If there are underrated movies in Stephen Chow's masterpieces, it must be "Nine Pin Sesame Officers". Although for a long time everyone still regarded him as a comedy, sooner or later you will find that this is a cruel realist work.
If you've just relaxed and laughed when you watched this movie before, it's better to revisit the whole story today.
At the beginning of the film, a case established the world view of the movie "Nine Pin Sesame Officer".
The poor saved the rich, and in order to repay the favor, the rich rented the house to the poor at a cheap rent of 30 taels per year, and also made a written proof. In the next generation, the rich intend to rape the wives of the poor, and when they resist, they also sue the poor couples.
At this time, Fang Tangjing appeared, he only modified a few punctuation marks, changed the meaning of the words, changed the rent of 30 taels into 300,000 taels, and after laughing at Bao Longxing's lack of culture, he only bribed him with one or two silver.
By this scene, Bao Longxing's image was already very clear, he wanted to be a corrupt official, but he could not be a corrupt official.
On the way to the framing of shangjing, Bao Longxing and Mo Zaiti, who met him by chance, said: "Good officials are not easy to do, corrupt officials are not good, and they are most afraid of being caught in the middle and achieving nothing." This sentence actually implies that Bao Longxing's choice to be a good official is not out of a sense of justice or compassion, but purely a passive choice.
After capturing the leopard's head, Bao Longxing tasted the joy loved by all the people, and out of vanity, decided to become a good official (even though his intention was definitely not to do justice).
After this, Chang Wei raped the Qi Qin clan and killed more than 30 members of the Qi family, Bao Longxing was responsible for trying the case, he tried his best to try the case, he thought that someone had physical evidence to win, but he did not want to be framed and was imprisoned.
Bao Longxing's father's last words have explained everything: "Corrupt officials want to rape, and clean officials want to rape."
Regarding the motif of justice, traditional stories often pin it on miracles, such as the supernatural phenomenon of Feixue in June in "Dou E'e Wrong", such as the light of absolute justice in Bao Qingtian, such as accidentally saving an individual and getting rewarded at key moments in the future...
And "Nine Pin Sesame Officer" breaks these illusory hopes and proposes a seemingly light and funny, but in fact heavy solution.
The film first uses a spoof form to carry out a counter-routine operation on the tradition.
Fang Tangjing made Ji fabricate evidence, Qi Qinshi was arrested and imprisoned, at this time it snowed heavily, Bao Longxing shouted to the sky, "There is a grievance", but the crowd had long dispersed, and no one cared about this vision.
Bao Longxing returned to the scene of the crime and finally found the flaw in the false evidence, thinking that he could overturn the case, but he did not want to be directly imprisoned in the name of destroying evidence in the next second.
After escaping from prison, Bao Longxing got half a piece of cake from his father and the ancestral "Qingtian Secret Book", but the cake symbolizing kindness made him a beggar in the capital, and the "Qingtian Secret Book" was also burned in the brothel.
The reason why Bao Longxing was finally able to win the victory in the retrial of qi's case of annihilation was entirely a double blessing of personal ability and power.
He learned to deceive, that is, deception, in the lessons of the previous train with Fang Tangjing;
Learn to swallow swords and darts in acrobatic troupes, i.e. force;
He also learned quarrels and deception in brothels, that is, literary skills;
And he made personal relations with the emperor, that is, power.
To sum up, the reason why Bao Longxing was able to defeat Li Gonggong and many other official old oil sticks was because of the combination of literature and martial arts and deception, as well as the supreme imperial power.
The retrial of the Qi case occupies 20 minutes in the movie, and the scene of the qing officials and the corrupt officials fighting each other is quite wonderful, and the advantages and disadvantages of the two sides alternate several times.
Bao Longxing made Fang Tangjing dumbfounded by quarreling kung fu, and then laid down a deception to make Laifu confess in fear, and also used the kung fu of swallowing the sword to resolve the biggest crisis.
Among these factors, the emperor is the most important factor, in the process of retrial of the case, the emperor did not attend, but he was everywhere.
However, the power is changing, Bao Longxing's mother came in with the Shangfang sword, instantly shocking everyone, but then it was discovered that this was the sword given by the former emperor, which almost caused a catastrophe. This passage also laid the groundwork for the final tragic ending.
The ending of "Nine Pin Sesame Officer" is very lively, at least on the surface it is an absolute comedy, Bao Longxing abandoned the official and went into business, his wife is pregnant, and he is happy and harmonious. The news of the emperor's death is also expressed in a comedic way - Bao Longxing took out the emperor's dragon underwear, saying that "smell a hundred times the spirit", but then the messenger came to report that the emperor died of flower willow disease, Bao Longxing threw the underwear into the air in horror, the picture was frozen, and Bao Longxing's fate was also predictably desperate.
The last thing to say is that the reason why "Nine Pin Sesame Officer" is a good movie worth brushing up on is also because it does not have the problem of making up paragraphs that are often found in Stephen Chow's films, but has a clear and clear main line and a well-designed foreshadowing.
Nowadays, many Hong Kong films that are regarded as classics have a characteristic, that is, the main story is not clear, but only rely on relatively independent wonderful bridges to capture a group of fans.
For example, "The King of Comedy", everyone remembers the phrase "I raise you", and who will remember that in the movie, Yin Tianqiu became a mass actor, ran an actor training class, and went undercover?
The reason why Stephen Chow has endured in the Internet age may be precisely because his films have wonderful ideas, perhaps a line, or a fragment, which is substituted into the context of the Internet and expresses various rich emotions.
In contrast, "Nine Pin Sesame Officer" has no shortage of spoof bridges, and it is rare to have a very clear purpose - Bao Longxing clears the grievances of the Qi Qin family, and in order to achieve this purpose, there is a complete main line that can be called interlocking - Bao Longxing has experienced a lot of ridiculous things, which can be nonsensical jokes, and from another point of view, the same bridge section can also be interpreted as a realistic tragicomedy.
| This article was originally produced by Qianfangdianying.