zhang Luyi in "Red", Hu Ge in "The Pretender", and Li Yifeng in "Hidden and Great".
These film and television works are more concerned with the transformation than with the arduous work of the underground party members. They rely on suspenseful rebirth stories and breathtaking dangers to complete the shaping of the protagonist's image.
But Rebels is not.
What "Rebel" cares most about is not what the protagonist did as an underground party member, but what he experienced before he became a comrade in our party.
The classic spy war story has roughly three ways.
The first is that in everyday life, danger slowly comes. Classic works are Johann Le Carré's Potmaker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, and 1981's 43 Years of Tehran, which are meant to amplify the underground workers and information in a hidden way in the details of life that we are accustomed to and blind to.
The subtlety of this kind of spy story is to listen to the thunder in the silent place.
The other is to give enough suspense, reversals and visual spectacles in a short enough time. There are many spy classics in this genre, and the well-known 007 series, the "Mission Impossible" series and the "Spy Shadow" series, as well as the 2009 "Wind Sound" directed by Chen Guofu and Gao Qunshu, can all be classified into this mode. They are meant to be in gripping tension and excitement, allowing the audience to appreciate the hardships of spies or spies.
The subtlety of this kind of spy story is to hear thunder in the storm.
There is also a kind of espionage story, slightly metaphysical. They talk about how a person, actively or passively, becomes a believer in another faith and is humiliated and hurt in the process. In this process, the character will overestimate his will, character, endurance, and even loyalty, which will then trigger personal private feelings, confrontation and conflict with the empathy of home and country. Ang Lee's "Color, Ring", Lou Ye's "Lyceum Theatre", Johann Le Carré's "Berlin Spy", and Jean-Pierre Melville's "Shadow Trooper" all touch on this level.
They are talking about the relationship between the individual and the home country.
Or a little deeper, they are talking about a game between basic human nature and heavy beliefs.
The subtlety of this kind of spy story is to hear silence in storms and thunder.
Despite the same suspense and dangers, these elements are not the core of Rebel. On the contrary, these tense and exciting dramas, such as the bizarreness of the storyline, wisdom and brave character, are only means of attracting the attention of the audience. What they all point to is the impact of faith and spiritual confusion that Lin Nansheng experienced in this process.
Lin Nansheng's transformation was formed through the combination of external forces that were tightly sewn together: on the front were underground party members Gu Shenyan, Zhu Yizhen, and Zuo Qiuming, and on the reverse were Chen Moqun and Wang Shi'an, the leaders of the military command's secret service, and the Japanese invaders.
In order to make it simpler and more straightforward for the audience to enter the state, "Rebel" adopts the most traditional dualistic narrative method. For example, Gu Shenyan, an underground party member, and Chen Moqun, an agent of the military command, are two extremely mirrored roles.
Gu Shenyan and Chen Moqun, both from the Whampoa Military Academy, were Lin Nansheng's superiors at different stages. It can even be said that it is Lin Nansheng's master in different directions.
But the way they teach Lin Nansheng is completely different, the most obvious is the opening of the story, Chen Moqun tortured the suspected underground party teenager in the cell to train Lin Nansheng to be cruel and ruthless, and proposed to let Lin Nansheng deceive Zhu Yizhen's feelings in order to obtain intelligence.
What Chen Moqun taught Lin Nansheng was not only the ruthlessness of unscrupulous means to achieve the goal, but also the instrumentalization of family and national feelings and ideals and beliefs; even in the face of the great national righteousness invaded by foreign enemies, he still insisted on fighting and liquidating the underground party members -- on the side of military unification, in addition to the false friendship of public interests and private interests, it was a complete rejection of humanism and national convictions.
On the other hand, although there are also unscrupulous acts to achieve the goal, such as Amu detonating a grenade in the bookstore to let Gu Shenyan escape, and Lao Ji detonating a grenade on the radio to remind Zhu Yizhen to escape, this unscrupulous means is only to sacrifice himself, the purpose is for the sake of his colleagues, and it is for the sake of realizing a greater national belief.
Comparatively speaking, between Chen Moqun and Wang Shi'an, who are also military commanders, there is no such comradeship and family and country feelings to speak of. For example, Chen Moqun fooled Wang Shi'an into escorting the "fake Wang Zhi" back to Nanjing, in fact, he used him to lure the snake out of the hole, and when the operation failed, he forced Wang Shi'an to take the initiative to carry the pot.
Wang Shi'an is also not a fuel-saving lamp. After Chen Moqun was arrested by the Japanese army, Wang Shi'an betrayed the position of the central command's intelligence station in Shanghai, and used the hand of the Japanese army to confirm that Chen Moqun was a traitor, so as to prevent him from obstructing his official fortunes after returning to Shanghai.
Chen Moqun is selfish and fierce, and Wang Shi'an is greedy for power and wealth.
Gu Shenyan was old and heavy, and Zhu Yizhen cherished his homeland.
Lin Nansheng is in such a strong contrast, to judge the right and wrong, black and white right and wrong.
He took the initiative to draw closer to the Communist Party of China -- this is also another place where "The Rebel" differs from other spy war stories: in the previous stories, our party usually sent a certain comrade to take the initiative to approach the protagonist and absorb him into our party's comrades with affection and reason; but in "The Rebel", Lin Nansheng, although he successively contacted comrades such as Gu Shenyan, Zhu Yizhen, Zuo Qiuming, and Lao Ji, it was Lin Nansheng himself who took the initiative to ask to join our party.
In contrast, Lin Nansheng's transformation seems to be more powerful, weighty and authentic — which also corresponds to Gu Shenyan's line that can be called the title of "Rebel":
"Your faith should not be attached to any one person, faith is to be tested in continuous practice and battle, and finally to reach firmness!"