On August 31, 1992, nearly 3,000 armed police officers and men armed with live ammunition marched into Pingyuan Town, Yanshan County, Wenshan Zhuang and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province, to launch an 81-day "strike hard" operation.
The operation destroyed 16 drug cartels that had long been entrenched in seven villages in Pingyuan Town, seized more than 1 ton of drugs and 964 guns, and arrested 854 gun traffickers.
On August 25 this year, the disaster action movie "Jedi Pursuit" produced by iQiyi and directed by Qiu Litao was adapted from the "strike hard" operation 31 years ago.
The production cost of the film reached 100 million yuan, gathering mainland movie stars such as Ou Hao, Gu Jiacheng, Yu Haoming, Shao Bing and Hong Kong production teams.
Yau Litao is known as "Hong Kong's bombshell", and in the current flood of CG special effects, his action stunt scenes still adhere to live-action shooting, and the production is extremely careful.
However, this well-made work, only got 11.4% of the scheduled films on the premiere day, the box office was only 9.343 million yuan, the current box office in 7 days of release is only 24.38 million, the arrangement of films has also dropped to 2.1%, almost no one cares.
Director Qiu Litao has continued to work this year, originally "Jedi Pursuit" was placed on high hopes, but the market response is still not good, what went wrong, today I will use an article to explain it.
First, "Pingyuan Street 831 Strike Hard Battle" once caused a sensation around the world, but "Jedi Pursuit" failed to perfectly recreate this historical event
These years of crime-themed movies will be adapted on the basis of a major historical case, which can make the movie itself more authentic and credible, and more acceptable to the audience.
When the "Jedi Pursuit" film party announced it, it also claimed that the film was "based on the real case of vicious armed drug trafficking on the border", and took the "Pingyuan Street Strike Hard Action" as the prototype of the story.
At that time, 3,000 public security officers and armed police officers and soldiers were assembled by the armed forces of the three border provinces of China and Vietnam. After experiencing the 70s and 80s in the 90s, I believe I have some impressions of the strike hard battle that lasted more than 2 months.
Located in Yanshan County, Wenshan Prefecture, on the border of Yunnan Province, Pingyuan Town is a town with an area of 325 square kilometers, 10 administrative villages, and a population of more than 50,000 people.
Although the population is not large, it is a gathering place of Han, Miao, Yi, Zhuang, Hui and other ethnic groups, and its terrain is dangerous and its personnel structure is very complex.
Due to its location on the border between China and Vietnam, close to the "Golden Triangle" and passing through the town by National Highway 323 connecting Vietnam and Guangxi, Binh Yuan Town became an underground drug hiding and trading center in the early 90s, and quickly developed into an uncontrollable "extralegal world" in the years after the self-defense counterattack against Vietnam.
During its "heyday," every household had guns, every household sold drugs, villagers did not have household registrations, no identity cards, motor vehicles did not carry license plates, and there were several evil forces in each village that "established themselves as kings." Driven by the high profits of drug trafficking, these evil forces have gradually become rampant, and vicious incidents have increased year by year.
In order to cut off this "malignant tumor" that had been entrenched in Pingyuan Town for many years, on August 31, 1992, the Yunnan Provincial Party Committee and the provincial government mobilized 3,000 armed police and public security cadres to Pingyuan Street.
After 81 days of "fighting a war", five criminal gangs led by Lin Hongen, Wang Baoguo, Wang Baoen, Ma Huichun and Lin Hongzhou were destroyed, 2 drug traffickers were killed on the spot, and 12 leaders were arrested and brought to justice.
More than 1 ton of drugs and 10.47 million stolen funds were seized at the scene, as well as 2.5 kilograms of gold, 14.6 kilograms of silver, 60 stolen cars and 34 motorcycles, and more than 60 villas were confiscated according to law.
Such a huge "strike hard" campaign, only need to restore one or two, make a blockbuster of the size of "Operation Red Sea" is no problem at all.
However, this film abandons the book to the end, although under the banner of "Pingyuan Street Strike Hard Action", it does not follow the entire process of this operation to restore well, but fictionalizes a story that is completely different from real events.
The story of the movie takes place in a fictional place called Meng City in a remote area, where the Meilong Gang in Honggou Village colludes with foreign forces to run a drug business.
The police received a tip that the Meilong Gang wanted to transport a batch of drugs through the C2 Heights of Yanlong Mountain, so they sent the "8077" special combat team to intercept the batch of drugs in the mountain and kill the Meilong Gang.
Looking at this main story line alone, I believe that netizens who have seen similar movies in Hong Kong will be familiar with it, which is a fixed routine of Hong Kong-style police and bandit films.
So where is the "adaptation based on real cases" part? Yes, but not much.
For example, the drugs sent by the Meilong Gang are no more, no less, exactly 1,000 kilograms (1 ton).
The small leader of the drug dealer of the Meilong Gang, Along (played by Aruna), does not have an identity card, which is also consistent with the real situation. The idea for drug traffickers to use hospital ambulances to transport drugs came from a huge drug trafficking case uncovered in Nanchong City, Sichuan Province in 2016.
As we said above, in the 90s, there were 5 criminal gangs entrenched in Pingyuan Town, 16 drug cartels, and 854 people were involved.
The Rose Dragon Gang in the film is only a small force, and its drug transportation and drug trafficking process is also carried out secretly, which is very different from the real situation in history.
The "8077" border armed police special combat team dispatched in the film has only 21 people in three classes, and its number and scale are far less large than the 3,000 armed police officers and men in that year.
In order to increase the dramatic conflict, the film added various natural disasters such as continuous rainfall, landslides, flash floods, etc., and added disaster type elements in addition to crime films.
Although this attempt to mix genre films is somewhat new, it is not in line with the "real case"; The number of participants in the war has shrunk, the scale of the operation has shrunk, the story has nothing to do with the real case, but it hangs the banner of "adapted from the real case", and those audiences who admire the cinema will be more or less disappointed when they see this operation.
Second, the movie service is exquisite, and the action special effects scenes are attentive, but there are many hard injuries that affect the perception
The movie costs 100 million, there are no big-name stars, the funds are spent on action special effects and costumes, and the stunt scenes controlled by director Qiu Litao have indeed shot the texture of a blockbuster.
The scene of villages in the mountains being flooded during the storm and rescue teams rushing to the disaster area in kayaks is instantly reminiscent of the devastating flood of 1998.
In order to create bad weather, it was raining heavily throughout the film, which required the sprinkler truck to provide a steady stream of "rain" throughout the filming. When the actors are performing, their bodies are also wet, and the whole play is wet every day, so tormented I believe that every actor needs strong perseverance to persevere.
During heavy rainfall, the soil in the mountains also becomes loose, which is prone to mudslides. The scene where the mudslide washed away the police car was created by combining live-action shooting and CG special effects, and with the current special effects technology in the mainland, it has been able to achieve false reality, and the two sets of shots inside and outside the car are seamlessly connected, presenting the sense of powerlessness when the disaster strikes well.
The best action scene is the scene where the special operations team chases drug dealers in C2 Heights.
Due to the tip-off that the drug dealers of the Meilong Gang will use cement trucks to transport drugs through C2 Heights, and another gang will also send a motorcycle team to intercept them halfway, and the special combat team has already ambushed in C2 Heights to intercept the cement truck.
Filming this action scene, Qiu Litao's ability to handle action movies is reflected.
Its motorcycle team is driven by professional stuntmen, and the chase has many rollover and crash scenes, which require these stuntmen to risk their lives to complete, especially the scene where the cement truck rolls over, and the fallen truck almost crushes the actors.
Such thrilling action scenes, Qiu Litao insists on using live-action shooting, with the exquisite cooperation of stuntmen, rather than using cheap means of cutouts and post-production special effects to create.
Such insistence on live-action shooting also reflects the Hong Kong director's dedication to camera performance, which is worthy of recognition.
The highlight of the climax of the movie is the scene where the Yanlong Reservoir on the mountain opens to release the flood and the flood floods Honggou Village. In the raging flood, the male protagonist Wang Jinhao (played by Ou Hao) chased the leader of the Meilong Gang Wang Hemei (played by Jiu Kong) by car, and the special effects of the flood and the footage of the two cars racing perfectly integrated, which also ignited the audience's excitement.
These carefully crafted action scenes alone can be comparable to similar Hollywood movies, and if edited into a small video, it can also become a hot search on Douyin.
But a good movie not only needs stunning action scenes, but also a good story line to connect it, and this aspect of "Jedi Pursuit" obviously lacks.
The biggest problem of the movie is the shaping of the "8077" border armed police special combat team as the protagonist.
Take a comment from a netizen who has been liked the most: "The positive characters are more tragic than the other, all the cannon fodder, and there is no protagonist halo."
According to the way we shape heroic characters in our main theme movies, the "protagonist aura" of positive characters is generally reflected in the strategizing and immediate decision-making of the decision-making level, and the decisiveness and invincibility of the executor.
However, the portrayal of positive characters in this film does not reflect this at all.
Director Qiu Litao does not seem to understand the difference between the fearless spirit of daring to sacrifice and generosity in the face of danger embodying the heroes in our mainland films, and daring to be cannon fodder and brainlessly giving away people's heads.
When the "8077" special combat team in the film performed its tasks, it did not see the deployment in advance, there was no discipline in the execution, and the success or failure of life and death was all in peace.
First of all, it is the communication between the headquarters and the combat front, and the film explains that no mobile phone signal can be received on the C2 heights, and the "8077" special combat team loses contact with the command when it arrives, and the command is helpless about it.
The absence of a satellite telephone for communication or a radio station to keep in touch is unjustifiable for a professional force charged with fighting crime.
Before the special combat team goes out on a mission, it needs to go through strict, serious and meticulous deployment, especially in the bad weather of heavy rain and frequent landslides, and should be fully prepared to deal with unexpected situations.
However, we don't see this in the movie, this well-trained special operations team just set off when it encountered a mudslide, and 2 of the 3 police cars sent were washed away. The 21 special operators had no way to avoid in a panic, and more than half of the team members were washed down the hillside by the mudslide, and they received bento boxes in advance before they saw the drug dealer.
Compared with the real situation of the "813 Strike Hard Battle on Pingyuan Street" in reality, in the 81-day firefight with the gangsters, although the four martyrs Pang Rubao, Gao Wenliang, Su Taide, and Yu Mingsheng died heroically, the total number of casualties remained in single digits. With the least cost, a comprehensive victory was achieved, which is the real situation of the strike hard struggle in the 90s.
In the movie, on the grounds that "the mobile phone cannot receive a signal", the connection between the combat front and the command was forcibly cut off, and this special combat team was portrayed into a group of "cannon fodder" characters who were ready to receive a bento at any time, I really don't know if it was the screenwriter's problem or the director turned a blind eye to the obvious hard wounds of the script.
Third, Yu Haoming and Ou Hao have made efforts, but they are helplessly limited by the script and cannot reflect the three-dimensional sense of the character
There are two protagonists with more scenes in the film, namely Sun Ji, the captain of the special combat team played by Yu Haoming, and Wang Jinhao, a special combat team member played by Ou Hao.
In order to create a good character, they have made great efforts, but due to the limitations of the script, these two characters do not reflect the characteristics of their respective personalities, and their images are only superficial.
The 36-year-old Yu Haoming debuted as a singer in 2007 and was nicknamed "National Brother" by fans because of his healthy image and affinity.
But in 2010, when he participated in the TV series "I Have a Date with Spring", Yu Haoming was accidentally burned and disfigured during a blasting scene, and spent four full years recovering and repairing, returning with obvious scars on his face.
However, Yu Haoming overcame all kinds of difficulties that ordinary people could not bear, changed to the acting route, and created many impressive characters over the years.
In this film, Yu Haoming's captain Sun Ji has a majestic image, meticulous in his work, and considerate to soldiers, which is completely different from the previous image of "little fresh meat". Sun Ji also showed the indignation and grievances in his heart when his soldiers died.
But it is this kind of three-dimensional character that was taken offline in advance in a very embarrassing form.
In the movie, a pair of brothers and sisters who stepped on mines because they wandered around in the mountains, in order to save the brother who stepped on the landmine, Sun Ji stepped on the mine for him, but was killed at the moment of the flash flood.
Not to mention whether the "one life for one life" bridge often seen in movies is reasonable, the appearance of this arranged mine is neither foreshadowing nor historical support, which is quite abrupt, and its role is only to let the role of Sun Ji receive a bento in advance.
Let's talk about the role of the male protagonist, Ou Haoben is also a singer, but in recent years he has trained muscles, participated in many word-of-mouth movies, and taken the tough guy route. Wang Jinhao, who he played in the film, contracted most of the fighting scenes, rain, soaking, fighting, and hanging Weiya were all personally in battle, and all efforts were made for the role.
It is a pity that although Wang Jinhao is the male protagonist, the script of the movie failed to shape his image well, and did not focus on his brave and combative characteristics, but arranged an emotional scene for him that had nothing to do with the main story.
A female anti-drug policeman Huang Yao (Yao Yao) is inserted in the film, who is Wang Jinhao's "ex-girlfriend". The two broke up for a year, but they still kept in touch often, and the reason why they broke up was just because Wang Jinhao was afraid that his work would be precarious and did not want his girlfriend to hang up.
Therefore, this couple, who broke the silk connection, jumped out to talk about love whenever the plot development gaped, which seriously slowed down the pace of the movie and affected the perception. At the end of the movie, Wang Jinhao was also forcibly written to death by the screenwriter in order to save his girlfriend.
In the climax part, Wang Jinhao drove to chase Wang Hemei, the leader of the Meilong Gang, and his girlfriend Huang Yao also got into the car. When flash floods overwhelmed the village, Wang Jinhao and Huang Yao grabbed the barred frame of an old house to escape the floodwaters. At this time, the window frame was shaky because it could not withstand the weight of the two, and in order to keep his girlfriend alive, Wang Jinhao resolutely jumped into the flood and died generously.
I believe that the screenwriter must have seen "Titanic", this plot is not the same, it is exactly the same; In fact, the old house has more than one window frame, they only need to climb on another window frame next to it to save their lives, so the arrangement has to suspect that the screenwriter just wants Wang Jinhao to go offline.
No matter how hard director Qiu Litao and the actors worked during the filming process of the film, not to mention how textured the action scenes in the film are, it is difficult for the audience to agree with the plot of forcibly taking the two protagonists off the line like this. It is these hard injuries in the plot that affect the overall look and feel of the movie, and the audience's dissatisfaction is reflected in the box office of the movie.
Fourth, at a time when Hong Kong directors such as Tsui Hark and Lin Chaoxian have been perfectly integrated into the mainland market, the development of director Yau Litao has encountered a bottleneck
The 2021 blockbuster "Changjin Lake" allows us to see the expressiveness of two Hong Kong directors, Tsui Hark and Lin Chaoxian, in mainland theme films.
Obviously, the two have perfectly integrated into the current mainland market, and their respective masterpieces "Outsmart Tiger Mountain" and "Operation Red Sea" also have a good reputation.
Director Qiu Litao's highlight in the mainland is "Bomb Disposal Expert 2" launched in 2020. In that extraordinary period, it still won 1.314 billion yuan at the box office, with a Douban score of 7.4, which is known as Andy Lau's classic and the last glory of Hong Kong films.
In recent years, Hong Kong-produced films have begun to show a decline in the mainland, especially "Tomorrow's War", which has high expectations, and only received 679 million yuan at the box office.
And "Jedi Pursuit" has dropped to 0.2% in just 7 days of release, even if there is a row of films at the box office, the media predicts that the final box office is only 38.848 million, which is likely to become the worst work directed by Qiu Litao.
The story filmed by director Qiu Litao this time is too far from reality, which is the main reason for the film's box office failure. His development in the mainland has obviously encountered a bottleneck, or he needs to seriously ponder, find the reason, regain confidence, and make better films of better quality.
(Movie Rotten Tomatoes Editorial Office: Blood Dan Xin)
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