Lou Ye has made more than a dozen movies in half a lifetime, but so far, in addition to "The Mystery of the Floating City", "Tuina", and "Clouds Made of Rain in the Wind", only this "Lyceum Grand Theatre" has finally been released after twists and turns.
Starring Gong Li and Zhao Youting, Japanese actor Oda Cejean, French actor Pascal Gregory, German actor Tom Rasziha, Huang Xiangli, Wang Chuanjun, Zhang Songwen and other co-stars of the spy film "Lyceum Theatre" began filming as early as 2017, and was shortlisted for the main competition unit of the Venice Film Festival in 2019. From the lineup alone, it can be seen that Lou Ye is bloody this time.
The film was originally planned to be screened as the opening film of the 2019 Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Film Festival "Domestic New Film Exhibition", and was released in the mainland on December 7 of that year, the day of the outbreak of the Pacific War triggered by the Pearl Harbor incident, because the film tells the story of what happened in the six days before the outbreak of Pearl Harbor.
However, due to various reasons, the film has been temporarily withdrawn again, and even once broke out that the works starring Gong Huang may have been directly changed to a large network, fortunately, after several twists and turns, "Lyceum Theatre" finally officially landed in mainland theaters two years later.
Don't you experience something that is still Lou Ye's work?
"Lyceum Theatre" has no taboos in terms of theme and content, and the genre is more commercial than Lou Ye's previous works, but many viewers said that they did not seem to understand.
Didn't understand? Calm
The Venice Film Festival jury didn't understand it at first
In "Lyceum Theatre", a few years after Gong Li's big star Yu Yan left Shanghai, in order to star in the drama "Saturday Novel" by the old love Tan Na (Zhao Youting), he returned to Shanghai, and the media reporters heard the wind and chased after her works and gossip.
At the same time, there are also many forces that pay close attention to her whereabouts, she came back this time not only to meet her old lover and perform dramas, but also to rescue her ex-husband Ni Zeren (Zhang Songwen) from the Japanese, at the same time, Yu Yan also has an unknown hidden identity - an Allied spy, so what is the purpose of her trip?
With the music, a play within a play and Mission Impossible began.
I feel that I don't understand this movie, in fact, I don't blame the audience, because Lou Ye did not tell the story according to the routine of conventional commercial films, there are many characters in the opening scene, their identities are complex, their faces are different, and in Shanghai, where all the forces are entrenched at that time, everyone has their own thoughts and purposes, and there is a secret connection in the dark tide, if the audience can figure out the situation at the beginning, it must be lou Ye doing something wrong.
This black-and-white video, virtual and real interlaced film outlines the illusion of the old Shanghai, and it seems to take the audience to switch between drama and reality, and the situation of multinational confrontation, Chinese, English, Japanese, French and other languages, bring together people can't understand what the next plot is going on without paying attention.
Therefore, when "Lyceum Theatre" was shortlisted for the main competition film of the Venice Film Festival in 2019, it was at the bottom of several shortlisted films, with the average score of 2.4 for the Italian media and 2.45 for the international media. If you can give the judges the time and opportunity to savor it again, maybe Lou Ye and Gong Li can win the grand prize again.
At the same time, "Lyceum Theatre" is completely different from the spy film style familiar to the audience in temperament, the flashy back of the shanghai beach is hidden behind the black and white shadow, and the spy girl in the film has no qipao, red lips, and big waves. Yu Yan's complex identity and heart are wrapped in a white shirt and suspender pants.
Anti-cheongsam is Lou Ye's requirement for this work, he even asked designers to do street tests, wear the costume of "Lyceum Grand Theatre" and walk on the streets of Shanghai, which will not make people think of it as a strange "scenery". Lou Ye did this with his own intentions, he felt that in essence, he might have regarded this as a movie today, no matter how the audience excluded today's perspective, it is still a movie of today, it is better to face this reality frankly.
Yu Yan's mission and Wang Jiazhi's love
If you really think that "Lyceum Theatre" is not easy to understand, then you may wish to compare it with Ang Lee's "Color Ring". Yu Yan and Wang Jiazhi have a certain commonality, acting, seduction, task, and love are their common character lines.
Wang Jiazhi's simplicity lies in the fact that she is just starting out, drinking a cup of coffee and playing two rounds of mahjong, and Mr. Yi has seen through her tricks from the beginning, but deliberately wants to tease this little girl who does not know whether she is dead or alive, and he uses whipping venting to teach her a lesson and conquer. It was only when Wang Jiazhi collapsed into an army that Mr. Yi, who thought he was in control, fell into the love network instead, and his true feelings became a life-saving straw in front of the young Wang Jiazhi.
Wang Jiazhi finally failed the underground work of victory because of "love".
The result of the heart is so cruel, the mature Yu Yan will not allow this to happen to her, not to mention that she is far less simple and pure than Wang Jiazhi. She is an orphan raised as a spy by her adoptive father Hubert (Pascal Gregory), the actor is an explicit identity, the spy is a hidden identity, from the beginning she could not have regarded herself only as a daughter, a woman.
In addition to the complex identity, her task is to serve the interests of the United States represented by her adoptive father and spy on the intelligence of the Japanese army, but after all, she is a Chinese with yellow skin and black eyes, before the outbreak of the Pacific War, Japan almost completely occupied the Territory of Asia, leaving only Shanghai, an isolated island, on the one hand, the grace of nurturing, on the other hand, the hatred of the country and the family, circling between multiple forces, Yu Yan is difficult to live for himself.
"Lyceum Theatre" is adapted from the novel "The Death of Shanghai" by writer Hongying and the novel "Shanghai" by Heng Guangli, who once said that he wanted to hint at the fate of Chinese women in the novel, and the powerful Yu Yan chose the country between family affection and the state.
In the film, she hears Japanese intelligence but lies to Hubert, because this error in important information led to the successful Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which eventually triggered the Pacific Campaign, and thus changed the situation of Japan's complete domination of Asia.
Is Lyceum Theatre about love or espionage?
Some people say that "Lyceum Theatre" is about espionage, and some people say that Lou Ye, who has always paid attention to women, is filming love after all.
As a female agent who was trained since childhood, Yu Yan was charming, and her grasp of the love between men and women was even more comfortable, in order to task her to marry Ni Zeren, and when necessary, she personally rescued him and killed him.
Because she looks like the wife of Japanese intelligence expert Saburo Furutani (Oda Cejō), she can immediately seize the opportunity to lure the wounded and confused Furuya to tell the information.
Bai Yunsheng, a national government spy who had a similar experience to himself, gave birth to a brief ambiguous feeling from mutual use to pity for each other.
In the face of the unswerving drama director Tan Na, they look at each other and hold hands on the stage again and again, and the emotions that cannot be concealed are extended to the outside of the play, but they can only leave in the wrapping of the times.
Yu Yan's life is a life of control that cannot be escaped, a person with a gun in his hand and tears in his eyes, can he still have true love in his heart? She longed to live for herself.
Finally, at the end of his life, Yu Yan bravely chose to die for love, and went to the appointment with Tan Na for the last time.
Qiulan, played by Yu Wei in the play, has a line, just like her true state of mind portrayal, "I have done a lot of things, some of which I love, some of which I don't know, but I still did it, and then I came back, and I came back for what I loved, with you." ”
Talking about espionage, Shanghai, and love is ultimately talking about women, and Yu Yan is the woman who wants to grasp her own destiny in the torrent of the times.