1. Preface: How did the former brilliant "National Teacher" fall into the "best of commercial films"?
When it comes to Zhang Yimou, people will always think of the film giant who won the honor of "National Teacher", and he has won many praises around the world with his masterpieces such as "Hero" and "Red Sorghum", and is known as the mainstay of the Chinese film industry.
However, in recent years, this former brilliant "national teacher" suddenly fell off the altar and became "the best commercial film".
Although his latest Chinese New Year blockbuster "Man Jianghong" has set the highest box office record for this year's Chinese New Year film, it has also attracted unprecedented doubts and criticism. The Internet is full of all kinds of abuse: "I can make commercial films, and he can also make commercial films, but you Zhang Yimou absolutely can't!" "Is this the level that Zhang Yimou can shoot? It's a big disappointment.
This master, who once attracted the world's attention with his masterpieces such as "Hero" and "Alive", is now accused by the audience of "feeling like playing script killing". What caused Zhang Yimou's fall? We need to dig deeper into the reasons behind this.
2. Tracing the origin of the source: exploring the reasons for losing the original intention
To find out the root cause of Zhang Yimou's depour, we have to go back to the years when he first set foot in the field of art.
Zhang Yimou was born in an ordinary working family, and after graduating from high school, he inherited his father's mantle and entered the factory to work. The monotonous labor day after day made him feel that life was hopeless and seemed destined to live an uneventful life.
However, a turning point changed his fate completely.
In order to meet the inspection of the superiors, the factory needs to make a propaganda poster. Zhang Yimou has loved painting since he was a child, so he took the initiative to ask Ying to take on this task. He successfully completed the task with his excellent painting skills, and the leaders were full of praise for the young man, so he transferred him to work in the craft room.
It was this encounter with art that changed the trajectory of Zhang Yimou's life dramatically. Although he was only briefly exposed to painting, he was already deeply aware of the charm of art, and then became obsessed with photography, longing to have a camera of his own.
However, in that era of material scarcity, a camera was undoubtedly a sky-high price for him, and he needed to accumulate more than half a year's salary to buy it. Faced with this seemingly unattainable dream, Zhang Yimou did not choose to give up.
One day, he stumbled upon an "advertisement for selling blood" on the street, so he walked into the hospital without hesitation.
In order to chase the ardent desire in his heart, he did not care about his own safety, and even did not hesitate to exchange blood and sweat for the first camera of his own! In this way, the art of photography became his first solid step into the arts, and he began to gradually understand the magnificent and colorful world of film art.
His insatiable love for cinema and his devotion to the world eventually led him to thrive into one of the most prominent fifth-generation directors of our time.
His debut novel, Red Sorghum, was an instant sensation, and his subsequent works such as Ju Dou and The Red Lantern Hang High have become even more famous, winning numerous accolades and acclaim around the world.
On the other hand, Zhang Yimou also has a unique sense of mission - he hopes to use his film works to show the Western world China's long-standing traditional culture: "Westerners have a kind of arrogance hidden in their bones, and they don't seem to have much interest in understanding the cultures of other countries," Zhang Yimou once explained, so he chose to present the Westerners' stereotypes of China on the screen in their original form, and at the same time vividly portray the spirit of perseverance, unity and cooperation of the Chinese people.
It is precisely because of this deep cultural self-confidence that his works are often questioned and criticized by domestic audiences, who think that they exaggerate "family ugliness". However, Zhang Yimou is unconcerned about this, and he firmly believes that in order to convey the charm of Chinese culture to the world, these controversies and challenges are the price that must be paid.
Until now, Zhang Yimou still maintains a pure heart of an artist, he is a cultural messenger full of idealistic feelings, he uses the lens to tell the story of his hometown, water his dreams with blood, never lose himself, and always stick to his original intention.
3. Love has passed away in the depths: an intricate love entanglement
Zhang Yimou has been deeply in love with two women in his life, but these two relationship experiences are like two moving episodes, vaguely revealing his firm pursuit of ideals and the pain of being ruthlessly destroyed by reality.
His first girlfriend is the well-known actress Gong Li. At that time, Gong Li was just a vibrant young college student, and her charming youthful demeanor was like a cup of sweet wine, which deeply attracted the attention of director Zhang Yimou.
On the other hand, Zhang Yimou's talent and idealism exuded by him also fascinated Gong Li, so this heart-to-heart couple naturally came together and spent eight years of good times together.
In those passionate eight years, Zhang Yimou was fortunate to experience the good times of Gong Li's youth; Similarly, as an "exchange", Gong Li was also awarded the title of the first generation of "Mou Girl", and since then she has started her brilliant career.
The two encourage each other, Gong Li is like Zhang Yimou's goddess of inspiration, and Zhang Yimou is also a powerful wing to help Gong Li achieve fame and fortune.
However, this sweet and deep affection is as fleeting as a flash in the pan, and for various unspeakable reasons, they eventually drift apart and choose their own paths in life.
In the days after breaking up with Gong Li, Zhang Yimou's life fell into confusion, and he always felt that something important was missing in his life, although he couldn't tell what it was.
At this moment, a fresh breeze blew through the gloom in his heart - he met Chen Ting, who was 31 years younger than him, and was deeply attracted by the girl's youthful beauty.
Their fiery love was not questioned and hindered by the world, and soon entered the sacred hall of marriage.
Zhang Yimou and Chen Ting's married life has been full of legends from beginning to end. At that time, during the implementation of China's strict family planning policy, Chen Ting unexpectedly gave birth to three children in a row, which was more than the policy allowed.
According to the relevant regulations, Zhang Yimou has to pay high social maintenance fees as a result.
Faced with such a huge pressure of fines, Zhang Yimou's friends advised him to consider changing his nationality and moving overseas to avoid this heavy financial burden. However, despite the huge cost he faced, Zhang Yimou still firmly chose to pay child support.
This deep love for the motherland and strong patriotic feelings are the spiritual strength that supports him to shoot many classic masterpieces.
However, just when his career was in full swing, Zhang Yimou's creative path began to decline. Since the advent of "Hero" directed by him, his works have failed to achieve brilliance in terms of box office performance and word-of-mouth evaluation, but have received mixed reviews.
This made Zhang Yimou deeply aware of a serious practical problem - he can no longer blindly stick to his artistic ideals, and must learn to adapt to the needs of the market and the audience.
Therefore, in the year of 2018, which is full of changes, Zhang Yimou decisively changed his usual artistic style and created the shocking movie "Shadow"! Rather than pursuing the large-scale, lavish production of the past, the work adopts a more direct and concise form of expression.
Despite this, the artistic charm it shows has not diminished at all, and it has achieved good social evaluation after its release, and Zhang Yimou won the honor of Best Director at the Golden Horse Awards for this masterpiece, which is well deserved! .
This is undoubtedly a high recognition of Zhang Yimou's innovative spirit, and it also points out the direction of business development for him. Since then, he has begun to boldly innovate his shooting techniques, completely abandoning the creative concepts he once adhered to, and turning to a path that better meets the needs of the market and is more economical to produce.
Immediately afterwards, his two works "On the Cliff" and "One Second" once again won warm praise from the audience, which undoubtedly gave Zhang Yimou great confidence and encouragement. However, as time went by, he seemed to have fallen into some kind of "myth", and gradually abandoned his early unique style of attaching importance to lens language and using new actors, and instead went to the road of over-reliance on "traffic stars".
The film is a sparkling lineup of many of the world's top superstars, as can be seen from the promotional posters. However, it is precisely because of this luxurious lineup that the audience's expectations for it have reached unprecedented heights.
However, when the audience actually walked into the theater to watch the movie, they found that it failed to achieve the expected effect, not only did it lack the grand production of "master" Zhang Yimou, but even the plot seemed bland.
Therefore, when the audience walks out of the theater, it is inevitable that an indescribable sense of loss will emerge in their hearts, and they will give negative evaluations. Especially for the choice of the leading actors in the film, Zhang Yimou actually chose two comedy stars Shen Teng and Yue Yunpeng as the protagonists, which is obviously different from the theme positioning of "rich suspense elements and constant jokes" emphasized in the promotion of the film, which is really ridiculous.
In addition, the filming location and other aspects of the film also disappointed the audience, which was in stark contrast to the "epic scenes" presented in Zhang Yimou's past works, and the audience couldn't help but sigh: "It's like being in someone else's script killing game."
Under the combined effect of various reasons, the reputation of this high-profile movie has declined sharply, and it has become the representative work of this year's Chinese New Year file "the least worth watching".
Undoubtedly! In order to adapt to the needs and changes of the market, Zhang Yimou has struggled to pursue the path of "commercialization" and "traffic", and he has unconsciously gradually deviated from his original creative concept and artistic pursuit, thus completely losing the proud attainments and lofty reputation that he had as a "national teacher" in the past.