This year's Spring Festival stalls were expected to be fiercely competitive.
However, after the release, except for "The Water Gate Bridge of Chosin Lake", several other box office performances were not as good as expected.
The box office is not entirely linked to the quality of the film.
Zhang Yimou's "Sniper", douban scored 7.7, ranking first in several films.
Unfortunately, the film is too small, resulting in the film being applauded.
As a main theme film, unlike "Chosin Lake", which is based on a grand narrative, "Sniper" presents a slice of war.
So, what kind of story does it tell?
01 Story archetype
Sniper is set in a deserted, nameless place.
Different from the second phase of the Campaign to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea presented in "Chosin Lake", this film focuses on the later stages of the war.
That is, after the end of the Fifth Campaign to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, the period of the Cold Gun And Cold Artillery Movement.
At this stage, both the volunteers and the enemy suffered heavy casualties.
The two armies realized that neither army could destroy the other, and could only face each other anxiously.
Soon, the warring parties began negotiations on an armistice in Korea.
The two sides negotiated while engaging in a tug-of-war.
The US military has advanced military equipment. Although our equipment is backward, with ordinary rifles, we can also accurately kill the enemy.
The Cold Gun Movement was born.
During this guerrilla warfare, many sharpshooters emerged in our army.
The protagonist of the story of "Sniper", Liu Wenwu (Zhang Yu), the leader of the fifth class, is one of them.
The U.S. military refers to it as the "Grim Reaper."
The fifth squad was tasked to bring back Scout Liang Liang (Liu Yitie).
Liang Liang was wounded by the American army on the abandoned position.
The task of bringing him back seemed simple, but it was difficult.
Liu Wenwu was ordered to be in danger.
Liu Wenwu in the film makes the enemy feel frightened.
And his prototype Zhang Taofang, the record is even more awe-inspiring.
Historically, Zhang Taofang killed 214 enemy troops with 442 rounds of bullets, setting a record for cold shooting at the enemy in the battlefield of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea.
And he himself was unharmed.
Zhang Taofang was named one of the "World's Top Ten Snipers", which is well deserved.
Based on Zhang Taofang, the creator then created the story of the sharpshooter who rescued the wounded of the scouts.
The story pulls us back to the cold and windy battlefield.
Under the deployment of Liu Wenwu, the five squads of fighters were methodically approaching the bright "body".
But they did not know that at this moment, the light of death had become the bait for the US military.
John, the leader of the US sniper squad, personally set up the situation.
Gunfire rang out, and several of our soldiers were killed.
Liu Wenwu realized that he had been deceived.
Watching the badly injured Liang Liang lie on the snow.
Liu Wenwu could only take the remaining soldiers back to the trench and wait for the opportunity.
Liang Liang's true identity is a scout with important intelligence.
As the MacGuffin of the film, he became the checks and balances that the two sides fought hard for.
Time passed by minute by minute, and neither side said much.
They remained absolutely calm and sober, sniping at each other and judging the number of people left on the other side.
Unlike the traditional sniper theme, the protagonist shoots a shot and changes places.
In this film, comrades-in-arms become hostages. How to break the game has become the biggest attraction of the whole movie.
02 People-oriented
Although there are no big scenes, the whole work still maintains a highly tense atmosphere.
The film is only more than 90 minutes long, but strictly follows the Hollywood Trinity law and presents a wonderful showdown in its entirety.
As viewers, we can actually look at this story in three stages.
The first part is that the squad leader Liu Wenwu led his men and was accidentally invited into the urn.
Then, one by one, in the course of the confrontation, the warriors were unfortunately killed.
Liu Wenwu sacrificed heroically in the form of bait.
He grabbed the grenade and jumped into the other side's trench.
Liu Wenwu died with an enemy and left hope and time to the young warrior Dayong.
In the second part, only Dayong was left with five squads of fighters.
At this time, the young Dayong had to quickly grow from a careless, crying, and even emotionally fragile recruit to a real warrior.
Da Yong never imagined that he would be the key person to win this operation or not.
Before the death of his comrade-in-arms Fat Dun, Dayong was still helping Fat Dun to name his son.
Squad leader Liu Wenwu taught Dayong how to use a spoon as a mirror to judge the enemy's position and shoot accurately.
In the new and veteran pairs of Dayong and Liu Wenwu, the spirit of Chinese soldiers is inherited.
The third part, the battle between Dayong and John.
When there was only one in the class, Dainaga bravely took on the mission of passing on information.
In the face of the American troops hidden in the tanks, in the rain of bullets, he crawled forward without hesitation.
He was no longer afraid, and his eyes were full of determination.
He finally found John and confronted him 1v1.
At the critical moment, Dayong hid behind the stone and used the pot and spoon method that Liu Wenwu taught him.
Between life and death, he calmed down and shot the other party.
This shot makes people feel surging inside, and the audience's long-suppressed emotions can be released.
In the past, war movies mostly portrayed characters in a strong sensory visual effect and in a more sensational way, highlighting the theme of collectivism.
But from the beginning to the end of "Sniper", there are not too many fierce big scenes.
Zhang Yimou and his daughter Zhang Mo chose to shoot this film in a way that is more complicated and simple, and there are more literary dramas.
The main creator starts from the details, adheres to the people-oriented, and lets the image of "people" be completely presented in the group portrait drama of the fifth class.
The protagonist, Dayong, loves to cry his nose in the early stage and restrains his emotions in the later stage.
Liu Wenwu, a veteran soldier, usually does not smile, but in fact, he is cold on the outside and hot on the inside.
The most moving scene in the play for the audience is that Liu Wenwu led everyone to sing the "Battle Song of the Chinese People's Volunteer Army", awakening the dying light in the snow.
"Majestic and exuberant, across the Yalu River.
To safeguard peace and defend the motherland is to protect the homeland. ”
Everyone sang and cried. This not only depicts the great love of Chinese soldiers to defend their families and defend the country, but also expresses the small feelings of soldiers who use the flesh and blood of youth to protect their comrades-in-arms.
The list goes on and on in the snow.
Fat mound, the front foot is still chatting with Dayong, and the back foot is carrying a heavy steel plate as a cover.
He knew that this mission was to send him to death, but he still regarded death as a homecoming.
The enemy hit him.
Before dying, Fat Dun used all his strength to shout out the name he gave his son.
There are also green dolls, who also carry the green gloves woven by their daughter-in-law when fighting.
These group portraits and details make "Sniper" truly a genre film that tells the story of "people".
03 Satisfactory answers
It is worth mentioning that Zhang Yimou chose to use black and white gray as the main tone of the film.
In post-production, the director was still de-coloring, adding more of a sense of depression to the film.
Black, white and gray also seem to be the cruel background of war life.
The green uniforms of the soldiers represent friendship and hope.
When death comes, the film appears in a small number of reds.
The red color contrasts sharply with the surrounding white.
The extreme opposition in color sets off the desolation and grandeur of the war, while at the same time losing its sense of reality.
The visual coldness also invades the depths of the characters' inner emotions.
The characters in the film are calm and steady, and there are few large fluctuations in mood.
But emotions exploded in forbearance.
When Liang Liang woke up, he was determined to transmit information.
At that moment, the firmness of his eyes was tearful.
The picture freezes at that moment.
The inheritance of individual belief in the collective is distilled into an eternal scene in the movie, which is always brilliant in the light.
Like "On the Cliff" and "One Second", Zhang Yimou once again expressed the strongest emotions in a restrained way.
With the advent of the Winter Olympics, the opening ceremony directed by Zhang Yimou was once again on the hot search.
"You can always believe Zhang Yimou", this sentence also exploded on the Internet.
In fact, throughout Zhang Yimou's career, Poison Jun found that he had been expressing his love for the land under his feet in his own way.
In the early days of "Red Sorghum", "The Big Red Lantern Hangs High", and "Alive", he was exploring and questioning the roots of China.
Under the lens, the sons and daughters of China are full of vitality, or passionate, or tenacious and tenacious.
Although he also experienced the low tide of capital wrapping and unfree creation, after "Return", Zhang Yimou began to dabble in various genres more extensively.
He began to make some films that cared about ordinary people, respected secular life, and treated movies sincerely, treated movie fans.
In this film with the main theme of war, he also insists on taking people as the base point and shaping the text.
This time, Zhang Yimou handed over a good answer sheet.
However, there are too few films in the queue, resulting in the poor box office of this film.
Netizens brushed together and said that they wanted to see "Sniper", thanking the Guoshi for his ultimate understanding and display of the romance of the Chinese at the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games.
Friends who have not yet watched this film may wish to go into the cinema to feel the humanistic feelings of the director and the great spirit of the volunteer soldiers!
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