Although Lu Yang's "Embroidered Spring Knife" series does not have a high score on Douban, among the original domestic martial arts movies, "Embroidered Spring Knife" has its own story views and desire for expression, and it should be regarded as one of the best martial arts films in recent years.
Even the characters in each season have their own shining points, and it is an original martial arts action movie with considerable connotation in recent years.
What is annoying is that the online version of "Embroidered Spring Knife: Infernal Purgatory", which was launched on April 20, opened my eyes to the content written.
The story is still set in the Ming Dynasty, and the villain is still the nine-thousand-year-old Wei Zhongxian who everyone shouts and beats, this time the big boss wants to seize power and become the emperor, and his subordinates have raised a group of capable warlocks to collect dragon marrow incense that can create chaos for him.
If we only watch the content of the movie in advance, we will think that it is a treasure-grabbing martial arts kung fu movie, but in fact, the online movie we see is like this:
The warlock who appeared first was an old man, and he did not dodge the knife cut by Jinyiwei, but exposed his back, and after the blade slashed through his shirt, countless insects flew out of the pile of small meat bags on his back, swarming to Jinyiwei.
Directly from the ear, nose and throat into the body, so that Jin Yiwei couldn't bear to collapse and even commit suicide.
Then there was an uncle in a red shirt, her eyes were black, and she slowly walked down from the teahouse, and then blood oozed from the tea bowl and the wall.
Then he ran his fingers across his neck with an expressionless face, and a large amount of blood rushed into the shop, drowning the brocade guards, who could not get out no matter how much they struggled.
After passing this level, a mud altar rolled in front of Jinyiwei, and there was a big child with a clown's face painted in it, this child laughed and slowly stretched out his hand from the altar to get higher and higher, higher and higher, and finally became a monster with a thousand hands, constantly dragging Jinyiwei in.
In addition to the old man, uncle, and children, the female sorcerer was not to be outdone, in the house of Lord Zhou, for no reason there was a woman in revealing clothes, she behaved frivolously, frequently tempted, after Lord Zhou was unmoved, the two snakes painted on the back came to life, and slowly swam out of the arm.
I was stunned when I saw this, I remember that my impression of "Embroidered Spring Knife" Jinyi Wei Shen Lian had to face the treacherous court disputes, but what he needed to face was only the imprisonment of all forces and brotherhood, and deduced the story of the end of martial arts of "people are in the rivers and lakes, and they can't help themselves".
However, the online version of "Embroidered Spring Knife: Infernal Purgatory", except for the name and story template of "Embroidered Spring Knife", there is no soul of Lu Yang's "Embroidered Spring Knife" series at all, this is a story of fighting monsters and protecting treasures in "Embroidered Spring Knife".
At first glance, this version of "Embroidered Spring Knife: Infernal Purgatory" feels a bit like we have watched the 2024 version of Liang Guanhua's "Detective Di Renjie", and suddenly turned to 2010 and then saw Tsui Hark's version of the "Di Renjie" series.
was originally a decent suspense costume film, but later mutated into a suspense fantasy movie, not only is it not a category, but you don't shoot as good-looking as Tsui Hark.
What's even more outrageous is that in addition to these strange warlocks, at the end of this movie, the whole city is turned into zombies, it's so messy!
And this big online movie, whose tone is obviously unknown, has a very close relationship with Wu Jing, and his company Dengfeng Film is the second producer of this movie.
Also, a few years ago, Wu Jing planned to build a way for the revival of "Chinese action movies", when he became a "shadow martial arts" specializing in training action actors.
Yes, as you think, similar to the action design team in the early Hong Kong family class and the Hung family class.
Wu Jing collected those who did martial arts in movies and TV series as much as possible in his "Shadow Martial Arts Hall", and divided them into several series, some specialized in costume action dramas, and some specialized in modern military action dramas.
He wants to establish a system of action actors through this "Shadow Martial Hall", and the online version of "Embroidered Spring Knife: Infernal Purgatory" is one of Wu Jing's first experiences in "Shadow Martial Hall".
It's a pity that this so-called attempt of this Internet University makes me feel quite disappointed.
Because in my understanding, Wu Jing established this "Shadow Martial Arts Hall" in order to glorify the traditional hardcore martial arts road, otherwise he would not have taken fists, feet, and equipment kung fu such as "Swords, Guns, Swords, and Sticks Chang Nantai" as the theme of the movie.
But judging from the current "Embroidered Spring Knife: Infernal Purgatory", the fighting scenes in the plot are almost negligible, and most of the audience's attention is diverted by the bizarre plot.
Although it is said that this network university has a lot of investment, and the shooting also has the temperament of a golden age martial arts film, it does have a good texture in an ordinary network university. But the plot is magical and the top-heavy story structure is very crotch-pulling, if this is the result of Wu Jing's "Shadow Martial Arts", it is quite a pity.
And for the online version of "Embroidered Spring Knife", the external environment is also quite unoptimistic. Because online movies will break 10 million from 2022, there will only be more than a dozen online movies every year.
Seventy or eighty percent of online movies are now in a state of loss, which has led to the current mainstream platforms also controlling the number of online movies.
If the current costume martial arts films neither delve into the hard bridges of kung fu, nor carefully handle the plot, but also produce them in the way of rubbing IP and routines, sooner or later they will be eliminated by the audience.