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Mr. Lu Xun once explained what is an "abominable crime":
"I always thought people were guilty, so I was shot or imprisoned. It is now known that many of them were finally guilty of being considered 'hateful'. ”
When I was a child, I didn't understand things, I didn't understand the profound meaning of these words, until I watched "The Black Cannon Incident" in 1985, and I suddenly realized that he was too right.
"The Black Cannon Incident" is Huang Jianxin's directorial debut, and it is also his sharpest work, which has received four nominations at the 6th Chinese Film Golden Rooster Awards, and the actor Liu Zifeng finally won the film emperor.
But the awards are illusory, the quality is real, the film is recognized as the "largest scale" satirical comedy film in our mainland, the story theme is thought-provoking, and the critical power in it can be described as a latecomer.
All this is due to the once very relaxed creative environment of the 1980s, and in less than 10 years, many domestic films with unique styles and avant-garde ideas have been born.
The "Black Cannon Incident" is also one of the most representative, the film is adapted from Zhang Xianliang's novel "Romantic Black Cannon", which tells about a storm around a lost black cannon chess piece.
The protagonist of the story is named Zhao Shuxin, an engineer from a mining company who graduated from the Department of Mechanical Engineering of Tsinghua University.
Low-key, unworldly, conscientious and responsible, still single at nearly fifty years old, is a typical nerd.
Like most otaku, Zhao Shuxin's hobby is simple, that is, drinking some shochu and playing two games of chess.
But even the little thing of playing chess caused him a lot of trouble.
One rainy night, Zhao Shuxin braved the rain to send a telegram to the post office, which read: "The black cannon lost 301 to find Zhao."
At that time, the telegram was still charged by word, and the price was naturally not cheap, but the man in front of him braved the heavy rain to run over to send these words? The content is still so inexplicable?
The dispatcher who felt strange immediately reported upwards, and soon the matter became a big fuss, and the public security department even decided to file a case for investigation, and the mining company where Zhao Shuxin worked was also vigilant and began to secretly investigate, calling it the "black cannon incident".
Just at this time, the company bought a set of WD engineering equipment from Germany, and the German side sent an expert Hans Schmidt to guide the installation and commissioning work.
Originally, Zhao Shuxin should be responsible for the reception, after all, he knew German, and the last time the two of them met, they seemed to see each other as before. But now that Zhao Shuxin has become a suspect, naturally he can no longer see outsiders, let alone foreigners.
Not only did the company not allow it to be seen, but the company also suspected that there might really be an ulterior motive between Zhao Shuxin and Hans.
In order to prevent the two from meeting again, the unit leader transferred Zhao Shuxin from his post and arranged for him to work in the maintenance plant. But there was still a shortage of people to translate for Hans, so the company urgently transferred a tour guide Feng Liangcai, who was proficient in German, from the tourism department to help.
It is said that all walks of life have professional terms, although Xiao Feng can speak fluent German, he does not understand the technical terms of machinery at all, and often makes mistakes in his daily work, Hans is often provoked to be angry, and Xiao Feng himself is also helpless.
Hans repeatedly reflected the situation to the company and asked to find Zhao Shuxin, but the unit leader has been pressing, that is, he will not let Zhao Shuxin come back to work. To that end, they also held many meetings to discuss the issue, but to no avail.
Manager Li Renzhong, who grasped the technical problems of production, saw that he could not do anything without Zhao Shuxin, and also believed that such "cold treatment" was extremely unfair to Zhao Shuxin, so he actively investigated in depth, hoping to understand the doubts in the telegram of Zhao Shuxin as soon as possible.
After investigation, Manager Li quickly figured out that the so-called "black cannon lost 301 to find Zhao", only because Zhao Shuxin left a black cannon chess piece in the hotel room when he was on a business trip, he sent a telegram to the relatives and friends in room 301, asking him to help find the black cannon.
However, the evidence was placed in front of him, and Zhou Yuzhen, deputy secretary of the company, ignored it and still held on to the "suspects" of Zhao Shuxin.
And she thinks her concerns are justified: How much is a pawn worth, and why would Zhao Shuxin, a man who is financially scheming, spend more than a dollar to send a telegram for a worthless pawn?
If the truth is judged by subjective thoughts, then things cannot be explained clearly.
Although most of the people in the company were on the side of Manager Li, and some people kept coming out to speak for Zhao Shuxin, after all, it was an "official-based" decision-making mechanism at that time, saying that it was a meeting to discuss, but the decision-making power was still in the leadership. Even if everyone thinks so, Secretary Wu and Deputy Secretary Zhou refuse to nod, and no one can do anything.
However, Deputy Secretary Zhou just held the attitude of preferring to believe what he had and not to trust him, and Secretary Wu, the decision-maker, liked the style of calming things and thin mud, so in the end they all got into a stalemate.
Although the propaganda in the unit will no longer investigate Zhao Shuxin on the "black cannon incident", it still does not allow him to participate in the installation of the WD project, and Manager Li is in a hurry and has difficulty speaking.
The truth of the matter, we still have to find the "black cannon" chess piece to verify.
Finally, on a certain day, the chess pieces were sent to the company, and Deputy Secretary Zhou preemptively intercepted the package such as the treasure, thinking that this time he had found evidence, and could not wait to open it to see, but it turned out that it was really a chess piece, making it stand on the spot.
The WD was already installed, and Hans Schmidt left China and returned to Germany.
However, after 20 days of WD, there was an abnormal operation, and all the lines inside were burned down, and the loss was as high as millions. At this time, they thought of Zhao Shuxin and transferred him back to check the equipment failure.
After a detailed inspection of the installation records, Zhao Shuxin quickly found the root cause of the problem, and there is a sentence in the note 27 of the manual that says: "All the bearings on the machine are bald", and this sentence is translated as: "All the brackets are bald". So the workers replaced the brackets, but did not replace the bearings, which led to the occurrence of abnormal situations.
Causing such a catastrophe, the management of the unit is hard to blame, and someone needs to come out and carry the pot, right? The film does not give an answer, leaving only an end to Zhao Shuxin's no longer playing chess.
The rigidity of the system of mining companies and the superfluousness of people are in sharp contrast with the serious and responsible spirit of the Germans Hans and Zhao Shuxin.
It is clear what kind of attitude we need in our work, but it is the various shortcomings of management that affect the normal operation of the whole company.
The story of "The Black Cannon Incident" is very typical, the scale is also very large, but it is not special, it often happens in our daily work and life.
Because it was too realistic, it was still unable to pass because of the sensitivity of the subject matter when it was sent for review, and it was Huang Jianxin's teacher Wu Tianming who came forward to maneuver around to let the film pass the review, but it was still deleted and changed sixty or seventy times.
But even if it is not the original appearance, "The Black Cannon Incident" is bold and ostentatious enough.
The director uses a lot of metaphors in the film, and the use of color, scenes and backgrounds are very creative.
The dominoes at the end of the film symbolize the fate of Zhao Shuxin, and also hint that each of us, as long as we are in such a collective, cannot escape the fate of falling down with them.
It's just a pity that this kind of "god film" that amazes you and me is difficult to find after 35 years of changes in the times, and whenever I think about it, I can't help but sigh, and maybe I can only take this old film out to talk about masturbation.
Text/Pippi Film Editorial Department: Bloody Dan Heart
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