Film: When the Wind Rises Again
Genre: Crime, Biography
Director: Weng Ziguang
Screenwriter: Weng Ziguang
Starring: Aaron Kwok, Tony Leung, Du Juan, Hui Guanwen
Release time: February 5, 2023 (Chinese mainland)
Because of the grand historical background of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression as the beginning of the narrative, the Hong Kong film "When the Wind Rises Again" has a heavy, profound and even suffocating sense of heaviness, and there are more philosophical discussions on the relationship between political power, personal will, and historical changes, which is relatively rare in the Hong Kong film genre. Aaron Kwok, Tony Leung, Tam Yaowen, and Chow Wenjian form the four major detectives, as well as many Academy Award winners and powerful actors, I feel that this is a blockbuster and well-received big-budget movie.
However, no. "When the Wind Rises Again" has a very strong literary atmosphere, full of very strong personal psychological emotions of the characters, a bit of Wong Kar-wai style, the rhythm is relatively slow, telling the story of Hong Kong politics for decades from the 40s to the 70s of the last century, resulting in a very unclear plot, contrary to the narrative of the big era background, and it is not a very "digestible" movie.
The film uses the setting of two male protagonists, with a female protagonist wandering between the two male protagonists, and expressing the same history from the perspectives of Nanjiang and Leile, who have different origins, experiences, and thoughts, but are also police officers. From the 40s to the 70s of the last century, the Chinese in Hong Kong had a low social status, a low background, was oppressed and finally became a policeman, Lei Le, who was unwilling to take advantage of the same tricks as others, and was excluded and oppressed by his colleagues. After experiencing the turmoil of the war, Lei Le, who returned to the police post, became sophisticated and sleek, eager to get ahead. The difference is that Nanjiang, who was born in a family of lawyers, lived a well-to-do life since he was a child, received a good education, and was extremely accurate in marksmanship, and was able to get along with the British rulers at the time.
The two men are partners who survive under the hands of the British colonial rulers, but there is also a faint competition. Lei Le married Cai Zhen, the daughter of wealthy businessman Cai Lin, as his wife, and Nanjiang was a little jealous in his heart. Everyone knows that Cai Zhen secretly reached an agreement with the gang to clear the obstacles in her husband's career, and also unknowingly dealt with Leile's cheating partner, so that he didn't dare to turn his face and help him quit drug addiction. I don't know if Cai Zhen has ever regretted his choice after doing so many dirty things for Leile, obviously he can choose Nanjiang that is more suitable for him. The prototype of Lei Le's character in Hong Kong history is Lu Le, who has changed from a smuggled gangster to the head of the four detectives in Hong Kong, crazy about making money, and the noble person is his wife.
Lei Le reformed the police system in order to achieve the goal of crazy wealth, his personal desire for power swelled sharply, and the other three detectives gradually turned against him, Yan Hong designed to assassinate Cai Zhen, so that the major gangs they were backers fought each other.
In the 70s of the 20th century, after the establishment of the Independent Commission Against Corruption, the world's most wanted corruption detective, Lei Le and others hid in Canada, Thailand and other places in order to avoid corruption investigations. The British colonial rulers only pursued the restoration of stability in the current situation, and actually proposed a decision to amnesty the corrupt people, and the director of the investigation, Li Zichao, could not thoroughly investigate and deal with the corrupt behavior, and the colonial rulers argued with reason, this speech is extremely wonderful, and the investigation and punishment of corruption is related to the integrity and quality of the city and the people, and the key is that the most basic power holders can abide by the rules.
The scene of Lei Le and his wife Cai Zhenzhen meeting and falling in love is borrowed from the movie "Song in the Rain", Nanjiang's interpersonal relationship with Japanese officers in the early days of crossing the sea during the anti-Japanese period is a bit like the setting in the movie "The Pianist", Nanjiang's gunfight scene is paired with a lazy lyrical female singing, the little boy with a gun walks in the rain, Nanjiang and Lei Le raise their guns and aim at each other to save the little boy together, and there are many scenes that should be a tribute to classic movies.
The personal past of each of the main characters is remarkable, they use power to grab wealth, and they also get the finale of growing old together, and the movie also makes them so beautiful, but when combined, it seems to be a piece of biography of historical figures, so as to restore a thick history, which is a bit uneasy.
Director Weng Ziguang once said that this is not a common commercial action Hong Kong film, this is a romance historical film endowed with Hong Kong feelings. Sure enough, the movie can only be trapped in the pattern of sighing and regretting a certain character, as for countless ordinary people in this history, there is no status and right to speak, for Hong Kong politics in this history, its reform and changes have affected many people, and it seems to be insignificant, and a movie with a very impactful start is falling apart with the appearance of various characters.