Wen | Wang Xianghui Source: Western Film Talk
Editor's Note
Following the "strongest Spring Festival file" and "strongest Qingming file", the box office of the 2021 May Day movie also hit a new high. The total box office exceeded 1.6 billion, breaking the record of the highest in the history of the May 1st box office, number of people and number of scenes, and continued to refresh. Directed by Zhang Yimou and starring Zhang Yimou, Zhang Yi, Yu Hewei, Qin Hailu and Liu Haocun, the spy war film "On the Cliff", although the early popularity is not as good as "Your Wedding", but with a strong on-demand reputation with a dark horse posture, it has led the national single-day box office ranking since May 4. In the first issue of the "Heavy Focus" column of Western Film Talk, Wang Xianghui, a young cultural scholar, was specially invited to conduct an in-depth analysis of the May 1st topic film "On the Cliff".
"On the Cliff": A half-drama that is not satisfactory
Wang Xianghui
Cultural scholar, graduated from Shaanxi Normal University, published a long historical suspense novel "Ho Jing Fan Case" and other works, senior film fans.
Zhang Yimou's new film "On the Cliff" was officially released on April 30th, and as an old movie fan, I preemptively watched the first screening. Objectively speaking, it is not that I have much hope for the new works of this Shaanxi Township Party and a generation of film industry masters, but because the new films in the theater in April can attract my personal attention, in addition to Chen Zhengdao's "Secret Visitor", only this spy war movie.
Probably because of my history background, I have had a special love for historical film and television dramas for many years. In addition, I have a good impression of Zhang Jiayi and Song Jia's TV drama version of "Cliff", so I am naturally full of curiosity about Zhang Yimou's new film.
In recent years, although there have been many domestic spy TV series masterpieces, such as "Latent", "Cliff", "Pretender", "Kite", "Dark Calculation" and so on. But spy movies are rarely superior. Gao Qunshu and Chen Guofu's "The Sound of the Wind" (2009) can be regarded as the leaders of the big screen spy war movies in the past decade.
But in the next decade, there were few spy classics on the big screen. Liu Yunlong's "East Wind and Rain" (2010), Zhuang Wenqiang and Mai Zhaohui's "The Wind Listener" (2012) have mixed reviews, and Zhai Junjie's "Goal No. 1" (2014) and Zhong Shaoxiong's "Secret War" (2017) are even more tragic.
That's because the TV series can have enough time to sort out the relationships and the history of the case, but the movie is only about two hours long. Therefore, a good spy movie needs the director to be able to tell the story and the relationship between the characters in this short 120 minutes, logically reasonable and thrilling.
After watching the first "On the Cliff" screening, I posted a short comment in the circle of friends: This is the best spy movie after "The Sound of the Wind", the texture of the movie, the acting skills of the actors are impeccable, the viewing experience is considered to be tense and exciting, but unfortunately, the editing of the movie is somewhat stretched, and the whole story logic is not very eye-catching. "Above the Suspense" is half a good play. The overall look and feel is poor and logically grotesque. It is a film with outstanding strengths and weaknesses.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="25" >, bright snow, night</h1>
First of all, the advantages of this film, the picture quality of the whole film is impeccable, the director is after all a photographer, from the early "Red Sorghum" to the previous "One Second", Zhang Yimou's aesthetic grasp of the film has been stable.
"On the Cliff" is set in the space-time setting of Harbin, the spy city of Manchukuo during the anti-Japanese war. Harbin is extremely cold and snowy, which makes the spy film have a sense of trembling and fear.
Screenwriter Quan Yongxian's spy TV series "Snow Wolf" and "Cliff" both took place in Harbin, Manchukuo. Quan Yong was first a native of Jiamusi, Heilongjiang, and was naturally very familiar with the customs and objects of his hometown. When I was very young, there was a famous anti-Japanese spy war TV series "Harbin at Night", followed by "Meritorious Service", "Minus Thirty-Eight Degrees", and "Gunshots at the Madier Hotel", all of which used Harbin as the background of espionage. The cold temperature in Harbin is also the meeting place of many political forces of the Japanese army, Manchukuo, the Soviet Union, the Chinese Communist Party, and the Kuomintang, and naturally becomes a paradise for many anti-Japanese spy war film and television dramas.
Throughout the movie, snow is undoubtedly the "protagonist" of the unsigned story, from beginning to end, the snow is white, but under the pure snow white, it is a hidden killing machine. The fusion of snow and the blood of martyrs with piercing eyes naturally produces strange chemical reactions. Heavy snow is flying through it, and it is far more noisy than stepping on ice. This and the scene selection of "Wise Tiger Mountain" have the intention of pleasing the snow and setting off the artistic conception with snow.
Night is a symbol of darkness and despair, and many of the classic scenes of "On the Cliff" take place in the night. This kind of snow, night setting is not uncommon. In 1977, the great director Chu Yuan made a martial arts movie based on Gu Long's novel "The Prodigal Son of the Border City", which is a film masterpiece based on the snow night. Gu Long also has a novel movie of "Heaven End Bright Moon Knife", so it can be joked that this "On the Cliff" can also be called "Snow Night Spy Gun", or "Agent Gun Snow Night Utra".
The story of the film is to complete operation Utra, and there are two places in the film that say that operation Utra means "dawn", which seems to correspond well to this long snowy night.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="25" > two, excellent actor</h1>
The cast of "On the Cliff" is the best, and the acting skills of Zhang Yi (Zhang Xianchen), Yu Hewei (Zhou Yi), Qin Hailu (Wang Yu), Zhu Yawen (Chu Liang), Ni Dahong (Gao Bin), Li Naiwen (Lu Ming), Liu Haocun (Xiaolan), Yu Haolei (Jin Zhide) and others, including the cameos of Sha Yi (Lao Feng) and Lei Jiayin (Xie Zirong), are generally satisfactory.
Zhang Yi (Zhang Xianchen) played steadily as usual, Yu Hewei (Zhou Yi) portrayed the cautious restraint and bold sophistication of a senior agent of our party who had been lurking for many years and walking on the cliff of the blade to the fullest, Qin Hailu (Wang Yu) was impeccable in his crying scene in the hospital bathroom or in the fiery gunfight in the Romanian Embassy, Zhu Yawen (Chu Liang)'s performance was also considered to be zhang relaxed; Ni Dahong (Gao Bin) of the villain camp was sinister and cunning, known as "facial paralysis" Acting skills were perfectly matched with this movie. What makes people shine is the villain professional Hu Haolei (Jin Zhide), his performance is quite in place, even Sha Yi (Lao Feng), who is already a variety show face, is not funny in this work, the traitor Lei Jiayin (Xie Zirong) is greedy and afraid of death, and the slave Yan and the knee are also very impressive.
Some of the criticism is Liu Haocun (Xiaolan), some viewers think that she is acting a bit blunt, I personally think that her eyes have a smart beauty, good skills, acting skills, but also in line with its rookie agent filmmaker settings, overall is also qualified.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="25" > three, weird stories</h1>
"On the Cliff" publicity positioning is called a suspense spy movie, carefully brushing the story line, in fact, I think it is more appropriate to call it a spy war action movie.
Suspense films, the important thing is that at the moment of unveiling the mystery, the audience is most curious about the mystery of the whole story of the process of revealing, so when the mystery is revealed, it is also the climax of the suspense film. As far away as Agatha Christie's "Massacre of the Nile", the moment when the Belgian detective Poirot uses the reasoning hypothesis and finally unveils the mystery step by step in front of everyone is the most exciting part of the whole movie. "The Sound of the Wind", which has the same genre as "On the Cliff" and is regarded as the benchmark of domestic spy movies, only at the last moment did Gu Xiaomeng (Zhou Xun) expose himself, and has been confused, and the "old ghost" party concerned by all parties has surfaced. And the entire theatrical film of "On the Cliff" is 2 hours (obviously edited), about 1 hour, and when the film is halfway through, the undercover Zhou Yi (Yu Hewei) has been fully exposed. It can be said that the suspense of the spy war suspense is revealed too early, and the mystery can be described as an abrupt end. The audience's psychological experience has been a bit boring since this moment peak, from revealing the "inner ghost" and how to complete the two psychological expectations of the Utra action to how to complete the Utra action.
According to the "League of Nations" mentioned in the movie, Zhang Xianchen (Zhang Translation) told Xiaolan (Liu Haocun) about the "Prison Escape Incident on the Back Shade River", the exact background of the movie story is that around 1933-1935, the Japanese army set up the Kamo Unit in the Back Shadow River, which is the predecessor of the infamous Unit 731. According to historical data, around the Mid-Autumn Festival in 1934, there was a riot here, when more than a dozen people may have escaped from the "hell on earth" in Japan, which led to a close relocation of the base of this biochemical force by the Japanese army.
The screenwriter of the film, Quan Yongxian, apparently drew inspiration from this historical event and created the story.
The main line of the story is that according to the organizational arrangement, the four-member special agent team of Zhang Xianchen (Zhang Yi), Wang Yu (Qin Hailu), Chu Liang (Zhu Yawen), and Xiao Lan (Liu Haocun), who were trained in the Soviet Union, went to Harbin to find Wang Ziyang, who escaped from the Japanese prison, and escorted Wang Ziyang out of the country, so that the atrocities of the Japanese army using Chinese as live experiments were exposed in the international community.
But what I experienced during the movie was a grotesque sense of separation. Finding and escorting Wang Ziyang does not seem to have become the development of the story, and even Comrade Wang Ziyang only shows his face at the end of the movie. Throughout the film, from the beginning of the four people parachuted down to the snow-covered barren mountains, the original theme of "search, escort" gradually changed to "escape, fierce battle" agents to survive.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="25" > fourth, weird logic</h1>
The whole film adopts the narrative method of chapter back, and the story unfolds in 7 paragraphs of "secret code", "action", "hole card", "puzzle", "dangerous chess", "life and death", and "forward", and I carefully sorted out some illogic points of the 7 stories.
According to Chu Liang (Zhu Yawen) in the movie, the four of them were trained in the Soviet Union and received courses for skydiving, fighting, shooting and other agents for seven months, and the experience of the agents was very rich in theory.
1. Grouping
But from the perspective of the story setting, how to find the core of Wang Ziyang to find the connection with the organization, but the code mother book "Mei Lanfang's Visit to the United States" was on Chu Liang (Zhu Yawen) from the beginning, and the codebreaking expert Xiao Lan (Liu Haocun) and Chu Liang (Zhu Yawen) were quickly divided into two groups after landing, I don't know what is the work logic?
Snow mountain wild ridge, parachute landing, the group of four into the working state, the leader of Zhang Xianchen (Zhang Yi) and Wang Yu (Qin Hailu) are husband and wife, Chu Liang (Zhu Yawen) and Xiao Lan (Liu Haocun) are lovers of love, and the four people are quickly divided into two groups, but also Zhang Xianchen (Zhang Yi) and Xiao Lan (Liu Haocun) 1 group, Wang Yu (Qin Hailu) and Chu Liang (Zhu Yawen) for 2 groups, according to general common sense, this emotional bondage relationship, once any one of them is arrested is a great threat to the other three. Therefore, this four-person relationship setting is contrary to common sense.
What's even more strange is that Chu Liang (Zhu Yawen) didn't even know the situation of the group after landing. Such an important task, rigorous training, after setting off into a dangerous situation, the parties know that they are to be grouped, is this a satire on the professionalism of the Soviet Cheka organization?
2. Counter-kill
Group 1 Zhang Xianchen (Zhang Yi) and Xiao Lan (Liu Haocun) and the secret agent Lao Feng (Sha Yi) met and escaped from danger, although visually there is a thrill of fighting between the enemy and us in the snow, so it looks beautiful and enjoyable.
But if you think about it, the enemy already knows that operation Utra is very important, and the agent Lao Feng (Sha Yi), who naturally sent the response, is an experienced villain, and Gao Bin also commented on Lao Feng when Jin Zhide (Yu Haolei) reported to Gao Bin (Ni Dahong) later. But what the film shows is that the experienced secret agent Lao Feng and his assistant Xiao Zheng were actually countered in the situation that Zhang Xianchen and Xiao Lan were already under control, and Zhang Xianchen (Zhang Yi) shot at the time in the barren mountains and wild mountains, and the enemy situation was unknown, which was a taboo as a secret agent, and the film footage told us that there was indeed a team of enemy soldiers nearby at that time, and this team of enemy soldiers also found the snow pit where Zhang Xianchen buried his gun, even if Zhang Xianchen killed Lao Feng (Sha Yi) and Xiao Zheng, but what about this group of enemy soldiers? Could it be that they didn't hear the gunshots because of the heavy snow?
During the fight, Zhang Xianchen (Zhang Yi) was stabbed by Lao Feng (Sha Yi), and Xiaolan (Liu Haocun) gave Zhang an emergency bandage, but in the subsequent movie, this knife wound seems to have never happened? I can only guess that Zhang Xianchen (Zhang Translation) is a magical self-healing.
3. Same car
Since in order to avoid being caught in one net, the special agent team is divided into two groups, but why do they have to take the same train and still be in the same car when they are separated, is there any experience as a special agent? Is this the routine needed to create tension and drama for the contradictions of the story?
4. Information transmission
Zhang Xianchen (Zhang Yi) uses the mirror in the bathroom to transmit information to Wang Yu (Qin Hailu), while the passenger played by the traitor Xie Zirong (Lei Jiayin) modifies the danger signal to a signal that there is no trouble, since the secret agents found that there is an underground party passing on information, why not secretly arrest (or track) people who have gone to the bathroom, and let them enter Harbin, is this a long line to catch big fish?
5. Search Xiaolan
I don't know under what circumstances, a secret agent will identify Xiaolan (Liu Haocun) as a suspicious person and take him to the box for examination, is it because Xiaolan is beautiful or because of some kind of accident? This agent is not in the same group as Lu Ming (Li Naiwen) and Xie Zirong? Is it halfway out?
When Xiaolan (Liu Haocun) was taken into the box by the agent for search, the agent was not yet clear about Xiaolan's identity, and Xiaolan (Liu Haocun) and Zhang Xianchen (Zhang Yi), who entered the box and rescued the United States, joined forces to kill the agent, and in the fierce fight with the opponent and caused the glass of the carriage to be broken, the two joined forces to throw the agent's body out of the window.
Or from another point of view, at that time, Chu Liang (Zhu Yawen) had already made clear the identity of Zhou Yi (Yu Hewei) and Lu Ming (Li Naiwen) Xiaolan's group members, and the traitor Xie Zirong (Lei Jiayin) was also in the car after putting on makeup, and it turned out that this one agent was investigating Liu Haocun and taking him into the box to search, and finally was jointly eliminated by Xiao Lan (Liu Haocun) and Zhang Xianchen (Zhang Yi), and these spies actually did not notice what happened in the box, is this still called a secret agent?
6. Exchange tickets
In the bridge section of exchanging train tickets with passengers, Zhang Xianchen (Zhang Yi) stole the train tickets of a group of male and female passengers to change the beams and columns, although this is a bit funny, but it is somewhat illogical, the two passengers did not look at the train tickets that were dropped in their hands, and the woman also claimed to be the daughter of the baochang, did the baochang's daughter not have a little anti-special consciousness?
7. Xiaolan escaped from danger
Xiao Lan (Liu Haocun) in the train track scene, Xiao Lan in a hurry to tear up the enemy who has controlled himself, in a hurry to shoot him to death, although the action is crisp and clean, especially in the snow is more sharp, but the logical problem is that this kind of crowded environment, decisively shooting, has been Lu Ming (Li Naiwen) and other people to see through the identity of the agent, and everywhere is the enemy's train station, how does Xiao Lan (Liu Haocun) get out?
8. Wang Yu does not inform the danger
Since Wang Yu (Qin Hailu) had already judged through the unusual safety signal in the train bathroom that Zhou Yi (Yu Hewei) and Lu Ming (Li Naiwen), who accompanied him and Chu Liang (Zhu Yawen), might be spies, why didn't he immediately inform his comrades-in-arms during the time when he had just got off the train and was alone with Chu Liang (Zhu Yawen)? Even if you are not sure that the other party is an enemy, you must let Chu Liang (Zhu Yawen) be vigilant, right?
9. Chu Liang selectively leaked intelligence
It was Chu Liang (Zhu Yawen) who saw the agent take Xiaolan (Liu Haocun) away on the train, and in a hurry, he directly told The identity of Xiaolan (Liu Haocun) to Zhou Yi (Yu Hewei) and Lu Ming (Li Naiwen) who accompanied him, but when he asked him if he saw another comrade? Chu Liang (Zhu Yawen) said no, is the logic of exposing one female comrade-in-arms without exposing another male comrade-in-arms because love is greater than a task, or is it because the agent is selective and cautious?
10. Books stolen from bookstores
Zhang Xianchen (Zhang Yi) is a man dressed as a woman into the bookstore, the agent should not be the first time to change the clothes after the escape of Zhang Xianchen (Zhang Translation) contact, as a result, when Zhang Xianchen (Zhang Translation) saw his child turned out of the alley, the secret agent saw Zhang Xianchen (Zhang Translation) figure as if he had discovered a new continent. I can only make up for the possibility that the agent saw Zhang Xianchen (Zhang Yi) dressed up, otherwise I would not be able to directly contact the agent's motive for the crazy pursuit and killing of a black hat passerby.
11. Watch the child
Since Zhang Xianchen got rid of the secret agent, why did he inexplicably go to the children in front of the Matier Hotel to find his own children, and why did he directly recognize his children from several children? Getting the code mother should have left the dangerous area immediately, and this scene of father-son recognition suddenly made people suddenly and dazed, and I thought in a trance that I had gone to the wrong set.
12. Jailbreak
Zhang Xianchen (Zhang Yi), who was tragically electrocuted, because of the paper clip given by his internal comrade Zhou Yi (Yu Hewei), magically opened the handcuffs and quickly escaped from the torture rack, killing a prison guard and the doctor who was going to inject him with hallucinogens with his backhand, which seems to be suspected of anti-Japanese drama.
It should be known that escaping from the interrogation room of the Harbin Police Department's Special Agent Section of the TianluoDi Network, especially after being electrocuted twice, and still having a state of incontinence, killing and escaping from prison is tantamount to hiding a mine in the crotch of the anti-Japanese god drama, tearing the devil's thunderman design, and the communist fighter's personal belief willpower is strong, and this prison escape task is unimaginable.
13. Rush the pass
When Zhou Yi (Yu Hewei) and Zhang Xianchen (Zhang Yi) completed the joint task in an extremely dangerous secret space, and after learning the connection with Xiaolan (Liu Haocun), they actually had to disregard their undercover identity and drive Zhang Xianchen (Zhang Yi) out of the way. So that the enemy once again captured him, injected hallucinogenic drugs and obtained some intelligence, is this because of man's survival instinct?
14. Hallucinogens
As we all know, no matter how tenacious people's willpower is, they cannot resist the special effect of drugs, Gao Bin (Ni Dahong) knows from Zhang Xianchen (Zhang Yi) after being injected with hallucinogenic drugs that the Asia Cinema is the place where Xiaolan (Liu Haocun) is connected, so why did Zhang Xianchen (Zhang Yi), who was controlled by drugs, not give an account of the revolutionary comrade Zhou Yi (Yu Hewei) who just happened to save him?
15. Trap Xiaolan
In the section where the secret agents plan to arrest Xiaolan (Liu Haocun), when Xiaolan (Liu Haocun) inserts the key, he may have intuitively sensed some kind of danger, so he turned around and left. As a result, these two agents came out and completely pounced? Perhaps the business ability of Manchukuo agents is too poor, under the layout of the Tianluodi network, the result is that in addition to the two agents squatting in the house, there is no arrangement for one or two packages outside, which seems to be too unprofessional.
16. Cinema marks
First, in front of the Asia Cinema, the psychological contest between Zhou Yi (Yu Hewei) and Jin Zhide (Yu Haolei), although the tension and stimulation are slightly funny, the acting skills of Yu Haolei and Yu Hewei can indeed be regarded as fascinating and pure fire in this paragraph. But calm down and think about it carefully, how can This kind of small trick of spy warfare with stroke marks, who have been trained as spies for a long time, jin Zhide (Yu Haolei), including Gao Bin (Ni Dahong), who has been trained as a secret agent, easily believe it?
17. Drink coffee
In the link of drinking coffee to pass on information, since Lu Ming (Li Naiwen) knew that he had not taken the wrong coffee after waking up, then in addition to him and the female agents present, the only obvious problem was Zhou Yi (Yu Hewei), and as a result, the cunning and sinister Lu Ming (Li Naiwen) did not pursue this matter behind him?
18. Pistol strikes the needle
Gao Bin (Ni Dahong) suspected that there was an internal ghost around him, so he asked the female agent to manipulate the pistol hidden by Chu Liang (Zhu Yawen) and deliberately damage the gun's firing pin, which is also puzzling: although from the later plot, it is Chu Liang (Zhu Yawen) who used this pistol to shoot at Zhou Yi (Yu Hewei) and the result of the gun jam shell did not sound to dispel Gao Bin's (Ni Dahong)'s suspicions about Zhou Yi (Yu Hewei), but the logical question is how Gao Bin (Ni Dahong) can know when Chu Liang (Zhu Yawen) will use this gun. Who will shoot at whom, won't you use this gun to shoot at Lu Ming and Jin Zhide?
19. Overall logic
Let's think about the timeline of Zhou Yi (Yu Hewei), the lurking undercover, from the overall logic of the movie, since Zhou Yi knew very early that Xie Zirong (Lei Jiayin) had defected, but did not warn in advance, before he revealed his identity to Zhang Xianchen (Zhang Yi), the whole thing has been developing in the direction of deterioration and loss of control, when Wang Yu (Qin Hailu) and Chu Liang (Zhu Yawen) were controlled by secret agents as soon as they got off the train, and the 2 groups were completely useless. Zhou Yi (Yu Hewei) did not go to the bookstore early to find the contact person Lao Han to ask for the contact information of Aesop's fable, but seemed to be sitting and waiting for the days to pass, to know that the night was long and dreamy, Wang Yu (Qin Hailu) and Chu Liang (Zhu Yawen) fell into the hands of the enemy for one more day to Zhang Xianchen (Zhang Yi) and Xiao Lan (Liu Haocun) 1 group are threats, but from the movie point of view, Zhou Yi (Yu Hewei) is indeed calm, he is going to wait until Zhang Xianchen (Zhang Yi) is abolished after electrocution and hallucinogens. Only to take a firm step to tell the Fables of Aesop to the comrades who are still alive?
Perhaps what Zhang Yimou needs is the dramatic effect of the film reversal, but think about it carefully, the development logic, the big problem of the film is to take advantage of the audience's initial ignorance and deliberately confuse many things that are illogical.
Before watching the movie, when the four-person group began to land, I initially thought that the traitors would be among these four people, but soon Xie Zirong (Lei Jiayin) defected, when I saw Zhou Yi (Yu Hewei) pulling Zhang Xianchen (Zhang Yi), who was trying to escape from prison, into the room outside the door of the interrogation room, when the two joined, the front subtitles had bottom cards, and the back subtitles were puzzles, and I thought that the joints between Zhou Yi (Yu Hewei) and Zhang Xianchen (Zhang Translation) were deliberately set up by the enemy to get information, but everything did not develop according to my thinking.
For most viewers, perhaps a good face of Yu Heweisheng, Zhou Yi's role setting is our party's undercover inside the enemy from the beginning, which is not to make the suspense a little boring from the beginning.
Jin Zhide (Yu Haolei) was eventually killed by Gao Bin (Ni Dahong) as an undercover of our party, and the use of electrocution against Jin Zhide will definitely make the audience laugh. I wonder if the screenwriter had made Kim Ji-duk (Yu Haolei) an undercover agent of my party throughout the story, would the film's reversal effect have been better?
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="25" > five, half a good play</h1>
Objectively speaking, Xiaolan (Liu Haocun) and Zhou Yi (Yu Hewei) were very touching in the Q&A at the beginning of the storm and the sky was clear, and the meaning of the dawn of "Utra" was mentioned again, and Zhou Yi took Xiaolan's "pills" and instructed her to live and wait for the dawn.
We imagine that after the completion of the Utra mission, Zhou Yi (Yu Hewei) has the kind of inner ease, but the road is long and long, and there are more blizzards on the way forward, and its scene is quite a bit of the agitation of "the wind is cold and the water is cold, and the hero will not return once he is gone".
Overall, "On the Cliff" is not enough to call it a "surprise work", but Zhang Yimou's consistent video style is still "rock solid".
In order to shoot every "second" of this film, Lao Mouzi insisted on live shooting under extremely cold conditions below zero, and also completely reproduced 30,000 square meters of Harbin in the 1930s in 1:1, recreating urban landmarks such as Central Avenue, Madier Hotel, Commercial Press, and Asia Cinema.
The film began shooting in December 2019 and took more than 100 days to complete, and director Zhang Yimou's serious attitude is admirable.
Film is the art of light and shadow, and it is also the expression of stories. When Zhang Yimou is obsessed with the dappled light and shadow, and trudgs forward in the snowy white expanse of "On the Cliff", he is obviously a little confused: the core of a movie is still a convincing story, which is the right way in the film kingdom.