Gray tones, not brisk rhythms, no large-scale war scenes, no large-scale pre-publicity, no traffic stars to join, this is destined to be a film that is difficult to get the favor of the theater.
The investment of 30 million yuan is not a small-cost movie, but it is not a big deal. Only more than 4 million box office, such a disparity in input-output ratio, but it has to be said to be a Waterloo.
However, the box office and revenue are always closely related to marketing methods, and there is no absolute correlation with the quality of the film, let alone the evaluation of the quality of a movie.
"The Great Ming Raid" is precisely such a work that uses the most serious attitude to restore the most real scene of the wind and rainy Ming Dynasty.
It is said that in order to make the film as close to the truth as possible, director Wang Jing has studied the relevant historical materials for two years, from props and sets to the psychology of the characters and the interweaving of various forces.
The polishing of ingenuity is the basis for the production of superior works. However, the excellence of "Daming Robbery" is by no means limited to this.
One is the Ming Dynasty general Sun Chuanting, and the other is Wu Youke, a traveling doctor in the jianghu. Such two characters, who really exist in history but have never intersected, are dramatically thrown into the same scene by the director.
The storyline of the two protagonists is independent and intertwined with each other, without any sense of violation. One in the Dynasty, one in the opposition, two seemingly unrelated characters, and full of similarities, in the last two years of the fall of the Ming Dynasty.
At the beginning of the film, the identities of the two are not prominent.
Sun Chuanting, a great general of the Ming Dynasty who was once in the limelight, once led an official army to beat Li Zicheng to only eighteen horses, but he was thrown into prison by the Chongzhen Emperor because of his disagreement with the political views of The Soldier Shangshu.
Wu Youke, who was once the imperial court physician of the Ming Dynasty, but because he was not accustomed to the quacks in the Tai Hospital, he became a traveling doctor, and he had no fixed place to live.
In 1642, Li Zicheng led a peasant army to besiege Kaifeng, and seeing that the Ming Dynasty mansion was about to fall, the Chongzhen Emperor had no choice but to reactivate Sun Chuanting from prison and entrust him with a heavy responsibility in order to reverse the situation.
Although Sun Chuanting was in danger of being ordered, he was full of self-confidence, and promised to unseal the siege with five thousand elite soldiers in front of Chongzhen, but he did not know that the Ming Dynasty was already ill and bone marrow.
He Renlong, the chief soldier who aided and suppressed the army, supported the self-esteem of the soldiers, and did not think of repaying the country, but fished and fleshed the people, and even more so, he cut off the heads of the people to serve as bandits to ask for merit.
The soldiers were tired and disorganized, and the firearms were even more unbearable to meet the enemy; the military food was scarce, and the grain officers, in order to be blinded by inspection, actually filled the grain bags with sand; the squires forcibly occupied the cultivated land, the military tun system existed in name only, and the soldiers and civilians were hungry, let alone went to war.
Sun Chuanting, the last straw to save the Ming Dynasty, had to feed the terminally ill country a fierce medicine.
But I don't want to, the sudden epidemic has made the Wind and Rainy Ming Dynasty worse.
Zhao Chuan, the commander of the Tongguan Pharmacy, read medical books and went to the army to cure the epidemic, but his years of medical experience made him stubbornly adhere to the treatment plan of "On Typhoid Fever", and he formed a huge difference in treatment with Wu Ke, who came to defect.
Wu is also radical in his treatment, but from the patient's own point of view, he does not stick to the traditional treatment plan, and does not hesitate to use the medicine of the tiger and the wolf, and because of this, the practitioner of medicine is often expelled by the officials who are worried about responsibility.
Zhao Chuan's treatment of the epidemic was ineffective, but he sacrificed his life because of the plague, and seeing that the generals in the army fell one after another, Sun Chuanting had no choice but to bet the treasure on Wu Youke, a traveling doctor in the jianghu, and promised Wu you to fully support his treatment of the epidemic, just as the Chongzhen Emperor had made a desperate bet on him.
One is a doctor who dares to use the medicine of the tiger and wolf to treat the disease, and the other is a general who dares to use the thunder of the rule of law army. The fates of Sun Chuanting and Wu Youke, the two people, were also linked because of the plague before this decisive battle.
If the disease does not enter the skin, the entrance and nose are plague, and if the country does not wait for the foreign soldiers to collapse, it is robbery.
We all know that the death of Daming is not outside but inside. The devastation of Daming was by no means rooted in the peasant army uprising, let alone a plague.
Sun Chuanting was furious and beheaded the soldiers and bandits, and strictly administered the army, and in order to replenish the armament, he dared to risk the world's great disobedience and punish the squires in Tongguan with a moth knife.
He was loyal and patriotic, but he was also ruthless. Even on the eve of the battle, he did not hesitate to burn the remaining hundreds of infected soldiers alive with a big fire.
He had only one purpose in mind: to save the country. In order to achieve his goal, he can be ruthless and sacrifice everything that can be sacrificed.
"Medicine is like using soldiers, you need to have courage and knowledge. In this chaotic world, it is a blessing to meet Mr. Wang. ”
Sun Chuanting is lonely, and this persistence and loneliness that is not understood by others also makes him feel sorry for Wu Youke.
"I can believe you, but who can believe in me?"
When Sun Chuanting told Wu Youke about this loneliness, his heart was full of helplessness, and this helplessness was in stark contrast to his pride when he returned from prison and swore an oath in front of the Chongzhen Emperor.
"Brother, allow me to ask privately, have I run out of qi in the Ming Dynasty?"
When Sun Chuanting asked Wu Youke this question, he was actually asking his own heart as well.
In the face of the Chongzhen Emperor's doubts, he knew that Daming had already returned to heaven and lacked skill, and his one Grandson Chuanting was simply not enough to turn the tide.
At the repeated urging of the Chongzhen Emperor, Sun Chuanting had no choice but to rush to Kaifeng with officers and soldiers who had not yet been corrected. It was a battle that knew they could not win, and the tragedy of the troops when they marched out foreshadowed their death.
"History of Ming" contains: Chuan Ting died, and Ming died!
In this tragedy, Sun Chuanting was eventually killed in battle at Tongguan, and soon after, the Chongzhen Emperor hanged himself in Coal Mountain, and the Ming Dynasty came to an end.
In contrast, Wu Youke's retreat is a good ending.
"I have been accumulating ills for a long time, and I can't cure it without a strong medicine."
In his dialogue with Sun Chuanting, he had already told the end of the Ming Dynasty. Prevention before it happens is the foundation of Chinese medicine.
"The royal family rises and falls, and only the healer lives on." This is the wisdom of the healer, and it also allows Wu youke to survive.
It was this kind of avoidance of the world that allowed Wu to concentrate on his studies, and only then did he have the legendary work "The Plague Theory", thus laying the theoretical foundation for the treatment of infectious diseases in Chinese medicine.
During sarcasm in 2003, the "Dayuan Drink" recorded in the "Plague Theory" received miraculous results in treatment. Perhaps, we would also like to thank Sun Chuanting for his kindness to Wu Youke for not killing.
More than four hundred years later, when the epidemic is raging again, the basic protection skills of isolation and individuals are still being used by us.
Sun Chuanting's bravery has become history and is legendary by future generations; Wu Youke's medical theory has merit and grace for thousands of generations. The rise and fall of dynasties is always not as good as the inheritance of future generations, which has come long and come greatly.
We look back on history, and we are even more grateful for this world.