Hollywood remake of "Seven Dragons", such as the Western version of "The Avengers"

Released in the United States on September 23, the film "Heroic Seven Dragons" (hereinafter referred to as "Seven Dragons") won the first box office of the week, and the film was remade from the old version of the 1960 film of the same name.

Friends familiar with the movie know that the old version of "Seven Dragons" is remade from the 1954 "Seven Samurai" directed by Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. Coincidentally, at the Venice Film Festival, which ended on September 11 this year, "Seven Samurai" "happened to" meet the new version of "Seven Dragons" - the former was included in the "classic restoration unit" of this year's film festival, while the latter was selected as the closing film. However, whether it can really compare these two films, the old and the new, it is difficult to say.

"Seven Samurai" tells the story of farmers in a remote mountain village during the Sengoku period in Japan who hired seven samurai to eliminate bandits. The film was once named the first of the 100 best films in the history of Japanese cinema by the Japanese "Film Shunbao". At the end of the film, only three of the seven samurai survive, because the thieves possess three muskets, posing a great threat to samurai wielding Japanese swords. Akira Kurosawa uses this film to express his lament for the decline of the spirit of "Bushido" in the era of change, and at the same time alludes to the historical fate of Japan from standing on the top of the world before World War II to the defeated and occupied world.

Known as the "Emperor of Cinema", Akira Kurosawa's influence on the world film scene is beyond words. In "Seven Samurai", after removing the meaning of "idealism", the basic storyline and the core of the story of "fighting heroes and fighting righteousness, eliminating violence and peace" can obviously find resonance space in various cultures. Hu Jinquan's "Five Tiger Generals" and Xu Ke's "Seven Swords Under the Heavenly Mountain" are all homages to "Seven Warriors". Hollywood is not immune. Released in 1960, "Seven Dragons" moved the story of the Seven Samurai from the mountain villages of Japan's feudal era to the western desert wasteland during the pioneering period of the United States.

The film opens in a small Mexican village near the U.S. border, where a large group of bandits come with a whip, and after indiscriminately looting and shooting a villager who tries to resist, the bandits shout "We will come again" and go away. Three farmers traveled to the United States for help, and seven cowboy gunmen were invited to defend the village.

"Seven Dragons" not only copied the storyline of "Seven Samurai", but also almost corresponded to the characters. The film brings together a group of popular Hollywood tough guys, including Steve McQueen ("Babylon", "The Great Escape"), Charles Bronson ("Once Upon a Time in the West") and James Coburn, among others who will become independent stars. The Bald Gunners chief is played by Yu Bernard, who starred in The Ten Commandments and The King and Me, who was also Hollywood's first bald idol.

Of course, there would be no strict hierarchy in 19th-century America during the Japanese feudal period. In Seven Samurai, there are class rivalries and differences in values between samurai and farmers, and what is more frustrating to the samurai than the casualties of their companions is the "reality" of the peasants. And the cowboy was originally a "farmer who grazed herding", and "Seven Dragons" was destined not to have the sad feelings in the bones of "Seven Samurai", but was transformed into a more simple and straightforward story of western heroes who were full of masculinity. In the final duel scene, "Seven Samurai" devotes a lot of space to portraying the emotions of the characters, explaining the relationship between the samurai, the relationship between the samurai and the peasants, and the elaborate formation before the great war. The Seven Dragons, on the other hand, go straight into battle after an exotic Mexican revelry. Even the most classic battle in the rain in "Seven Samurai", which renders a gloomy atmosphere, has been replaced by gunfire under the sun, which has a lot less extra-pictorial meaning outside the arrogance.

However, it is worth mentioning that although the 1960 version of "Seven Dragons" is not a classic American Western, it contributed a widely circulated classic theme song, which was not only borrowed by Marlboro cigarettes, but also often sounded at major award ceremonies to render the heroic pride of the pioneer era of the American West.

The main plot of the new version of "Seven Dragons" is completely taken from the old version, and it is still a story of an American cowboy hero who helps a Mexican village drive out bandits and eliminate evil. The history of the film is positioned as "after the End of the Civil War, the end of the Westward Expansion Movement", which probably means that the racial confrontation has ended and the process of brutal colonization has ended. The film brings together "Peacock" Matt Pomo, "Star Lord" Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke and other hollywood stars. The gunner leader in the film is played by the famous black actor Denzel Washington, as well as an Indian warrior with a shaved Mohican head and a totem smeared on his face, and an Asian soldier played by South Korean star Lee Byung-hyun. These three "minority" fighters survived to the end. The black slaves in the westward expansion movement, the slaughtered "barbarians" and the Chinese laborers who built the railway fought together to resist the enemy, and the real history was also written off under the words of "political correctness" in the United States today.

The film creates a remote town in the desert, where Westerns such as dusty residents, ruined taverns and humble banks are exquisitely recreated. Here the heroes show their magic, the Indian warriors kill the enemy with bows and arrows, and the Asian warriors fly swords like gods. Revolvers were clearly not exciting enough, and machine guns and cannons were carried to the western battlefield. Except for Denzel Washington, who embarked on the road to revenge because his family was killed by bandits, the motives of the rest of the fighters were unclear. As for the character portrayal, most of them stay on the "handsome", so that how to look at this new version of "Seven Dragons" is like a Western version of the "Avengers". In the end, the sacrifices of the heroes brought security to the Mexican town. And the audience probably won't remember the history of the United States seizing a large area of Land in Mexico through the Mexican-American War long before the Civil War. As for what the new version of "Seven Dragons" can leave for the audience, it is unknown.