2001-2010, only ten years, twenty years from now.
But I always felt that at that time, people lived a relatively simple and authentic life.
So are domestic films.
The youth film at that time was [Blue Gate]: there was no car accident abortion, but like us ordinary people, we did nothing in the summer, and it just passed.
The "blockbuster" at that time was [hero]: it was not a "popcorn" that piled up cheap special effects, but a romantic school that paid attention to the color of composition and buried deep thinking.
At that time, the New Year's eve film was [big name]: not pretending to be crazy and selling stupidity, but being wise and foolish, "not seeking the best, but seeking the most expensive", spicy reflecting our current reality.
Ah Kan couldn't remember exactly what had happened.
Maybe the film industry is too crazy, flowing in too much stupid hot money, casual shooting can be full of pots, so they don't feel serious.
Maybe it's the internet environment that's turned upside down, and the sound of the black yang is confusing, impetuous, and makes people waver, forgetting what they want to shoot.
Or maybe the times are too fast and too fast, fragmented days, and the down-to-earth people and good stories are grinded into slag, at most there are good sentences, but there are few good articles.
Compared with the previous and subsequent decades, the big changes in the film industry really happened in 2001-2010.
This series of 60 Chinese films in 30 years is mentioned today in the top 10 from 2001 to 2010.
(The first 20 films from 1991 to 2000, watch here→ it is good to do the post-90s, and these Chinese cattle film students in the same era & Chinese movies, can not go back)
Maybe you can see the time of that year and the trajectory of the changes in Chinese films over the years from this list of good films.
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[Big Names] (2001)
Director Feng Xiaogang
Starring Ge You/Guan Zhilin/Indah/Paul Mazursky/Donald Sutherland
Genre Comedy
[Big Name] is a relatively underrated one in Feng Xiaogang's films, with the former [Party A and Party B], [Not Seen and Not Scattered], and then [No Thief in the World], [Non-sincere Do Not Disturb].
When it was released, the box office of the film was as high as 40 million yuan, which is not low.
But at a cost of $3 million (about 21 million yuan), it's not enough.
The gains were minimal and did not make a splash.
However, no one expected that after more than ten years, [big names] would become popular with the "god prophecy" in the film.
The scene where Li Chengru talks about house prices in a mental hospital has become an Internet celebrity paragraph, accurately predicting the current real estate situation.
"Don't seek the best, but seek the most expensive" This kind of nonsense that seemed to be neurotic at that time, with the passage of time, has long faded the funny component, leaving only the helpless human reality.
The satire of the flood of commerce and entertainment in the film is quite a trance and absurdity of "not knowing the meaning of the play at first, and then looking at the person in the play".
[The Story of McDougall] (2001)
Directed by Yuan Jiantao
Starring Li Jinwei / Lin Haifeng / Wu Junru
Genre Drama/Comedy/Animation
Compared with Hong Kong's booming live-action film industry, animated films have always been its shortcomings and have not improved so far.
However, Hong Kong has also produced animated films that are enough to make a name for themselves in film history.
In 2001, the manga adaptation of "McDougal Story", once launched, caused a huge response, and then produced several sequels.
[The Story of McDougall] is both pure and grounded, using simple 2D animation to show the living conditions and daily tragedies and joys of ordinary people in Hong Kong, cute and sincere, unique in Local Animation Films in Hong Kong, China.
[The Story of McDougal] is adapted from the manga "Mai Mark".
The protagonist, McDougal, is a pink piglet with a low IQ and a family status at the bottom of Hong Kong.
Like thousands of people, ordinary people who live a dull life of school and work, and experience hopes and disappointments, are the portrayal of the lives of Hong Kong people, and the empathy is extremely strong.
In addition to the story, the film also shows a large number of Landmark Landscapes in Hong Kong.
There are crowded streets such as Mong Kok and Sham Shui Po, as well as daily places such as tea restaurants and noodle stalls, which are full of a strong atmosphere of Hong Kong-style life.
Although there are no visual effects amazing graphics and special effects technology, this real life and emotion are already moving enough.
[What are your points] (2001)
Directed by Cai Liangming
Starring Li Kangsheng / Chen Xiangqi / Lu Yijing / Miao Tian / Ye Tong
Genre Drama/Romance
Cai Liangming is a very "slow" director, his films slowly break, self-talk, endless long shots and outrageous dialogue and music make many people prohibitive.
His films didn't sell well, and he never wanted to change like any other director, still going his own way, shooting slower and slower, he said, "My films should go to the art gallery instead of the cinema." ”
[What are your points] is Cai Liangliang's fifth film and his fifth collaboration with Li Kangsheng.
The director uses as many long shots as possible to show the integrity of the character's behavior to the audience, and people off-screen watch him eat, sleep, daze, quarrel, vent... The story is extremely weak and the pace is crazy.
But this may be the director's purpose, to experience in real time the loneliness of the characters in the film who have nowhere to rest and overflow the screen, like a performance art that connects reality and fiction.
As if the appointment is made, every once in a while, there will always be one or two such films, uncompromising, not chasing the stream, in a corner of the dazzling film genre, stubbornly maintaining the author's true color and the variety of possibilities of film creation.
[Seventeen-year-old bicycle] (2001)
Directed by Wang Xiaoshuai
Starring Cui Lin / Li Bin / Zhou Xun / Gao Yuanyuan / Li Mengnan
Genre Drama
Most of Wang Xiaoshuai's film creation is inseparable from his own experience, and [seventeen-year-old bicycle] is a run-in of his personal youth experience and aesthetic experimentation.
Different from the fifth generation of teachers and brothers, Wang Xiaoshuai's generation of directors has abandoned the aesthetics of the picture with a strong sense of form, is rougher and more grounded, and records the living conditions of small people with daily plain lenses.
As a representative of the cruel story of Chinese youth, [Seventeen-year-old Bicycle] uses the persistence of two teenagers for a bicycle to tell their simple but difficult to achieve dreams.
It tells the humility, helplessness, pain and cruelty that we have to face in the process of growing up, and also reveals the aliens and the big cities, and the layers of obstacles that the bottom people want to grow out of the circle.
What is doubly hopeless is that this was the case 20 years ago, and it is still the same 20 years later.
[Blue Gate] (2002)
Directed by Yi Zhiyan
Starring Chen Bailin / Gui Lunmeng / Liang Youlin / Qiu Zheng / Ming Jincheng
Genre Drama/Romance/Same-Sex
If there's one word to describe [the blue gate], there's nothing more appropriate than "pure.".
Many directors love to make youth films, but when they shoot, they change their taste, interjection, sadomasochism, abortion, fights, there is not much beauty of youth, more is the grease of real society and the adult world.
[Blue Gate] doesn't have that.
Its plot is simple, just a secret love between young boys and girls, and the love sinus that must be experienced in the process of growing up is beginning, confused and confused, refreshing and clean, with the smell of the sun on the white shirt of summer.
19-year-old Gui Lunmeng and 19-year-old Chen Bailin are the most suitable ages, and the childishness and greenness on the face do not need to be disguised, and they are naturally the appearance of the people in the film.
This pure place is still heartwarming after many years of [the blue gate], where we once had, passed away, and inadvertently repeated the youth.
[Hero] (2002)
Directed by Zhang Yimou
Starring Jet Li / Liang Chaowei / Maggie Cheung / Zhang Ziyi / Chen Daoming
Genre Drama/Action/Martial Arts/Costume
[Hero] is China's first blockbuster, big stars, big scenes, big productions, after the release of the domestic box office set a record of 250 million yuan, in the commercial groundbreaking significance.
However, its reputation has been completely polarized internationally and domestically.
Time magazine in the United States did not hesitate to praise it, ranking it the first place in the "Top Ten Movies of 2004".
Domestic public opinion, on the other hand, has lashed out at it one-sidedly and lashed out at it for many years.
Whenever a fifth-generation director makes a not-so-good commercial film, [the hero] is always treated as the initiator and whipped out.
The person who makes money and is scolded to the extreme, Zhang Yimou in Chinese movies is the beginning.
When subversive new things appear, they are always counterattacked by the instincts of the old things, which is a potential self-protection mechanism.
For most audiences who were accustomed to realist themes at the time, such a highly stylized and imagery martial arts film as [Hero] was too fancy, and even if it integrated Chinese aesthetic philosophy into it, it still needed a slow process of acceptance.
Although it has been infamous for many years, the box office of hundreds of millions of dollars cannot be faked, and at the moment when commercial films are becoming more and more watery, the unique style of [heroes] is even more precious.
[Infernal Affairs] (2002)
Directed by Liu Weiqiang / Mak Siu Fai
Starring Andy Lau / Liang Chaowei / Zeng Zhiwei / Zheng Xiuwen
Genre Drama/Suspense/Crime
[Infernal Affairs] is a peak after the golden age of Hong Kong cinema, and in the year of its release, together with Du Qifeng's gangster films, it took on the heavy responsibility of rescuing the market, which delayed the decline of Hong Kong films to a certain extent.
The film focuses on the infiltration contest between the police camp represented by Liang Chaowei and Andy Lau, but its ambitions have far exceeded the confrontation between good and evil between police and bandits.
As an undercover police officer, Chen Yongren lived in the gang for nine years, and Gu Qiuzai was his disguise, and every extra day, it was like a knife in his true identity, allowing him to live in a kind of fear and anxiety that did not even dare to tell the truth in his dreams.
Superintendent Liu Jianming entered the police station with the purpose of a villain, on the one hand, he had no choice and did a lot of bad things, on the other hand, he also gained a place in the police station with his own desperation and strength.
He wants to be a good person, but he fears inferiority because he knows his true identity.
When the contest between good and evil is intertwined with complex human nature, the police and bandits are no longer simply opposites, and under the surface is the philosophical issue of what is good and what is evil.
There is no absolute good or bad in the face of balance of interests, and "good has good rewards, and evil has evil rewards" is often just talk.
Goodbye, police. Goodbye, Hong Kong films.
[Kung Fu] (2004)
Directed by Stephen Chow
Starring Zhou Xingchi / Yuan Qiu / Yuan Hua / Huang Shengyi / Liang Xiaolong
Genre Comedy/Action/Crime/Fantasy
Evaluating Stephen Chow's films requires a fermentation process.
In the early years, films such as "Tang Bohu Dian Qiu Xiang" and "Journey to the West" were initially very lowly evaluated, and gradually warmed up after many years.
In 2004, [Kung Fu] was released at the same time as "No Thief in the World", and compared with the emotional points earned by the latter, the box office champion [Kung Fu] was criticized for "winning the box office but losing word of mouth".
Now that more than ten years have passed, looking at these two films, one is still standing in the same place, and the other is counterattacking from a street dick that everyone can step on to a generation of martial arts masters, and this fate change is like the asshole Ah Xing in [Kung Fu].
In order to counter the squeeze of Hollywood blockbusters, Stephen Chow's nonsense comedy has undergone two obvious changes.
The first time was [God Eater], from exaggerated funny to cold-faced laughing;
The second time is [Kung Fu], the taste of nonsense is more diluted, and a large number of kung fu special effects elements are incorporated;
Telling the story of the little people is a new or even the only flavor, with the results of the box office champion that year, it has won a short breathing space for Hong Kong films, becoming another highlight of Hong Kong films at the box office.
[Underworld] (2005)
Directed by Du Qifeng
Starring Ren Dahua / Leung Ka Fai / Gu Tianle / Lin Xue / Cheung Ka Fai
Genre Drama/Thriller/Crime
[Underworld] and the following year's "Underworld 2: Peace is Precious" are the 2.0 stages of Du Qifeng's gangster genre films, and the highest point of Hong Kong film gangster films.
Different from the previous "gunfire" and "dark war" and other heroic short-tempered mentality, [underworld] is more focused on the survival status and character relationships of this special group of gangsters.
There are fierce power grabbers, there are also small minions who are happy to take revenge, there are predecessors who are scheming and calculating, and there are also fierce and brave descendants, full of epic sense and speculation, quite a bit of Hong Kong's version of the "godfather" flavor.
It is not difficult to see from the two [underworld] du Qifeng's ambitions in this genre.
He did not want to be limited to the jianghu feud of fighting, killing, and killing, nor did he want to stop at the battle between the police and the bandits in the contest between good and evil, he was more concerned about the human heart and desire.
Gentle on the surface, vicious and bloody on the inside.
In order to seize power, Ah Le smashed the big D with a stone, no blood or injury, the violence was silent, but it was more frightening than the blood of the meat grinder, outlining the brutal ecology of a corner of reality, bold and sharp.
[Best of times] (2005)
Directed by Hou Xiaoxian
Starring Shu Qi/Zhang Zhen/Mei Fang/Liao Shuzhen/Di Mei
[Best of Times] is the penultimate film directed by Hou Xiaoxian so far, and is widely regarded as his review of his film career, and his pursuit of his own life.
Starring Zhang Zhen and Shu Qi, the film is divided into three paragraphs, each of which tells a love story and resembles three dreams.
People who know Hou Xiaoxian can easily find the shadow of his previous works, and there is a kind of familiarity and ease with the old friends.
The first dream about love, pure and beautiful. The old song in the pool room not only appears repeatedly in the film, but also echoes in Hou Xiaoxian's memory.
The second paragraph is about the dream of the homeland, steady and sad. There is the rhyme of [flowers on the sea], and there is also a fate that people who have been affected by history cannot control.
The third paragraph is about the dream of youth, restless and enthusiastic. The times are moving faster and faster, and under the stimulation of desire, the shelf life of love is becoming shorter and shorter.
The best surface is always wrapped in a layer of regret that cannot be sought, not because of the best, but because it is always lost, so we can only summon them with nostalgia. (To be continued)