Speaking of Comrade Li Dazhao, the first impression in the minds of many young people is that he was the pioneer of the Chinese communist movement, a great Marxist, an outstanding proletarian revolutionary, and one of the main founders of the Communist Party of China. However, little is known about the life of Comrade Li Dazhao, especially how he gradually grew from an ordinary person to a great man.
History textbooks only record that he founded the Beijing Communist Party Group in 1920 and was killed by Order Of Zhang Zuolin in April 1927. Although these cold white paper and black words are real, they always lack temperature, and it is difficult for readers to have a deeper and more contoured impression of this character through the textbook.
The movie "Revolutionary" makes up for this regret, it uses realistic images to restore the most important periods in Li Dazhao's life, through rich details and full of emotions, let the audience see a three-dimensional, passionate, hot-blooded revolutionary fighter.
General character biopics like to use a straight-line narrative method, through the gradual laying of the character's growth trajectory, so that the audience can understand the reasons why he became like that later, and the relationship between the characters and the surrounding society and environment, such as "The Last Emperor", "The King's Speech", "Theory of All Things" and so on.
There is also a form of expression, which does not stick to the presentation of the whole process of the character, but only grasps an important turning point in life to express the character' personality, emotion and social value, which are more typical representatives of "Darkest Hour" and "Big Dreamer".
If you look at the span of before and after, "Revolutionary" does not jump out of the traditional biopic routine, however, the film has made some special attempts in the way of telling.
It uses a non-linear narrative method to lead the audience to travel through various time and space, not using time as a narrative scale, but through the characters around Li Dazhao, using these special points to connect the growth trajectory of the protagonist, and forming a whole after converging into a face, completing the image shaping of the characters.
To this end, the film constantly uses sequences, flashbacks, and interludes to unfold the plot, which is easy to be confused at first glance, but carefully pondered, it is full of various surprises that break the convention.
At the beginning of the film, Li Dazhao was already in prison and was about to be hanged after 38 hours, so the first episodic character in the film appeared, he was Zhang Xueliang.
It turned out that in the city of Beijing many years ago, the young marshal Zhang Xueliang had already had a relationship with Li Dazhao. The story begins with the innocent death of newspaper boy Ah Chen by the Russians, and culminates in a joint demonstration by various trade associations demanding that the murderer be severely punished.
In Zhang Xueliang's eyes, Li Dazhao is a person who asks for the people's life and has a heart for life, he has done what others want to do but dare not do, speak up for the people at the bottom, seek justice for all the oppressed Chinese, and let the audience have a preliminary impression of Li Dazhao.
After Li Dazhao was imprisoned, the people's demand for release also rose, at the same time, the party organization is also trying to rescue, they sent a military doctor committed to the warlord, hoping to use fake death drugs to help Li Dazhao escape, but Was categorically rejected by Li Dazhao, the name of this military doctor is Qingzi, is the second plot character in the film.
Qingzi and Li Dazhao met more than ten years ago, when they celebrated Chinese New Year's Eve together, it was Li Dazhao who gave him a formal name, and it was Li Dazhao who gave him the warmth of a relative.
Through Qingzi's eyes, the audience sees an ordinary person who is as easy-going as an elder, and also sees a great revolutionary who is not afraid of life and death, but only wants to awaken countless sleeping people with his own sacrifice.
He also has his own children, and there are many things worth cherishing in this world, but for the future of thousands of young people, he resolutely chooses to sacrifice and choose himself to bear all the suffering.
Although Li Dazhao was captured by Zhang Zuolin, the person who really agreed to kill him was Chiang Kai-shek, which is also the third episodic character in the film.
The personalities of Chiang Kai-shek and Li Dazhao are diametrically opposed, and different growth environments are destined to drift apart. In Li Dazhao's mind, he pretended to be an ordinary person, but in Chiang Kai-shek's heart, he only pretended to be himself, and the contradiction between the two had existed as early as the sun yat-sen period, and when Sun Yat-sen died, it completely broke out.
In the face of Li Dazhao, Chiang Kai-shek not only felt fear, but also felt pressure, so he resolutely issued the order of "do not kill this person, the consequences are endless", but he could never imagine that some people's flesh can be destroyed, but the spirit will not die, and that kind of grand righteousness will remain in the world for a long time and will not change because of time.
The fourth episodic character in the film is Xu San, an ordinary low-level ordinary person. He witnessed the "March 18" massacre in 1926, and on the darkest day of the Great Revolution, Xu San risked his life to rescue Li Dazhao from the gun of a warlord, and since then, his life has been completely rewritten. Because Li Dazhao gave him dignity as a human being, it was also Li Dazhao who taught him to believe in himself.
Li Dazhao in Xu San's eyes is very simple, not high above, after fading the aura of a great man, he has flesh and blood, he has emotions, he is a teacher, but also a preacher, he is pious and has faith, he perceives the people at the bottom, runs in the sea of people, comes from the people, and finally returns to the people.
But Li Dazhao never forgot his other identity - propagating Marxist ideas in China, so there was a fifth episodic character, his comrade-in-arms who fought alongside him, Chen Duxiu.
Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu have completely different personalities and living habits, but because of their common beliefs, they came together and joined hands to create a new era in the history of the Communist Party of China.
The same peking university professors, they have the pride of the literati, but also mixed with the romance of the rioters, the difference is that compared with Chen Duxiu's overly idealistic, Li Dazhao is more realistic.
He not only mingled with the students, but also took the initiative to go deep into all walks of life to experience life and understand the sufferings of the people in the frontline. His compassion for people did not have the diseaseless groaning of the literati, but was full of strength and powerful appeal.
The last episodic character in the film is Mao Zedong, who was young and youthful, and it was a good time to be full of spirits. Many previous films about Chairman Mao often only show his wise, mature, and tenacious side, but they ignore that great people also have young times, there are also times when they are wandering, and there are also impulsive times, and all the big people are not achieved overnight, and they need to be constantly tempered and grown in order to achieve positive results. At this time, Li Dazhao played the role of Mao Zedong's mentor, helping Mao Zedong answer questions and correct the direction of progress.
In this way, the film completes the inheritance and handover of two generations of Communist Party leaders, as Li Dazhao said, for the Chinese revolution, he is only a transitional figure, but even if he cannot see the day of the victory of the Chinese revolution with his own eyes, as long as the young people continue to persist, this sacrifice has meaning.
At the same time, Li Dazhao also realized that the Communist Party did not grasp the fatal wound of the army's right to speak, but he did not have time, but Mao Zedong had, and the future chairman used the concept of the party to command the gun to finally win the victory of the Chinese revolution.
The six main characters have enriched the shaping of Li Dazhao's image from their respective perspectives, and completed mr. Shouchang's bumpy journey from man to god and from god to man.
Under the superposition of the picture, the audience can clearly feel his bravery, his persistence, his enthusiasm, his gentleness, this kind of emotion, and finally reached the peak of the accumulation at the time of execution, and the "Internationale" sounded, just like a flash flood, instantly breaking the audience's atrium, unconsciously already in tears.
Although this film is a biography of Li Dazhao, because of the large number of characters in the scene, it is more like a social map of the 1920s. From friends to rivals, from warlord leaders with great power to the hungry and cold people at the bottom, they were really alive in that era and unconsciously pushed the wheel of history.
Zhang Songwen supported this big male protagonist movie with superb acting skills, and his sharp edge was full of introvertedness and his smile was full of affection. In the play with everyone, whether it is encountering a powerful faction like Qin Hao, or a young generation represented by Han Geng and Li Yifeng, Zhang Songwen gives people a feeling of not being humble and strolling idly. Neither deliberately suppressing the opponent, nor deliberately lowering yourself, lifting heavy weights and relaxing.
In the face of the strong foreigners in the Shanghai concession, he used his not-so-great body to shoulder the heavy trust of the laborers and never backed down; after the "March 18" massacre, he fell on his wife's shoulder and cried out in pain, "They have guns, they have guns..."; in the face of the cold gallows, he smiled and nodded with all his compatriots, that kind of calm and calm, as if he was not facing death, but experiencing a short parting.
Li Dazhao in the film has said many times that he is not afraid of death, what he is afraid of is that generations of young people will grow old like that, numb, silent, if they can awaken those who are numb, he can die. Standing between light and darkness, he resolutely chose darkness to devour himself in order to allow the light to come sooner.
The success of "Revolutionary" lies in the fact that it uses a new creative mode to break the stereotype left by the main theme film to the audience.
Whether it is mirror movement, art, or lighting, atmosphere creation, the film can be remarkable, a variety of pictures full of artistic conception, large shots of blank space, romantic emotional output, so that the audience not only stay in the degree of enjoying a movie, but with the characters in the film together, breathing together, sharing hardships.
When the main theme of the film is no longer held, begins to be grounded, and takes care of the audience's feelings, then it has entered the category of mainstream films, this kind of attempt and experience, today's market needs, the audience needs more.