Today, Hongyan Xiu would like to recommend a Japanese work for everyone:
The Japanese animated film officially released in 2007 was nominated for the 81st Academy Award for Best Feature Animation.
It's Alien: No Emperor Blade Tan~
This work brings together a number of experienced original painting masters in Japan, and the play in it is almost the peak of Nakamura Toyo,
The work mainly tells the story of the Ming Dynasty in China, the Ming Emperor in pursuit of immortality to listen to the words of the Taoist priests to hunt down the children who have seen once in a hundred years to carry out the ritual of immortality.
The child, named Zaitaro, fled to Japan,
Here, he encounters Luo Lang and the nameless, who are also foreigners, and the national struggle and samurai pursuit are supplemented by the name of "foreign countries".
First of all, it is worth mentioning that this work incorporates many Chinese elements.
The story is set during the Ming Dynasty, from 1368 to 1644.
At this time, Japan was in the Sengoku period, the various princes were in war, in 1590 Toyotomi Hideyoshi unified Japan, in 1603 Tokugawa Ieyasu founded the Edo shogunate,
Judging from the whole film, Japan has not yet come up with a specific date.
But judging from the details of the film, such as knotweed who did not hesitate to order his subordinates to shoot his adults, it can be concluded that the king is no more than a name, or before 1950.
In addition to the problem of dynasties, the other is the familiar immortality.
The Emperor of the Ming Dynasty pursued immortality, so the Ming officials hunted down Zaitaro, so there was a scene of escape at the beginning of the movie.
This is the cause of the whole story, but it is not the theme of the whole story.
In the film, there are Ming officers and soldiers and Chinese dialects everywhere, Ming documents, costumes, sword skills, etc.
In order to do a good job in this animation, the production team can see many Chinese names, from dubbing to animation.
It is also worth mentioning that the Japanese in the film call the officers and soldiers of the Ming Dynasty "Tang Natives" instead of "Ming People".
It can also be seen how influential the Tang Dynasty in Chinese history was, and the Japanese at that time still longed to admire the prosperity of the Tang Dynasty.
Including Japan's samurai culture, it has to be said that it is deeply influenced by China.
In this film, the samurai culture is also vividly expressed.
After talking about the Chinese elements, we have to mention the music of the movie.
Of course, in terms of music production, we must talk about Naoki Sato.
Naoki Sato graduated from the Composition Department of Tokyo University of Music in 1989 and won the 29th Japan Film Academy Best Score and the 39th Japanese Drama Academy Award for Best Score.
But all this goes back to his music, and as soon as the movie opens, Zaitaro and a monk, a dog,
Flying Pills escape from the burning temple, shaking cameras, heavy gasps, nervous atmosphere spontaneously,
The monk was physically weak, and gave Zaitaro a piece of jade to tell him to reach his destination safely.
The critical atmosphere was rendered again, and then the camera turned to the mountain road with heavy rain, the Ming Dynasty officers and soldiers were rushing to the road, and the secret mountain thieves immediately reported the news.
"Get up, there's prey!"
As soon as the sound of the mountain thief fell, the fierce music immediately sounded, and the picture immediately turned to the scene of the mountain thief and the officers and soldiers fighting.
The sound of swords, the sound of trumpets, flutes, drums, and the intense tension instantly exploded!
The sound of wailing, rain, blood splashing, the sound of swords clashing, not only the visual fluency and excitement, coupled with the excellent atmospheric explosiveness of the soundtrack,
The instruments used are also more primitive, and the themes of "foreigners" and "samurai" are always emphasized.
In the later stages of the film, Naoki Sato's music also sets off the loneliness of the aliens very well.
The excitement of encountering an opponent of equal strength, and the wandering heart of following one's heart and guarding one's own desire to protect.
With the accumulation of copywriting and the excellent guarantee of music and production, the next step is the specific character performance.
The movie is called "Aliens Without Emperor Blade Tan", and the focus here is on the foreigners in it, because the performance of foreigners in this film is really remarkable.
This also complements the free, calm, sentient, and cool themes that set off the rendering.
Zaitaro, the central character of the film, comes from the Ming Dynasty and flees to Japan.
A young but intelligent, cautious figure who always does not abandon his friends.
Zaitaro parted ways with the monk Master Shogun, and he followed Master Shogan's instructions to go to Manjue-ji Temple.
This is Zaitaro's first appearance.
Zaitaro's second appearance is with his beloved dog, The Flying Pill.
As mentioned above, Japan was in chaos at this time, the people were living in poverty, and most of the people living in the grass huts between the mountain roads were old, weak, sick and disabled.
In front of a straw door, Fei Maru attracts the attention of the old man by taking away his things.
When the old man was stumbling on crutches and chasing the flying pills, Zaitaro ran into the old man's home to rummage for food and drink, and then immediately joined the flying pills.
In this scene, not only can we see The cleverness of Hidamaru as a dog, but also the "cleverness" of Zaitaro,
Of course, is it shameful to rob the elderly of food?
The previous article has created a background of poverty and chaos, many ordinary people live in poverty, not to mention that Zaitaro has no support for money and food along the way, things are not all right,
When I saw this, I actually didn't have a bad impression of Zaitaro.
Then, Zaitaro returns to the broken temple and formally meets the other protagonist of the work, Nameless.
In this interview, Zaitaro's expression of namelessness is full of suspicion and rejection,
Not giving him food and letting him leave the broken temple, Zaitaro's caution and suspiciousness can also be seen,
At Zaitaro's age, his careful personality also reflects the hardships of his past life, and he lived under the pursuit of Ming officers and soldiers.
During a hunting battle, Shotamaru was unfortunately poisoned, and when his life was in danger, Zaitaro sought a way to save it.
Later in the film, as Nameless solved the officers and soldiers who were hunting for him, and Nameless was strong in martial arts, Zaitaro used the jade given by Master Shogan to hire Nameless to escort him to Manjue Temple.
Along the way, the two gradually opened their hearts and treated sincerely.
Nameless, mentioned in the film that he is actually red-haired, which is also a symbol of his "alien",
He dreamed many times, and his past experience on the battlefield left him with a past that was difficult to let go.
As for where he came from, it is not known exactly,
Nameless had been using a sap made from the fruit of the tree to dye his hair black so that others wouldn't be afraid of him.
Nameless carried a sword with him, but he connected the hilt with the sheath with a rope, that is, he was reluctant to draw the sword.
Why don't you want to draw your knife?
At the end of the movie, it is explained that he once served the government, and the government ordered him to kill innocent children in public, he hesitated, and finally forced to do it under pressure.
He had a conscience, he was unwilling and did not understand why innocent people should be allowed to bear the fault of the ruler, he understood that it was not his heart, so he chose to wander.
The sword was blocked and there was no more fighting.
Nameless's feeling in the film is always lonely, calm, and not easy to fight, but as the story progresses, his state of mind is gradually changed by Zaitaro.
Luo Wolf, another important person, yellow hair, crappy Chinese, and a "foreigner".
Strong in martial arts, flexible in swordplay, does not chase fame and fortune, and does not care about the orders of his superiors,
He was only concerned with whether he could get what he wanted, whether he could find an opponent who was on par with him, and for him the king was nothing more than a name.
When his superior, Bai Luan, took gunpowder to kill Nameless, Luo Wolf did not hesitate to kill Bai Luan.
About the wonderful performance of these three characters,
Nothing compares the first confrontation between Wolves and Nameless and the wonderful battle at the end of the film.
The first meeting between Luo Wolf and Nameless was when Nameless went to the market to buy a saddle, and Nameless walked on the way back to the grass house, and Wolf luo and his entourage drove forward on horseback.
The two passed each other, and Luo Wolf immediately stopped, his mind very sharp,
The two looked at each other on the bridge, and there was no music at this time, only quiet children playing with gyroscopes, yawning fishermen, and quietly waiting retinues.
Luo Wolf suddenly went straight to the nameless, nameless blindly dodging, never drawing the sword, Luo Wolf questioned him:
"Why don't you draw the sword", nameless and not answered, Luo Wolf was still unsatisfied, and wanted to continue,
If it weren't for the retinue telling him that there was an order from above, he would have continued to duel with the nameless.
In the wonderful story, all the contradictions come together, Bai Luan, as a courtier of the Ming Dynasty, is loyal to the Ming Dynasty, and he is old enough to have the idea of getting a piece of the elixir of immortality.
So he defended the ritual as hard as he could.
Although Luo Wolf served the Ming Dynasty, his deepest wish was to find a real opponent.
So much so that he later killed Bai Luan with his own hands and engaged in a real duel with Nameless.
Nameless's heart only wanted to save Zaitaro, remembering what he could not protect in the past, this time he decided to obey his heart and break free of the restraints and pull out his sword.
As a Japanese general, knotweed is also a person with strong martial arts, and he is unwilling to blindly obey the orders of his stupid superiors.
He preferred to use his true strength to determine his position, so he participated in this struggle.
At the end of the ming-day showdown, Luo Wolf won by an overwhelming margin, and at this time, the struggle between Nameless and Luo Wolf had just begun.
The play here is the culmination of the work.
A fight scene, 8,000 original paintings, what is this concept?
In the case of the same length, the general good play is about 200 original paintings, and 8,000 pictures are used here. The production team is indeed well-intentioned.
The battle ended with an unnamed victory, the Luo Wolf sword technique was flexible, and the nameless footwork was solid,
Both stabbed each other with their swords, but Zaitaro saved Nameless Jade's life.
It's like a joke from the director, but the story makes sense.
In any case, they are all winners, they bravely pursue what they want, they all obey their own hearts, they only want to use their strength to prove who is stronger,
They are all people from nowhere, and finally they come together here and compete here.
Wonderful fighting performance and atmospheric music are seamlessly matched,
With a well-crafted script, deeply rooted characters, and an admirable spirit, the film creates a tangible martial arts flavor.
This unpopular but constantly admirable work was not flattering at that time, but only commercially.
Perhaps the production company Bone Society has spent a lot of effort to make such a work that cannot be recovered from the cost and does not regret it.