In 2016, Jackie Chan won the 89th Academy Awards Lifetime Achievement Award, this big brother who makes every Chinese admire summed up his life by saying: "I spent 56 years, made hundreds of movies, and broke countless bones." ”
As an actor, Jackie Chan's position in the history of film no longer needs to be repeated, he created and promoted the development of another path of Chinese kung fu films, and brought it to Hollywood, so that more people can understand Chinese kung fu, and thus made him a group symbol and spiritual symbol of the golden age of Hong Kong films.
Perhaps decades later, his name will be written in film history along with that glorious era, but now, at the post-screening scene of the premiere of "Ryoma Spirit", he is undoubtedly still standing in front of all audiences, hooking us up with the era that has not yet gone far.
Many of the audience present at that time were overflowing with excitement, and one audience member even choked up and said that he grew up watching Jackie Chan's big brother's movies under the influence of his father; The only thing that can let his father enter the cinema is the words "Jackie Chan", his father has passed away, and today he has fulfilled his father's dream.
But there is an irrefutable fact that that the golden era has quietly faded in time, just like Jackie Chan standing on the stage, he is also old.
In this regard, there is also an excellent echo on the screen and outside. Even "Ryoma Spirit", which is full of laughter before and after, can hardly hide its slightly sad color.
Jackie Chan plays the downtrodden martial arts Lao Luo, who wanders in the film and television city with his love horse "Red Rabbit", just to find an opportunity to appear in movies. In this process, he often can't let go of those who belong to the past, and takes Chitu to risk.
"Dragon Horse Spirit" focuses on Chitu - although it is a "pet", it is not difficult to find that in the film Lao Luo calls Chitu "Zai", for Lao Luo, Chitu is more like a family-like existence.
And further, in fact, through Chitu, it connects the decades of life and choices of dragon and tiger martial artists, how to be consistent in the face of past glory and current frustration, and how to make up for those missed feelings.
Jackie Chan is from martial arts, playing the role of Lao Luo, not so much a performance, but more can be seen is his natural expression. In 2020, the documentary "Dragon and Tiger Martial Master" directed by Wei Junzi introduced the life path of Hong Kong kung fu filmmakers.
Even the most famous of them, Jackie Chan, has suffered astonishing levels of injuries and accidents, not to mention those behind-the-scenes group actors and stand-ins, who gamble with their lives but have little chance to leave their faces on the screen.
It is very interesting that this "Dragon Horse Spirit" obviously wants to seriously discuss the "dragon and tiger martial artist" industry with the audience, talk about its past glory, and also talk about its somewhat bleak evening scene.
In the film, Lao Luo's daughter Xiaobao is looking for the identity of her injured father when she finds a disc in a drawer, which is a collection of movies made by Lao Luo when he was young.
As the audience, we will smile, we can name these classic clips: "Plan A", "Red Fan District", "Police Story"... But we will also frown like Xiaobao because we see those tidbits .
"Red Fan District" stills
At this point, you can also find that the character of Lao Luo is not only a self-description of his young past time, but also the epitome of thousands of "dragon and tiger martial artists" in Hong Kong.
With the development of shooting technology, WIA, computer special effects and other methods have been maturely used on the set and in the post, Lao Luo, or the "dragon and tiger martial artist" spirit that those kung fu filmmakers adhere to, now has to slowly give up - through Lao Luo's disclosure of his past accidents, "I went from the best to the worst", he seemed to grit his teeth, take a breath, and try various dangerous actions with Chitu.
But at the last moment of jumping, he tightened the reins, and he finally understood that the real dragon and tiger martial artist must dare to jump and dare to go down.
After watching "Dragon Horse Spirit", I suddenly thought of the scene where Tom Cruise pickpocketed the plane with his bare hands. In 2019, Hollywood's special effects and CG technology have almost been fake, but Tom still insists on playing in person, and that scene does give people an extraordinary impact.
Some people may feel that in today's very mature CG technology, letting the actor personally do this high-risk action is to increase the actor's probability of injury.
But we can't deny that whether it is Tom picking up the plane with his bare hands or Jackie Chan doing various dangerous actions in the movie, they all shine with the brilliance called "surpassing themselves, surpassing the limit", which is the flash that belongs to the movie and the flash that belongs to human beings.
At the same time, "Dragon Horse Spirit" also made me think that the core of this story is actually very similar to Kong Dashan's "Space Exploration Editorial Department", which is about how a middle-aged man who was once extremely stubborn finally let go of paranoia, reconciled with himself, with his relatives, and with the times.
Therefore, the title of the film "Dragon Horse Spirit" is both a tribute to "Ma" (the spirit of Hong Kong martial artists) and a tribute to "Dragon" (Jackie Chan's fighting spirit) - the film is an affectionate look back at this, thus allowing us to witness the tenderness of the eldest brother Tiehan and the tears of indulgence that we have never had before.
Jackie Chan is nearly 70 years old, but he is still active in the front line of movies.
From the perspective of subject matter, "Dragon Horse Spirit" is very much like a "farewell work" by Jackie Chan, which is warm and complete enough - but at the post-screening scene of the premiere, Jackie Chan's speech also dispelled my doubts: he said that as long as I can still dance and act, I will always bring you new film works.
And this is also his attempt to push the limits off the screen, with the length of his life. And as an early 80s generation who grew up watching Hong Kong classic films, I will always look forward to seeing his next work on the big screen.