To throw aside a question, what are the best domestic war films in your mind?
This is a good question to answer, and it is not easy to answer.
There is no fixed standard, and different people naturally have different choices in their hearts.
The choices of the older generation may be "Mine Warfare" and "Tunnel Warfare" in the sixties, "Garland Under the Mountain" and "Evening Bell" in the 1980s, "Armageddon" in the 1990s, etc.
The choices of the younger generation may be "The Devil Is Coming", "The Gathering Number", "Nanjing! nanking! "Bullfighting", "Red Sea Operation", "Eight Hundred" and so on.
But if I say, there is a domestic war film series that may be overlooked by everyone.
It is the "red, yellow and purple" war trilogy.
That is, Feng Xiaoning's "Red River Valley", "Yellow River Love" and "Purple Sun".
These three domestic war films had a high reputation in the late 90s, and there were more war reflections in the commercial focus, which was a rare masterpiece.
In particular, "Purple Sun", which is the final work of the trilogy, is set before and after the surrender of the Japanese army at the end of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and tells the story of the escape of a Chinese peasant, a Soviet female soldier and a Japanese girl in the daxinganling forest area.
This unique war film puts war in the background, pushes man and nature into the foreground, and sees beauty in cruelty and waves in silence.
It has not only received high praise from domestic film fans, but also circled a large number of fans overseas.
With this trilogy in hand, director Feng Xiaoning was also pushed as the spokesperson for domestic war films.
But no one expected that after "Purple Sun", Feng Xiaoning turned around and filmed "Raise Your Hand", which entertained and played the war, and the style contrast was so great that people were shocked to drop their jaws.
After that, he failed to make really eye-catching good films, and over time, his past achievements seemed to be covered up by those bad films.
This year marks the twentieth anniversary of the release of Purple Sun.
Look back at this old movie and see how it depicted war and the complex human nature of war twenty years ago.
In August 1945, daxinganling in the northeast.
After the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression turned into a counteroffensive and the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, a group of Japanese troops entrenched in the forest areas were still stubbornly resisting.
Perhaps knowing that the tide was over, the mad Japanese army began to massacre Chinese civilians.
In front of the gray earthen wall, a row of Chinese people with chains and rags in rags was being executed by the Japanese army, and after a burst of machine gun fire, the wall was left with blood.
The protagonist Yang Yufu slowly stood up from the pile of dead people, he was not dead, and looked at the Japanese army opposite with a look of resentment.
Just as the Japanese soldiers were changing bullets, a Soviet tank broke through the earthen wall...
Yang Yufu was thus saved by the Soviet Red Army.
Since he was the only surviving Chinese in the camp, the Soviets had to take him with him, and with him was a female Soviet soldier who cared for the wounded, named Nadya.
On the way, they engaged in a scuffle with a group of Japanese troops, the troops were scattered, and Yang Yufu hid in the vast mountains with the Soviet female soldier and another soldier.
They didn't speak each other's languages, so there was no communication, and Yang Yufu just followed behind them.
While crossing a wooden bridge, they spotted a Japanese girl in the form of a student in the guard post by the bridge.
The girl's sister had just committed suicide by poisoning herself, and the Soviet soldiers wanted to kill her, but Nadya stopped them, because if they wanted to get out of the forest, they had to have a guide who was familiar with it.
So the Japanese girls were tied up like captives and walked ahead of them to lead the way.
This is the first twenty minutes of the film.
At this point, Chinese peasants, Soviet soldiers, Japanese girls, and people from three different countries temporarily formed a special squad.
Using body movements instead of words, they relied on and waryed of each other and embarked on a long journey through the woods.
It can be seen from this prologue that unlike those war films that focus on specific battles and shape the image of soldiers or officers, "Purple Sun" has its own unique features in the background of the story and the choice of characters.
Its story begins on the eve of the end of the War of Resistance Against Japan, when the defeat of the Japanese army was a foregone conclusion.
Therefore, the whole film does not focus on highlighting the war itself, but is intended to show the mentality and choice of people of different camps and different destinies at the end of the war.
In terms of character setting, the protagonist Yang Yufu is just an ordinary and even somewhat wooden Chinese peasant.
There is no protagonist aura without rendering and beautification, which is very similar to "The Devil is Coming".
Director Feng Xiaoning once recalled that he originally wanted to use women as the protagonist, but later changed his mind when he considered that the low-level farmers at that time were the representatives of most Chinese.
In order to get close to the appearance of the peasants, Fu Dalong, who played Yang Yufu, was directly "delegated" to the countryside of Hebei by the director, staying for several months, living a completely same life as the locals.
Let's look at the situation in which the characters are.
A peasant who was taken to work as a laborer in the Kanto region, a Soviet Red Army who had come to Daxing'anling from Siberia, and a Japanese girl who had moved to the northeast with her parents since childhood.
They were also foreigners who were placed in the endless Daxing'anling forest area.
The forest cut off the smoke of war outside, gradually stripping away complex political relations, leaving only living individuals as "people".
Under such a typical situation and tension relationship, there are those frequent emotional moments in the later part of the movie.
Led by the Japanese girls, they came to an empty meadow, which was actually a minefield.
Although the male soldiers who accompanied them knew how to clear mines, they were unfortunately killed by the explosion.
Realizing that it was a trap, Nadya angrily shot at the Japanese girl's feet, forcing her to run out of a safe line.
After safely crossing the minefield, Nadya handed the bayonet to Yang Yufu and said: You are a man.
It turned out that she wanted Yang Yufu to kill the Japanese girl.
Yang Yufu, who had been an honest farmer for half a lifetime, couldn't get his hands down, and looking at the girl's pleading eyes in front of him, he roared.
With an empty shot, the time and space switch to Yang Yufu's rural hometown before he was arrested in the northeast.
He and his mother were tied to two pillars, and a Japanese recruit with a bayonet was being asked to do "enlistment training," which was to stab two Chinese in front of him.
Yang Yufu first begged and then scolded, but in the end he could not save his mother.
Then the camera turned back, the knife was thrown on the ground, and Yang Yufu burst into tears.
He hated the Japanese, but if he really wanted him to kill a Japanese girl who had no vendetta against him, he still couldn't do it.
The three of them could only continue to move forward, this boundless Xing'an Ridge, out of a forest or forest, for them, out of the forest to survive became the first thing.
Regarding the transformation of the relationship between the three people in the film, the director designed a very clever and completely cinematic bridge - crossing the canoe bridge.
It was a broken log straddling a swamp, and because her hands were tied, the Japanese girl accidentally fell into the swamp while crossing the bridge.
Watching her body sink slowly, if not saved, she would soon die.
Yang Yufu also hesitated to throw her here, but eventually took the machine gun from the Soviet female soldiers.
He lay down on the broken wood and handed the end of the gun to the girl.
Because of the deep sinking, Yang Yufu failed to drag the girl out, but instead slipped his hand, and the gun was completely grabbed by the Japanese girl, and the direction of the muzzle was just facing himself...
The three of them froze in an instant, the Japanese girl held the gun high, as if it would pull the trigger at any moment, and Yang Yufu also had the illusion that the girl shot him.
After waking up for a moment, he reached out again and grabbed the muzzle of the gun, and the girl at the other end clutched the handle of the gun, which was pulled up.
There is not a single line in the whole paragraph.
With the help of a broken wood and a gun, the psychological transformation between the three people from suspicion and distrust to laying down all baggage and only asking for the life of a person is fully and intuitively expressed.
When the threesome is no longer so tense, everyone's inner world is slowly revealed through flashbacks.
A young-faced Japanese girl named Akihachi was originally a student, but she joined the army because of the Volunteer Military Service Law promulgated by the Emperor, and joined the Volunteer Brigade after the age of 17.
The boy she liked was recruited into the Kamikaze, the fanatical death squad known for suicide warfare at the end of World War II, leaving only a music box as a keepsake before the two separated.
Yang Yufu has painful concentration camp memories, in the Japanese army to carry out bacterial live experiments, he is responsible for carrying the corpses of his compatriots every day, and even watched a compatriot who had not yet swallowed gas be put into a sack and burned alive.
The Soviet female soldier lamented that this was the most beautiful autumn she had ever seen, but the war was too long for her, from Moscow to Berlin, from Prague to Daxinganling...
She knew it wouldn't be long before the war was over, but she was afraid of dying before it was over, as if she had said something bland and melancholy: The forest never ends, as if there were only three of us left in the world.
Later in the movie, the three of them who put down their suspicions spent a difficult time together.
Drenched in heavy rain, encountering beasts on the road, holding hands with each other and wading across the river...
The director uses the picturesque autumn colors of Daxing'anling as the silhouette background of the three people, which beautifully makes people forget their identities.
It's just that this beauty is soon broken by the cruel ending.
If "Purple Sun" only ends the film with three people putting aside their hatred and giving up their political identities and becoming friends or even family, then its thematic strength is obviously far from enough, at best, it is a pass.
As an anti-war film, the really stinging and reflective part of the film is at the end.
After some ordeal, the three finally arrived at a populated area, driving an abandoned military vehicle through the golden mountains.
On the radio, the news came that Japan had officially announced its surrender, and when she learned that the war was really over, Nadya took off her military uniform and changed into a white shirt, and Autumn Leaves happily picked flowers on the hillside.
Suddenly they heard a gunshot. Autumn leaves climbed up the hillside and froze.
It turned out that not far away were the remnants of a Japanese army and a group of Japanese civilians, who were in a mess.
Some were cutting their stomachs, some were pulling the trigger with their toes after aiming their guns at themselves, some were shooting at the wounded, and some were pulling grenades after raising a glass of wine.
An officer shouted in the crowd, "At the moment of great shame and humiliation, the kings can only be loyal to the jade." ”
The remaining soldiers then bent down to apologize to the Japanese civilians, followed by a burst of strafing, and some handed grenades as "toys" to the babies still in their mother's arms.
This scene of madness accompanied by gunshots, explosions, cries and wild laughter is no less than hell on earth.
Autumn Leaf was deeply stung by the scene in front of her, and she shouted "Stop, the war is over!" We can go home! "While running to her compatriots, suddenly a gunshot rang out, the flowers in her hand were thrown into the air, and she fell on the grass...
Many people may not have thought that a domestic war film that began with the tragic experience of Chinese peasants ended in such a way.
At the same time, this also shows that after the war films "Meridian of War", "Red River Valley" and "Yellow River Love", director Feng Xiaoning did have a deeper thinking on this genre.
He has always emphasized that "Purple Sun" is the last of the six parts of the "War and Peace", and his expression of the theme of war and peace basically ends here, which is a summary.
Twenty years on, this "summary" work has indeed stood the test of time.
But it is also regrettable that the highlight moment of Feng Xiaoning's war film creation has completely become history, and the next representative of domestic war films will have to wait until the "Gathering Number" six years later.
Looking a little wider, looking back at the war movies around 2000, I realize that it was really a stage of the collective explosion of good works.
On the domestic front, the two high-scoring films "The Devil Is Coming" and "Purple Sun" are only one year apart, the former boldly borrowing the background of the War of Resistance Against Japan to write about the national nature, and the latter filming the charm of the classic Soviet film "Here the Dawn Is Quiet".
On the foreign side, Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan" and Ridley Scott's "Black Hawk Down" are recognized as textbooks for war films, French director Jean-Jacques Arnold made "Soldiers Under the City", South Korea has "Common Security Zone", Bosnia and Herzegovina has "Borderlands"...
From the moment the war began, everyone lost. These films may help us understand this sentence more realistically.