Someone asked, "What is the biggest difference between humans and animals?" "This seemingly simple question is really not something that can be said clearly in one or two sentences, because the difference is too big, and everything is said, and everything is different."
But ask "What is the most similarity between man and animal?" This answer is relatively simple, and it is estimated that many people will answer: we are all animals.
The movie "Animal World" is actually discussing the second issue, human beings are "intelligent creatures", this word is taken apart, it shows that we have human nature, but we are also animals, with the same animality as animals, to put it bluntly, it is "animal nature".
★ Animality is the stuff in Darwin's Theory of Evolution, and everything produces biological instincts in order to "survive": to continue individual life, to inherit the existence of the population. The fittest survive, and the unfit are eliminated.
★ Human nature, needless to say, just to mention, human nature is to a certain extent "anti-animal", because there are reason and emotions, there are also despair and hope emotions, such as we will sacrifice ourselves, we will also commit suicide, there are family planning, which is very un "animal".
Therefore, human beings have both attributes at the same time, a bit like Schrödinger's "cat that is both alive and dead", which is a contradictory but unified existence. Even under such a complementary relationship, the differentiated rationality vs impulse, logic vs chaos, social vs individuality, such a contradictory and unified relationship, the game between them, is the theme to be explored and expressed in this "Animal World".
<h1>Animal World vs Gambling Apocalypse: Differences from the original</h1>
"Animal World" is very good to watch, and this "good look" refers to two aspects:
One is that it is filmed well, the sense of film is very strong, and the choreographer Han Yan and the team behind the scenes are credited to the great;
The second is that the story is good and has depth, thanks to the original comic "Gambling Apocalypse". Let's talk about it separately.
Fukumoto's original manga was seen that year (I hadn't seen the anime, and the manga was translated as "Gambling Apocalypse") at the time, but Lu timidly said that he didn't finish it, because to be honest, he thought the manga was a bit tired (why tired, later).
However, I am still relatively familiar with the story of "Animal World", the film adaptation is adapted from the story of the first part of the "Ship of Hope", and the restoration of the main story of the original comic is still very high.
But here's where the movie is different from the manga, and it's also where I personally think it's a success as an "adaptation" of the film.
The biggest change is the character of Zheng Kaisi.
In the original work, it is a small, and the gambling game is deceived at the beginning because of the naïve idea, and it seems that it is about to fail miserably. However, he actually "awakened" and changed from a mediocre talent to a genius, which seems to be an exaggeration, but Fukumoto Shin's practice is actually to highlight the potential of human beings to explode in extreme environments.
And "Animal World" changed the protagonist's personality, and took 40 minutes to lay the groundwork, the reason why this character fell to such a point is not unenterprising, and the external reason:
★ Don't look at the usual hanging Er Lang Dang, in fact, the character is very good, and filial piety, guarding the mother for many years
★ It was the mysterious organization led by Michael Douglas that caused the protagonist's family to be destroyed and his own downfall. There is a debt and a master, and this pot must be carried by the other party.
Also, there are several details in the first half that highlight That Zheng Kaiji himself is a master of mathematics (genius):
★ When he guarded his mother, he played as if it were 2048
★ When talking to Li Jun, he played a game of Sudoku
★ Zhou Dongyu also told the head nurse, "He is the smartest child of ours."
It shows that this person likes numbers and logic, and his IQ is also good, which is to pave the way for the genius performance of Zheng Kaisi in the second half.
Zheng Kaisi's performance in the game is not his "awakening", but his kindness, who initially believed in others, but later regrouped, with his own strengths, to kill the siege, but also to help others. This change was very successful.
In addition, Zhou Dongyu's joining, in order to enrich the character's emotions, and Li Jun's personality, Zheng Kaisi in the original work is not his hair small, just an ordinary guarantor, the two in the movie have become friends who grew up from a small piece, used to reflect the animal nature of the character, these are the places where the movie has changed.
<h1>Simple vs Complex: Methodical cinematic feel is great</h1>
The cinematic feel of Animal World is outstanding.
Clear narrative, methodical rhythm, comic style editing, here to praise director Han Yan. His overall control ability and scheduling have a great influence on a movie. The reason why I didn't finish reading the original comic was because of the large amount of logical reasoning and inner activities involved in it, to put it bluntly, there are too many words, and I am a little tired when I read it.
As a film with an original world view and game rules, "Animal World" under the montage effect, the story of the film and the internal rules, etc., the description is intuitive and clear, the later Kaiji reasoning bridge and inner OS, the original Chinese word commentary + picture demonstration way into intuitive visual images and dialogue, which I like very much.
The whole film is 131 minutes, which is a long part of the Chinese film, but there are not many places that can be called urine spots, especially after getting on the boat, the pace is fast and in one go. And from the opening monster battle to the fantasy drag racing before Kaiji boarded the ship, the use of CG scenes with editing techniques also has a strong visual experience. To use a sentence that many friends commented on the film, "the film industry standard" is very high.
This is reasonable, the director's strong scheduling, as well as the execution of the team behind the scenes, both are indispensable to make such a work that is very prominent in the senses and the inner effect.
Jokingly, it is no sei to be able to make a game like rock scissors cloth so thrilling, I have never been so nervous when playing rock scissors cloth (no, there was such tension, when I played "Wild Ball Fist" on FC in elementary school, I had this tension, one is that this game is not saved, the other is... Don't say it, drive it).
However, this film still adheres to the characteristics of the original work, don't look very "huh", the game in the movie from the rules to the reasoning of kaiji, in fact, is very simple, including the later calculation of the hoarding of cards, methods, how to consume the cards in the hand and so on. The film uses some small gimmicks in probability theory and logic, but there is no problem, as long as you can do elementary school arithmetic, understand the way the cards in the movie are counted and calculate the color, it is still very easy.
Simple games, but there are complex off-field factors, in a football term, this is called "off-board moves", this part is the depth and connotation of the place, but also the core of this film.
Simple rules need to be followed, outside the rules, everything is not limited, this is the complicated and terrible place.
PS: Speaking of the outside move, I remembered the 7:0 match of the Chinese team in Hong Kong, China in 2004, or the typical failure of the "outside move", the calculation will not be...
<h1>Social vs. Individual: The Gambler's Endless Cycle</h1>
Like the original book, "Animal World" is actually a gambling movie, and the movie says everywhere:
★ Gamblers have no friends, but they can't do it on their own, and they have to team up in order to win;
★ Nine out of ten, they often fall into the illusion that they can kill back;
★ The bookmaker can kill you in any way;
★ Even if the dealer doesn't play you, the gambler may be killed by his own people, because the gambler has no friends.
It's an endless cycle.
Because there's something involved that a lot of friends will overlook: relationships.
George Elton Mayo, the founder of interpersonal relations, once pointed out that "human beings still do not know how to live in harmony".
Self-centered values, money-oriented attitudes, and so on, all distort the human heart, bringing about perverted and desperate resistance. When environmental factors and places change, especially in the closed three-way zone in the movie, this distorted interpersonal relationship is infinitely magnified.
In this special environment, "Animal World" also shows the two major elements of human sociality and individuality.
Philosophically speaking, man is both an individual and a social being. The main antagonistic relationship rendered in the film is Zheng Kaisi and Zhang Jingkun, played by Su Ke, which are sharp contrasts.
★ When Zheng Kaisi first arrived, he was deceived by Zhang Jingkun, and later this was very "smart", thought of forming a team, many people had great strength, and three stinky cobblers raced Zhuge Liang;
★ Zhang Jingkun got on the boat at least three times, it was an old fritter, and the gambler's words could not be believed, so he chose to go it alone, and it was better to ask for others than to ask for himself.
These are two different ways of doing things, using the example of cheetahs and hyenas on the African continent:
Hyenas live in groups, because they face too many species of competition, lack of skills, choose unity, so there are many people, all day long to do some chicken and dog thieves dirty things (most animals in Africa are gregarious);
Cheetahs are rare solitary animals in Africa (female cheetahs live completely alone, and adult male cheetahs generally exist in alliance with other cheetahs, which is considered to be a semi-gregarious group), because of their super skills, they can get a place in the competition.
Zheng Kaisi's team is hyenas, and Zhang Jingkun is a cheetah.
But don't forget that the hyenas living in groups will face competition within the group, and the hyenas will go crazy and even beat their own people; and the cheetahs who live alone will meet a group of hyenas and so on, and they will be blind and not even have a reinforcement. So in the end, in the world of the weak and the strong, Zheng Kaisi and Zhang Jingkun were almost planted.
Zhang Jingkun was defeated at the hands of Zheng Kaisi and was punished, but he successfully landed, and Zheng Kaisi was still "too young", for the sake of his companions, he opened a net to Zhang Jingkun, but because of an extra card (not paired, unable to consume internally), he entered the small black room. Here is the manifestation of the opposition between human nature and animal nature.
In fact, Zheng Kaisi can completely destroy Zhang Jingkun, but because of human nature, the hyena only scared away the cheetah, but eventually fell into the hands of his own people.
But I think That Kai-shek himself is a cheetah, because he finally found out that the team eventually dragged him down. Because gamblers have no friends, it's this dead cycle again.
"All you get by friendship and verbal agreement is a postcard sent while traveling and a gift to bring back or a useless memory, and that only makes that kind of thing." , the famous quote of the original book (that is, the character of Scarface said).
<h1>Impulsive vs Rational: Be smart and be afraid of yourself</h1>
The most exciting part of the movie is these "off-board moves" outside the casino.
Especially in the last 30 minutes, as long as you don't violate the rules, you can do anything. Zheng Kaisi is very clever, entrusting people to buy cards, in order to hide their eyes and ears, but also found a "middleman to make a difference", did not expect to transfer the middleman to sell the intelligence to someone else. So later, what game to play, directly buy and sell stars and cards, everything eventually returns to money and power.
In the end, the performance of the two groups of people inside and outside the small black room made this closed place a simple animalistic place.
But the reason why Zheng Kaisi was saved was because of the humanity of the beast.
In the movie, he repeatedly expresses the clown attribute of Zheng Kaiji, which is said to be the impulsive side of his heart, but most of them only stay in the fantasy stage, because he has a rational existence, only one action of "theory and practice", and fails (thanks to this fantasy, he contributed the extraordinary visual scene in "Animal World").
That is, after that time, all the "impulses" of Zheng Kaisi were based on "rationality", including the part where he bet with the little handsome French guy, which seemed to be very impulsive (the other party had changed), but the result was a natural opportunity.
Finally, he had insight into the scarface section of the knife, and this was it. The film here seems to be a bit abrupt, perhaps considering that the film director deleted some content, so combined with the original work, it needs to be explained:
Scarface said that friendship is not worth mentioning, you let people save you, you must bring something in, that is, money. As a result, Kaiji found that the money he brought was not enough to exchange, a star outside 5 million, needed three stars to change a person, this is only 5 million, obviously a loss-making business, so Kaiji feels that there is something on this person.
In the original work, Scarface secretly hid the diamond, and only he himself knew where it was hidden, in order to avoid the surveillance of his companions, he deliberately hid in, and took the diamond on his body and fell into the small black room, waiting for his friends to redeem himself, and the bag of money was just a cover for people's eyes.
So Zheng Kaiji found this unequal exchange, coupled with the knowledge learned from his girlfriend Zhou Dongyu, and Scarface inadvertently said that he missed the "treasure" (this seems to be only in the comic), and concluded that this person had cat grease on his body, and only "impulsively" once.
And after going out, this person fully explained what is called "the weak eater", snatched the money and the stars, and finally did a good thing. Therefore, all of Zheng Kaisi's impulses on the ship are based on rational conditions.
<h1>Humanity vs. Bestiality: Unity in Contradiction</h1>
Therefore, this "Animal World" discusses human nature and animal nature, returning to the second question of the opening chapter: "What is the most similar place between man and animal?" ”
In fact, there is not much difference between humans and animals, and most of everyone's behavior actually stems from animal nature, that is, animal nature. For example, animals have to eat non-stop in order to survive, and humans sometimes diet and lose weight, but animals will not. But this is not a fundamental difference, if the two are unified in front of desire, man and animal are completely identical, and desire is infinite.
It is precisely because of human nature that this also brings us another quality - wisdom. With the emergence of wisdom, there is an opportunity for me to face higher desires than to eat—money, power. It also teaches us more efficient killing, smarter scams, and more self-righteous self-righteousness.
These are all expressed in Animal World. Of course, wisdom also makes people impulsive and rational, seeking logic in the abstract world, generating pity, and discovering opportunities. Human nature allows us to fight against innate bestiality, and animal nature as an instinct sometimes obscures human nature. Humanity is such a contradictory unity.
Imagine if you were Li Jun, in the last episode of the movie, what would you do? I can't imagine it.
PS, Futuristic vs Punk Wind
The visual style of "Animal World", which is not in the original book, but friends who have watched Japanese comics should not be unfamiliar, such as "Fullmetal Alchemist", I feel that the scenes and artists of the movie are somewhat similar to the latter.
Is it steampunk? Personal feeling is not counted, that is, the more common European style in Japanese comics, futuristic and retro atmosphere fusion, plus the main scenes of the film are all in the cabin, the industrial metal wind is strong, and the art effect of the first "Pacific Rim" is similar.
The special effects scenes in the movie are great, the monster shape is reminiscent of the aliens in the "Men in Black" series, and the texture is still good. The overall feeling of the film actually represents the progress of the Chinese film industry. Whether you use Vita in special effects or foreign teams for artists, it is also an improvement to integrate these senior teams and serve the film.
PPS, City of Despair
The film has a sequel, not only because there is an "unfinished to be continued" Easter egg at the end of this film, but also because after Kaiji got off the ship, he was still carrying foreign debt! On the ship, he ransomed Yao Anlian with cash, which means that the money for the loan on the ship has not been cleared (the little fat man said it before), and even if there is no stalk in the Easter egg in the future, he must return.
The next level in the original book is "City of Despair", the movie is not necessarily, but Michael Douglas This line has a lot to play in the future, and I am looking forward to it.
Don't forget that the film has made a big change to Kaiji's character. If the future is according to the original book, the gamblers who "leave the table and can no longer get serious", the several characters who are deeply involved in the fate gamble, and the trend of Kaiji's future people are still very curious.