In November last year, "Changjin Lake" officially ascended to the top spot at the Chinese box office. This year's Spring Festival file, "Changjin Lake Watergate Bridge" (hereinafter referred to as "Watergate Bridge") has taken the lead in the momentum, winning more than 600 million box office on the first day of the New Year, dominating the first day, and in the following days, it has been far ahead, and winning the Spring Festival champion is already a nail in the coffin.
Although the total box office does not know whether it can surpass the previous part, the success of the two "Chosin Lake" has long gone beyond the narrow sense of the film category.
Plot narrative
The narrative emphasis of the two "Chosin Lake" is different, the previous one is mainly about the victory of the famous American "Polar Bear Regiment" of the Volunteer Army, and this one extends a new story. After the Battle of Chosin Lake, the United States decided to retreat to the east coast of North Korea, and the Pratunam Bridge was the only way to retreat. In order to intercept the American army and eliminate its elite, the task of the volunteer army was to blow up the bridge.
In terms of structural arrangement, the former part pays more attention to the depiction of grand scenes, and in addition, there are more literary dramas, which not only need to explain the causes and consequences of the war, but also reflect the psychological changes of volunteer soldiers. Narratively, a considerable part of the film uses the character of Wu Wanli to answer the question of "what is the significance of this war".
As the plot develops, the answer to this question becomes more and more mature in Wu Wanli's mind. At first, it was based on a sense of affection and identity, and wanted to be looked up to by his brother Wu Qianli; later, in the scene of the Great Wall on the train, the answer was self-evident: for the sake of the motherland's rivers and mountains; but soon after, the comrades-in-arms gave another more warm answer: for the next generation.
《Chosin Lake》
In addition to "why", there is also "why not". For example, his brother prevented Wu Wanli from shooting at enemy soldiers who had lost the ability to resist, which not only reflected the small benevolence and small righteousness of individuals, but also clearly pointed out the justice of the Chinese volunteer army's participation in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea.
Because the previous work has basically explained the content of the explanation, to "Watergate Bridge", it is mainly to show the completion process of a specific task. Therefore, its focus is not on character growth and international political wrestling, but on simply showing tactics. So the director divided the grand war scene into specific tactical execution steps, from macro to micro, the landing point was finer, and the director's control ability was more tested.
Therefore, in "Watergate Bridge", the audience can see a more concentrated and more tragic battle scene: between China and the United States, both the number of people and equipment are quite different. In terms of personnel, only half of the seven companies remained, and the ninth company was combined to carry out the raid mission, but the US army stationed a large force on the bridge to wait for work; in terms of weapons and equipment, the US army was equipped with advanced mines, standard guns and flamethrowers, as well as aircraft that could provide air assistance at any time. However, the guns of the volunteer army were still captured "made in all countries", and communications mainly relied on military trumpets and whistles, and even the radio batteries were ineffective because they were too cold. In such a poor equipment generation, the only chance for the volunteers is to attack at night, looking for weak points to break through the enemy's defenses.
Stills from "Chosin Lake No Shumun Bridge"
This back-and-forth battle between breakthrough and defense is undoubtedly tragic, and the audience can see the various sacrifices of the soldiers, such as the battalion commander who was pierced through the abdomen by flying stones; the radioman who was burned to ashes by incendiary bombs in order to lure the enemy; the soldier who was killed by the American sniper; the Pinghe who wanted to blow up the enemy tank with an explosive package, but was crushed by the tracks...
With the existence of these scenes, the two and a half hours seem to be unrestrained, and the degree of cruelty is no less than that of the grand scenes. The audience can also deeply understand the vulnerability of ordinary soldiers in the face of war, and the great courage and discipline required to choose to face sacrifice, and even the great significance they carry. It will not be like some previous "divine dramas", so that the audience will have a huge misunderstanding of the volunteer soldiers as "three heads, six arms, omnipotent".
It can be said that whether it is from the narrative technique, narrative angle or emotional expression, "Watergate Bridge" has formed an important supplement to the previous work.
How to shoot it?
As we all know, "Changjin Lake" is co-directed by Chen Kaige, Xu Ke and Lin Chaoxian. The first part of the work is relatively average. But in the second "Watergate Bridge", according to the chief producer, most of the scenes in the film are directed by Xu Ke. Therefore, on the opening subtitle, the other two gave up the director's signature and only signed "supervising producer". This arrangement also makes the aesthetics and the perception of the action more unified.
Xu Ke's requirements for the scene are quite meticulous. Most of the ice and snow scenes in the film are not special effects, but real ice and snow. In order to meet the requirements, the team also had to overcome many collateral difficulties.
In an interview with the media, Xu Ke said that when the snow first began to fall, because it had not yet been solid, it could not bear the weight very well, resulting in actors often unable to stand, and it was even more difficult to do the action. And when the snow falls to a certain extent, it will form a layer of ice, so that the soles of the actors' feet will slip, and it will be more difficult to do the action. In addition, after each shooting, there are a lot of footprints on the snow, so the crew has to spend extra time rearranging the ground and restoring it.
In addition to ice and snow, many scenes also require wind. When the wind blows, people will be very uncomfortable, and the body feeling is quite cold. "It doesn't matter how you wrap yourself up, but this is exactly the natural environment that those warriors faced back then." Xu Ke said.
Due to the huge shooting workload, natural wind and snow alone cannot meet the needs of the war scenes and their plots, so the crew also needs to produce artificial wind and snow to cooperate. Xu Ke told the media that there are three teams in the light blowing group of the crew, and each team has its own special wind blowing method. A scene depends on several groups of people to cooperate with each other to achieve the best results.
In the film's offensive and defensive battles about the Watergate Bridge, the U.S. military often uses flamethrowers. In order to enhance the sense of realism as much as possible, Xu Ke mostly uses real fire. "In fact, the flame of the flame gun can be completely drawn in CG, or the scene is just a little fire, all relying on the later stage to enlarge it, but the feeling will still be a little different." So we still choose to shoot as much as possible under the premise of ensuring safety, and then use some post-production techniques to further optimize it to achieve the dramatic effect we want. ”
From all angles, the two "Chosin Lake" are undoubtedly the peak of the industrialization of domestic films. The so-called "industrialization" is not only about cutting-edge technology and innovation in the narrow sense, but also about testing the organizational ability and discipline of the team in the face of the big scene. In a crew of such a large scale, unexpected things happen every day during the filming process. Xu Ke told the media that the team must carefully record the use of gunpowder, bullets and signal flares used for filming, otherwise the situation of "insufficient inventory" will seriously affect the follow-up progress. And these difficulties, the actors and the set staff after a great effort, have overcome one by one.
In an interview with China News Weekly, Wang Shuzeng, a historical adviser to "Chosin Lake," said that in addition to strategy and tactics, the two "Chosin Lake" also focused on answering the question: What is the mentality of the people just after the liberation war? Why is it that after the war of liberation, people can go to the front line with great enthusiasm? What is their mental state? If you want to answer this series of questions, you must restore the background of the times as much as possible. "Without this link, this work has no soul, and it is impossible to explain why that generation died generously."
Regarding this series of questions, the two films have given answers in different ways, and the actor's physical practice is also a key part of the answer to this question.
"The actors are good. In order to restore the combat situation, the actor may suffer more than any movie. Wang Shuzeng said.
The main theme of the commercial film
China's main theme commercial films began to take off, which can be said to have started with "The Founding of the People's Republic" in 2009, when the star-studded film still won more than 400 million yuan at the box office despite the rather limited number of screens in the country. Then later, with the vigorous development of theater construction, there was "Wise Tiger Mountain" and "Mekong Action"; followed by "Wolf Warrior 2", "Red Sea Action", "My Motherland and Me"; until the two "Chosin Lake", during which it obviously experienced an increasingly mature development curve and the box office was getting higher and higher.
"Outsmarting Tiger Mountain"
Most of the aforementioned films are war films. If you want to test the industrialization process of a country's film, war films are undoubtedly the best sign.
Take 2014's "Wise Tiger Mountain" as an example, although its genre is defined as a war film, in fact, there are not many real war scenes, and most of the content composition is actually undercover and suspenseful. By 2016, "Operation Mekong", the tactical content became richer, although the scene was not large, but the small-scale military conflict also brought enough excitement to the audience.
Later Wolf Warrior 2 and Operation Red Sea were further expanded in scale, but with slightly different emphases. The former has some imitations of the Hollywood "superhero" narrative path, and the reason for its great success is because both the scale and the scene have played a "from scratch" momentum, which has discharged chinese audiences who have long been forced to appreciate the accumulation of European and American heroes on the screen; the later "Red Sea Action" scene is still grand, but because of the group portrait narrative, the emotions are slightly dispersed, and the box office has not overshadowed the former, but it also constitutes an important supplement.
Wolf Warrior 2
As for the upper and lower "Chosin Lake", it takes into account the two dimensions of character emotions and grand scenes, so it is not surprising that it won the crown.
Despite the rapid progress, it cannot be ignored that compared with Hollywood's "Superman", "Captain America", "Burning Love Years", "Black Hawk Down", "Saving Private Ryan" and other films, China's main theme films still have room for improvement in terms of narrative rhythm, genre diversity, and audience.
In this regard, Wang Shuzeng believes that film art creation is constantly developing and progressing. "Chosin Lake" and "Watergate Bridge" are just the beginning, with the development of time, the creators' cognition of the main theme of the film is constantly improving, the horizons are constantly expanding, and the artistic techniques are constantly innovating, and the future will only get better and better.
In terms of genre, it will not only stick to the form of war films, if the definition of "main theme" is further broadened, in recent years, there are animations such as "The Return of the Great Sage" and "The Demon Child of Nezha" that excavate new ideas from traditional stories; "Hello, Li Huanying", "I am not a medicine god", "Miracle Stupid Child" and other realist films; "Wandering Earth" and other science fiction films. To some extent, they all embody the spiritual outlook, economic development and cultural inheritance of contemporary Chinese.
The Wandering Earth
"As long as it can reflect the endless development process of our nation for thousands of years and explain the past and future of our nation, this is the mainstream, and the theme does not necessarily have to be the theme of major wars, but there are many great people and things." Wang Shuzeng said.
At present, as the main theme of the war film with huge investment, the "Chosin Lake" series of films has not only achieved commercial success, but also represents a new level of the Chinese film industry. After all, the main theme of a successful film is to let the audience subtly receive patriotic education while meeting the needs of entertainment, rather than dry direct preaching. In this regard, as the current box office champion in the Chinese film industry, the two "Chosin Lake" undoubtedly have great reference significance for latecomers.
Of course, if we want to attract more creators to devote themselves to the creation of the main theme film, the audience and the box office are more and more, only in this way can we accelerate the positive cycle of mutual promotion of funds, art, influence, audience base and other aspects.
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