In 2009, Zhou Xun participated in "The Sound of the Wind", her role in the play is called Gu Xiaomeng, and her real identity is "old ghost".
In 2012, Zhou Xun participated in "The Wind Listener", her role in the play is called Zhang Xuening, and her real identity is still an "old ghost".
I once wrote an article about the previous "Sound of the Wind" praising it as the best domestic "spy movie" in the past decade, but about "The Wind Listener", most people, like me, do not like it very much.
But not liking it doesn't mean it's useless. (Another layer of story interpretation of "The Wind Listener" can be jumped directly to the third chapter, because the front is relatively boring.) ）
<h1>One: The origin of "The Wind Listener"</h1>
The plot scripts of the two movies "Listener of the Wind" and "The Sound of the Wind" are from the master-level "spy writer" Mai Jia, of which the original work adapted by "The Wind Listener" is called "Dark Calculation", and to some extent, the word "Dark Calculation" is closer to the main tone of the plot of the whole movie.
In 2011, after Mai and Zhuang finished filming the Hong Kong version of the "Wind Listener" "Eavesdropping Wind", word of mouth and popularity soared, so after several meetings with the Mai family, they decided to shoot a mainland version of "Eavesdropping", in order to fit the IP of "eavesdropping", Mai and Zhuang took the code name of the eavesdropper in the original "Dark Calculation" as the title of the movie.
Then zhou xun was invited again.
So when the three words "Mai Jia" + "Zhou Xun" + "Wind" are linked together, the audience will be the first to associate this movie with another movie "The Sound of the Wind" 3 years ago.
However, the most brain-burning part of "The Sound of the Wind": the identity search for old ghosts, old guns and other people, to "The Wind Listener" has been reduced to an auxiliary, the first generation of old ghosts played by Wang Xuebing, and the second generation of old ghosts played by Zhou Xun, all told the audience very bluntly at the first time.
In this way, "The Listener" does not belong to the scope of espionage or suspense at all, it is more like a drama film, it is simply to explain the past and present lives and inner worlds of spies and intelligence personnel.
And this change is very unflattering.
<h1>2: The Story of The Wind Listener</h1>
Zhang Xuening (Zhou Xun) is an underground Chinese Communist Party worker whose main job is to find and solve the secret agents left behind by the Kuomintang, and is ordered by Unit 701 to directly supervise the old ghost.
The old ghost (Wang Xuebing) is openly identified as Guo Xingzhong, the son of the Ship King, and secretly as the supreme leader of the Communist intelligence organization Unit 701.
One day, the old ghost summoned Zhang Xuening and told her that the 120 radio frequencies of the enemy intercepted before 701 had been known to the enemy, and after the enemy changed the frequency, Unit 701 could no longer find the radio stations used by the enemy to transmit information.
So the old ghost arranged for Zhang Xuening to find Luo San'er.
People normally have only two ears, and this person is called three ears, the reason is because his hearing is different from ordinary people, just like one more ear, the old ghost hopes to use Luo San's hearing to retrieve the radio station that has been changed.
Zhang Xuening saw Luo San'er and his classmate He Bing in the theater, but Zhang Xuening brought back not Luo San'er, but He Bing.
He Bing was not born blind, he was shot down from a tree by a Japanese soldier at the age of 13, his brother died, he lived, but he was blind, but after he was blind, he became more and more intelligent.
Luo San'er, a fellow villager, took a fancy to He Bing's eyes and ears, so he brought him to Shanghai, and with the help of He Bing's ear power, the two joined forces to earn money.
This is also the reason why Zhang Xuening chose to bring back He Bing instead of Luo San'er. Because the person who can really help 701 is He Bing.
Then He Bing came to the 701 station and found all 120 radio stations, and in the process of continuous contact, He Bing fell in love with Zhang Xuening, but after Zhang Xuening's light but hard refusal, He Bing chose to marry another intelligence decipherer, Shen Jing.
In the days after the marriage, happy and idyllic, Zhang Xuening succeeded Guo Xingzhong as the new old ghost, constantly traveling back and forth to various places, arranging and completing tasks.
With the help of the doctor invited by Zhang Xuening, He Bing healed his eyes.
The day he opened his eyes, Zhang Xuening and Shen Jing were there, and he looked at Shen Jing and said, "You look better than I thought," but what he said to Zhang Xuening was: "You are much better looking than Chunjiao."
Who is Chunjiao? She is like "there is a girl in the village named Xiaofang", she is the first object of love in every boy's life, it is the first time that boys understand what is called the demarcation point of heterosexual attraction, so this sentence "You are better looking than Chunjiao", Zhang Xuening understands, He Bing also understands.
Then, He Bing, who had both eyes, mistakenly heard the "old ghost" as "Chongqing" and then gave the wrong information, so Zhang Xuening lost his life because of the error of intelligence and the sudden appearance of Luo San'er.
The remorseful He Bing poked his own eyes again, and he would use a pair of ears to avenge the passing "Chunjiao"...
<h1>THREE: If that's what the Wind Listener is</h1>
The second paragraph above is the storyline that we can see on the surface of "The Wind Listener", it is not suspenseful, not brain-burning, but its picture is very beautiful, in the 2013 Academy Awards nominations, the 8-item shortlisted "The Wind Listener" finally only got back one best cinematography, which also proves that the picture of "The Wind Listener" is extremely beautiful.
But if this is just a beautiful story, how can it be called brain-burning?
So the story framework I want to say below is speculation, imagination, not reality.
In the previous work "The Sound of the Wind", Zhou Xun is an old ghost, and this time Zhou Xun is an old ghost, but this time the old ghost is a fake, a double agent sent by the Kuomintang.
Zhang Xuening was employed by the Kuomintang intelligence agency, and after the founding of the People's Republic of China, he stayed in Shanghai, ostensibly as an intelligence commissioner of the Communist Party's underground intelligence organization, but in fact he was a double agent.
At this point, the plot will have two directions:
(1): She will stick to the wrong belief in her heart and continue to serve the Kuomintang Party;
(2): She gradually wavered, wanting to abandon her other identity as a double agent and become only a communist.
There is a scene in the movie: Zhang Xuening returned to the 701 station and knew for the first time that Guo Xingzhong was an old ghost, zhang Xuening who walked out of the door let out a long breath, which was a feeling of relief, she knew that her identity had not yet been recognized.
Next she went to find Luo San'er, but the next morning, she said the words in the second paragraph above to He Bing, and she knew that the person who really knew how to "listen to the wind" was He Bing, not Luo Sanfat.
But this news, only one night, Zhang Xuening learned all about it, and the old ghost who was the person in charge of 701 before this did not know it, except because Zhang Xuening had seen the live performance of Luo San'er and He Bing tuning the piano at close range, and then speculated, the most important reason was that her dual identity had a larger intelligence collection system.
When she chose to bring back He Bing instead of secretly killing, her answer was to choose the second one, and she wanted to be a human being again.
However, the Kuomintang did not allow it, so in the later contest between Zhang Xuening and "Chongqing", several people in "Chongqing" repeatedly hinted that "income was sent to YeFu", but Zhang Xuening refused.
The meaning of this passage is that "Chongqing" is admonishing Zhang Xuening that "you are our person, and everything behind you is under our control", while Zhang Xuening said: "Things here are solved here", and she is telling several "Chongqing" that she will no longer be at the mercy of others.
So Chongqing, after confirming that Zhang Xuening had defected, chose to kill Zhang Xuening.
In the subsequent plot, Zhang Xuening never appeared again, even if it was a memory or a narration, the reason was because she was the Kuomintang, and the era that belonged to them had long since withdrawn from the stage of history and would not leave any traces.
(Text/Film Critics)