This is not a cliché: Zhang Yimou has embarked on another big path as a Chinese male director
74-year-old Zhang Yimou has experienced two career lows.
The first time was in 1996.
This year, Zhang Yimou and Gong Li broke up, and the new movie also stalled because it couldn't attract investment.
Zhang Yimou, who is difficult for a good woman to cook without rice, met Zhang Weiping, a real estate developer he met at a previous dinner.
One has capital and the other is talented, Zhang Weiping threw an olive branch and brought Zhang Yimou onto the road of business director.
From "Hero", which created a new era of Chinese films, to the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games, Zhang Yimou has since established the prestige of "National Teacher".
Another time was in 2016.
Zhang Yimou's "The Great Wall" with Hollywood fell at the box office, and its reputation was hit hard.
After "Shadow" and "One Second", the word-of-mouth was mediocre and the box office was unsatisfactory, and Lao Mouzi seemed to be drifting away from the mainstream market.
Just when people thought that Zhang Yimou was "incorruptible and old", he cultivated a new killing move.
Zhang Yimou, who went international with literary films, "broke away" from his old family literary films, and developed a new track of genre mixing.
"On the Cliff" of suspenseful spy warfare, "Man Jianghong" of costume reasoning comedy, and "Solid as a Rock" of anti-crime police and bandits.
Each one breaks through the traditional definition of genre films, and also stimulates the enthusiasm of young audiences for Zhang Yimou's films.
In the top ten box office in 2023, Zhang Yimou's movies account for two, one of which also won the annual championship.
In just a few years, Zhang Yimou has already built himself into a golden sign for box office security.
As one of the most high-profile films in the Spring Festival, the box office of "Article 20" has exceeded 1.5 billion, and the final box office forecast given by the platform is as high as 2.4 billion, and the score of 8.0 is also "listen to praise".
The solid box office and word-of-mouth once again prove that Zhang Yimou, who is over 70 years old, can still firmly grasp the public's taste.
What is so good about Article 20?
With such curiosity, Qingshi also walked into the cinema to find out.
After 141 minutes of viewing, Qingshi just wanted to say that it was not for nothing that this movie could have such a solid mass base.
I would like to call "Article 20" Zhang Yimou's most down-to-earth film.
Including the point mentioned most by the audience, it is also "life" and "down-to-earth".
It is no exaggeration to say that "Article 20" is not just Zhang Yimou's petty fight, but also hides Zhang Yimou's unaged ambition in the vulgar narrative.
Not much to say, the following Qingshi will disassemble the three "vulgar points" in the film one by one to see what is hidden in this film.
01
At the very beginning, Zhang Yimou set a "popular" tone for "Article 20":
In the big and small affairs of ordinary people, the contradiction between reason and law is told.
This entry point is actually not the first time it has appeared in Zhang Yimou's films.
In 1992, "Qiu Ju's Lawsuit" tells the history of Qiu Ju, a rural woman.
Her husband was kicked and injured by the village chief, and Qiu Ju must ask for an explanation and sue all the way from the town to the province.
Later, Qiu Ju gave birth to a child, and the village chief helped send him to the hospital, and the grievances between the two families were resolved, but the village chief was taken away by the public security for investigation.
"Qiu Ju" is a lonely hero entangled in human affection and the rule of law, and "Article 20" is a group of people who are made by "love and law".
To put it simply, Article 20 deals with three "justifiable defense-related cases".
One was a case of injury by a bus driver.
On the bus, the girl was harassed, and the driver came to her aid, seriously injuring one of them.
The driver was convicted of intentional injury and spent three years in prison, and his wife appealed for him, and finally died of hatred.
"Is my dad guilty?"
"Is this kind of sentence fair to him?"
The driver's daughter's series of questions made it impossible to respond and it was difficult to give the right answer.
One was a scissor homicide.
His wife was raped by a bully and his life was threatened, and this man named Wang Yongqiang killed the bully by mistake in fear.
Wang Yongqiang was detained, and the family members of the bully blocked the door of the procuratorate, demanding that the murderer be severely punished and seek justice.
The black and white words of "return my son's life, return my justice" are shocking.
On the other hand, Wang Yongqiang's experience makes people mourn his misfortune.
In order to protect his wife and protect himself, is it wrong to pick up a knife and kill each other?
There was also a case of school bullying.
Han Yuchen, a high school student, accidentally injured one of the violent students because he witnessed his classmates being bullied and stopped him.
Unexpectedly, he was bitten back by the other party afterwards, and was defined as a "fight" by the school.
Killing pays for life, and the first to do the first thing is an iron law that everyone has recognized since ancient times.
And drawing the sword to help each other, seeing righteousness and courage, is not the quality and morality we advocate.
When the two collide together, it will undoubtedly become a "tram paradox" that cannot give a standard answer.
As the title suggests, "Article 20" refers to Article 20 of the Criminal Law, which provides for "legitimate defense".
What is defense and how to define the scope of "legitimacy" has always been a hot topic of social debate.
The various contradictions surrounding legitimate defense have drawn up a reasonable dilemma that we all deeply understand.
The sentence "the law is right" - "then who is at fault" is the soul of the three cases that are connected together.
02
Many people's first impression of Article 20 is the slogan "I love my family".
At first glance, this slogan is simple and cheesy, without nutrition, giving people a feeling of "Spring Festival Gala Family Carnival".
But after watching the movie, Qingshi was shocked to realize that there is actually a lot behind the simple four words.
The main characters of the film come from two families.
Prosecutor Han Ming (played by Lei Jiayin) has a family with the power configuration of "tiger mom and cat dad".
His wife Li Maojuan (played by Ma Li) controls the lifeblood of the family, Han Mingwei obeys his wife's orders, and how dare his wife disobey his orders.
He also used playing cards to brilliantly summarize the family status of his son and wife:
THE SON IS J, THE PRINCE OF THE FAMILY, AND THE WIFE IS THE PRESERVED EGG (Q), THE QUEEN OF THE STARS AND THE MOON.
The life of the wind and fire, but because of the son's beating turmoil, it caused a series of ripple effects.
On the one hand, there is the authority that Han Ming fears, and on the other hand, the justice that his son is not recognized, which is more important?
But compared with the deaf-mute Hao Xiuping (played by Zhao Liying) family, the bad things of Han Ming's family seem insignificant.
Her husband, Wang Yongqiang, mistakenly killed a bully and was convicted of intentional injury, and his future life and death are uncertain.
Not only that, Hao Xiuping and her young daughter were also implicated and frequently harassed by the bullies' families.
The other party even used the child as a coercion to force her to admit that she had slept with the bully voluntarily and was not raped.
She couldn't say anything, so she could only desperately snatch the child from the other party, and even prepared to commit suicide in exchange for the thoughtfulness of her family.
Hao Xiuping, who was standing on the edge of the tall building, was in pain and despair, and the scene of stretching out her hand to Han Ming was even more heart-wrenching and heart-wrenching.
I am still deeply impressed by the film's "national interrogation":
"What do you do when your family is hurt?"
That's exactly what the slogan "I love my home" is all about.
I love my family, I love my family, and I will do everything to protect them.
Behind the game between law and love, the emotional core of this "family for home" is the real title of the film.
03
Before that, many people thought that "Article 20" was a lively comedy farce.
This also caused many people to question: Is it another "Spring Festival special" sketch movie?
But if you are familiar with Lao Mouzi, you will know that most of his realistic themes actually like to be wrapped in a layer of comedy "sugar coating".
For example, "Qiu Ju's Lawsuit", "Happy Times" and "No One is Missing" all use comedy elements.
The most typical "Something to Say", urban men and women, absurd cause and effect, and the rampant of intellectuals, show the black humor of postmodernity.
The sentence "An Hong, I think you want to sleep!" has become a classic line that resounded in film history.
It can be said that the vulgarity of Zhang Yimou's comedy is not the so-called, pee, and fart;
Rather, it's based on the characters and stories of life itself, as well as the chemistry between the actors.
For example, Han Ming, who is incarnated as a "social animal", grovels at work, knows how to figure out the leader's thoughts, and can be called the most competent Duanshui master.
"The leader goes first" and "I open the door for the leader", the kind of stinging feeling in the face of the superiors makes people fidget and laugh.
There are also Lei Jiayin and Ma Li, Zhang Yimou put these two together and played the effect of 1+1 greater than 2.
Lei Jiayin, who seems to have low eyebrows and pleasing eyes, is actually a thousand dollars or two, using judo to resist the heavy reality.
My wife lectured and listened honestly;
The eldest brother called him "little white face", and he also pretended to be confused.
is as strong as Ma Li, who speaks straightforwardly in doing things, and is absolutely unambiguous in key matters.
When the parents of the injured students (played by Zhang Yi) ridiculed their son: If you raise your noble hand by 1 centimeter, (my child) will lose this eye.
Ma Li, who was guarding the calf, replied sincerely: Isn't this still 1 centimeter away?
One sentence crushed the other party's momentum to death, and he was so angry that he could only tremble his lips and couldn't speak.
Almost every line is constantly bursting with stalks, and the gags in the vernacular are pure natural life textures.
In these laughter and scolding, we can still see the old man who is ruthless and humane.
Peeling back this layer of comedy full of laughter, "Article 20" actually has a deep and serious foundation no less than that of films such as "The Three Teams".
It is related to the livelihood of the people in the market, the rule of law in society, and is a realistic story closely related to every ordinary person.
04, it turns out that Zhang Yimou has embarked on another big road as a Chinese male director
If "Qiu Ju's Lawsuit" is a true portrayal of the transition period in the 90s, "Article 20" is Zhang Yimou's resonance of the same frequency of the current era.
The technique of writing drama with joy and sadness with joy has been used from "Qiu Ju" to today, and has long become the author's mark of Zhang Yimou.
I have to say that "Article 20" is really vulgar in terms of both topic selection and content.
But Zhang Yimou is good at using vulgar ways to complete the expression of reality through the back of the paper.
As some netizens said,
Zhang Yimou uses the most easy-to-understand face to package the lining of human feelings and social laws.
He used sensual emotion and humor to carry out rational thinking about reality, and finally reached the "Zhang's expression" that is vulgar and elegant.
In the late stages of his career, he lost the filming methods that made him famous, and he did his duty to tell a good story.
For Lao Mouzi of this rank, such an attempt is no less than gambling with his career.
But Qingshi wants to say that such an attempt, you might as well have more, so that Chinese films can have fresh blood for meteorological renewal.
Judging from the current performance, I believe that "Article 20" can stabilize the box office with its excellent reputation and achieve better results after the Spring Festival.
Bluestone Films|Shang Zhou
This article is the original content of Bluestone Movie, please do not reprint it in any form without authorization!