Text | Ke frog
Luc Besson is out with a new film.
Two years ago, Uncle Lu's "Interstellar Agent: City of a Thousand Stars" directly pit the investment company, investing 177 million US dollars, and finally the world only took 225 million yuan at the box office, basically losing the bottom.
With the lessons of the last time, this time the budget was reduced to 30 million, and it returned to the field of female killers that Luc Besson was most enthusiastic about and best at.
Filmed the "Anna" that I want to talk about today.
Unfortunately, on the eve of the film's release, just in time for the metoo movement, Luc Besson was accused of multiple sexual assaults, and for a time the scandal was rife, so the filmmakers basically gave up the promotion of "Anna".
In the end, the box office of the movie hit the street again, and the reputation of the external network was also flat.
However, this film performs well in Douban, with a score of 7.6, which is a good result for this kind of pure popcorn movie.
Anna takes place during the Cold War in the 1980s and 1990s.
Moscow, 1987.
Anna, who is walking on the street, is tall and tall, with three-dimensional features, and is beyond the beauty of ordinary people.
But her face was pale and haggard, and her eyes were full of bitterness.
It's all thanks to her street boyfriend.
Anna was originally a homeless orphan who was adopted by her boyfriend and brought home.
Following her boyfriend, she became addicted to drugs and was punched and kicked at every turn.
But all this was soon changed by a man in black who broke into the house.
The Man in Black served the TOP SPY GROUP in the Soviet Union, the KGB.
He came this time to invite Anna to join the organization.
Anna's father was originally an officer, and then died in a car accident, because she had heard about it since childhood, coupled with her own talent, Anna actually had great potential to become a secret agent.
Of course, Anna had no intention of becoming a spy, so it was not so much an invitation as a coercion.
In desperation, Anna agreed to join the training.
From here, her life also completely embarked on a different path.
Three years later, a French scout is searching for a beautiful woman in Moscow.
In a wet market, the scouts found a girl with a tall and outstanding temperament.
Look closer, this girl, it is Anna.
In this way, Anna was quickly sent to Paris, and with her outstanding talent, she soon became a fashion supermodel.
Why was Anna called to the KGB's secret agent training three years ago, and how did she suddenly go to Paris to become a supermodel?
Obviously, these are all blind spots.
Anna's real purpose is to break into the upper circles of Paris, use the beauty meter, hunt targets for the KGB...
Supermodel + female agent, from these two keywords can roughly see the tone of this film.
On one side is sexy fashion, on the other side is violent and bloody.
And the film was also rated R-rated because of its nudity and gore.
At first glance, it's an annual cool film tailored for Coke popcorn.
But Luc Besson certainly won't be content to just make a brainless film.
Anna disguises herself as a supermodel to hunt targets, which is only the first layer of the story, in fact, there are layers of reversals set up later in the movie.
And since it was in the context of the Cold War, in addition to the Soviet spy organization KGB, of course, it was indispensable to the CIA of the United States.
Anna was quickly targeted by the CIA for once shooting a rich man in a hotel.
After learning Anna's true identity, the CIA did not kill her, but gave her a special mission...
So in desperation, Anna also changed from a Soviet spy to a double-sided spy.
Wrapped up in two mysterious organizations, the CIA and the KGB, Anna began to walk on thin ice.
At this time, the real theme of the film also began to show, Anna was coerced at the beginning, in fact, she was tired of killing, what she really wanted to pursue was freedom.
The reason why she worked so hard was also to retire as soon as possible and escape the control of the organization.
For this purpose, she could obey everything and betray everything, whether it was the KGB or the CIA.
Of course, this is not the final direction of the movie, the movie has a reversal at the end, there are not many spoilers here...
The story of "Anna" itself is not too complicated, it is the self-redemption of a double-sided spy.
But the film's editing method is really a bit deliberate to create suspense, there is a very direct perception that the film has not been half an hour since the beginning, the subtitles have been repeated, "five years ago, five years later, five years later, three years ago, three years later, three years later, half a year ago..."
To be honest, even if you remove all the hints of these timelines, you can fully understand it, because the story itself is not too complicated, so it seems mysterious to make it so.
In addition, when creating the talented image of Anna in the movie, some plots and lines still seem a little childish and seem pediatric.
Another regret is the lead actor Sasha Ruth, who is a Russian first-line supermodel herself, so it is of course effortless to play a supermodel in the film, but on the other hand, the fight part is relatively lacking.
Although it is a film, some shots still look unnatural, simply put, it is more than beautiful, but the delicacy of the acting and the action scenes are not convincing.
Compared with the same type of beautiful female agent spy films, it is somewhat inferior to Jennifer Lawrence in "Cardinal" and Theron in "Extremely Cold City".
In "Anna", there are many shadows of Luc Besson's previous works, "Superbody", "The Fifth Element", "Nikita", "This Killer Is Not Too Cold"...
For example, the wig that Anna wore in the film, almost every one of them can be found in the previous game.
Counting this, I do know how much Luc Besson likes to shoot cold female killers
However, last time I said a lot of shortcomings, let's talk about the advantages.
The advantages of "Anna" are particularly obvious, there is only one, that is, cool.
Although the director is trying to avoid making it a brainless film, it is still a brainless film.
Large-scale sexy shots, simple and rough killing plots, and plots that are not complicated but constantly reversed...
Overall, Anna is a popcorn movie that caters to the rules of business.
The biggest look and feel is to look cool.
As for what is the deep connotation to ask? For example, the freedom that the film has always wanted to explore, the confrontation between the individual and the powerful... These parts are lackluster.
To say more, looking at the works of Luc Besson in recent years, I think his greatest ability is not to make movies, but to dig up beautiful actresses...