The 1905 movie network special article "King Arthur: Battle of the Beasts" has been released in China today. The current early reputation is not optimistic, only 25% on Rotten Tomatoes, and the relatively authoritative metacritic score is only 44 points.
But when it comes to the director of this film, the famous Guy Richie, most fans will not be unfamiliar, he handed over a famous debut work as early as 20 years ago - "Two Big Smoking Guns", which is still listed in the list of "famous gangster films in film history", which belongs to the must-see series of this genre.
Guy Richie had always loved to make crime, underground, action, and black humor in his early years, and it wasn't until these years that he took over mainstream business stories like Sherlock Holmes.
The third installment of Sherlock Holmes does not yet have a suitable script
Although "Sherlock Holmes" is generally popular, the action scenes are fascinating and not low to watch. So Guy Richie continued to make "King Arthur: Battle of the Beasts", trying to tell the legend of King Arthur into the feeling of a black crime film - the film also used "gangster rock style" as a promotional gimmick to integrate ancient legends into modern rock.
But after watching the film, you will find that gangsters are unrealistic, legends are twisted and deformed, and rock is raw and hard.
The main plot line seems to continue the classic King Arthur story, but this "Arthur King" is better to say "Lion King", because this is a human version of the Lion King's revenge story.
Uncle Scar Voltigan killed the great and majestic king Mufasa Usa, and The son of Mufasa Usa, Simba Arthur, was exiled and grew up with the animal knights, and finally Simba Arthur learned of his origins, killed the ill-gotten uncle Scar Voltigen, and regained the throne.
……
Joo Delore plays Arthur's Shu in the film, corresponding to the scar in "The Lion King"
This kind of revenge, while reasonable, is all too cliché. The story of the uncle usurping the throne, the son escaping, and the son regaining his father's throne when he grows up is simply the borrowed corpse of Hamlet.
Shakespeare is an adaptation of the father-killing complex in ancient Greco-Roman mythology under a new ethic. But his old man had been dead for 400 years, and the story of the prince's revenge did not tell anything new.
The so-called "gangster" element is an element of civilianization added to the legend of the nobility. In the film, Arthur fled the capital because of his uncle's usurpation of the throne, grew up in a brothel, became a land snake, and made a living with his friends by collecting protection fees, fighting, and abduction, full of banditry, they are not like "knights", more like goons.
The melon-eating audience can't help but ask: Can a group of "rabble-rousers" defeat their powerful uncles and regain the throne?
The plot is explained as follows: because King Arthur drew the Holy Sword by blood, and the Holy Sword brought an infinitely powerful bonus Buff to his original mediocre force value.
exo me？ It's just a sword! World of Warcraft doesn't dare to make it up like this!
So, what exactly does the legend of "King Arthur" look like? What are the differences with this movie? Let this article take you through the medieval "wild history" and unlock new poses.
Who is "King Arthur"?
King Arthur is a household name in Europe and the United States, often used as the protagonist of literature and art, he is the most legendary leader of ancient British folk tales, and the legend about him has been circulated for nearly 1500 years and has endured for nearly 1500 years.
It can be understood as Sun Wukong on the European continent
Just like "Journey to the West", the legend of King Arthur has also been rewritten and remade by posterity, and the audience has been aesthetically tired and still tried and tested, but because the original legend is too long and the content is too rich, it can also ensure that the theme will not be repeated every time it is remade.
come! Let's take a look at King Arthur's ups and downs.
The History of the Kings of Britain is the earliest literary work documenting the legend of King Arthur
First of all, the child's origin is more interesting, King Arthur was originally the illegitimate son of the previous King of Britain, Usser, and the duke's wife. It may be that this identity influenced the glorious image of King Arthur, so it is almost not covered in later adaptations.
We won't mention black history...
Arthur was entrusted to the sorcerer Merlin as a child, and grew up in the commoner class, he was not only handsome in appearance, but also possessed good qualities such as kindness, integrity, benevolence, and courtesy.
Born with a ox X sparkling protagonist aura
Of course, only having quality cannot become a legend, and then the famous "sword drawing incident" occurred.
The old king Euser died, the bishop proposed that only the noble knight who drew the holy sword could become the new king of England, and in the case of all the warriors trying to fail, only Arthur pulled out the holy sword in the stone, so it was logical to be elected as the new king of Britain, and led the knight team to find the Holy Grail, pushing Britain to unprecedented strength and prosperity.
A casual search on the Internet, the painting style is purple sauce
The above story alone is enough to shoot a blockbuster, but the legend of King Arthur is not over, they all say that "it is more difficult to keep a job than to start a business", and the country and mountains obtained after pulling out a sword cannot be easily handed over to people, so governing the country has also become the number one important thing in front of King Arthur, for this reason, he came up with a "round table" way of governing the country, and this system really made King Arthur famous for eternity.
Nowadays, whether it is the Oscars or the film symposium, the concept of "round table" is often used
The Round Table was a huge round table where kings discussed political affairs during the Time of King Arthur, and King Arthur sat at the edge of the round table with the knights around him, where there was no distinction between kings and subjects, and everyone was free to speak. Thus, the "round table" symbolized equality and unity, and became a symbolic image of progressive significance in later works.
Later, the knights who appeared at the round table each interpreted their own legendary stories, which became the motif of the literature and art of later generations. We also often find legends about "Arthur" and his knights in various film and television works.
King Arthur: The Most Orthodox "King Arthur"
In 2004, director Anthony Fuquia directed a "King Arthur", which coincided with the mushrooming of epic films such as "Troy" and "Beowulf".
Starring Cliff Owen and Kayla Knightley, "King Arthur" is basically inherited from the legend of King Arthur, the plot is decent, nothing new, suitable for history lovers to seek popular science.
The film obscures Arthur's own illegitimate son and highlights the plot of King Arthur and his knights fighting in all directions to defend their homeland.
This version of King Arthur focuses on the noble qualities of knighthood, and only the bravery of good and loyal people, fighting side by side against the injustice and cruelty of reality, finally defends the home of freedom in their minds.
And the war continues, but the knights have long been born of nostalgia for the homeland and tired of the war, one war after another seems to be an endless cycle, freedom for the knights is like an illusory shore that can never be reached, it is inevitable to make people feel helpless fate.
Although the film is highly restored to historical facts, it seems to be somewhat bland and boring, and although the scene is large, it lacks highlights.
The First Samurai: King Arthur in a green hat
There is nothing more to be tasted in knightly literature than the love of knights. This is the eternal theme of Western knight literature, King Arthur has more than 150 knights around him, and the most legendary and romantic love is the love story of knight Lancelot and Queen Arthur.
The movie "The First Samurai" is a legend of King Arthur that starts with a knight story. Starring veteran 007 actor Sean Connery.
Lancelot, a knight of the Round Table, falls in love with King Arthur's queen Guinevere, and in the original legend, Lancelot and Queen Guinevere establish a "platonic love".
But in the film, the courtship between Lancelot and Guinevere is more like the village head washing and blowing the village flowers, full of worldly meaning, not much romantic feeling, but Sean Connery's King Arthur is old and heavy, and he performs the sense of responsibility and mission of shouldering heavy responsibilities.
As with all love triangle stories, the betrayed party always thinks about how to punish or retaliate, and King Arthur is also an ordinary husband. But Arthur, as king of Britain, faced with his beloved wife and the best knight, fell into a conflict between defending the country and his personal personal feelings, and in the end Arthur could only choose the responsibility of the king's home country.
After some struggle, he chose not to persecute the knight Lancelot, and forced a green hat to change the stability and peace of the country.
"Ace Agent": a brain-opening "adaptation"
The movie "Ace Agent" uses a lot of elements of the legend of King Arthur, yes, only elements. The final film is a novel thrill, a group of agent knights who fight the villain and save the world. Every agent exploded, which made people shine.
In the film, the Kingston Secret Service recognizes the medieval Knights of the Round Table as their grandfather, so they simply name the positions after the Knights of the Round Table of King Arthur.
The head of the secret service, this white-haired grandfather, naturally took the name of the knight leader, Arthur;
The tragic uncle who was cut in half and hung up not long after the film began, called Lancelot, is a very popular knight in the legend, and in the above "First Knight", we also introduced that he had a leg with Queen Arthur;
No wonder it was split in half...
After his death, the name Lancelot was inherited by the new female agent;
Harry, played by Uncle Colin, the most suitable man in the world to wear a suit, is also known as Galahad in the film, and the legend says that Galahad is the purest knight of the Round Table, and only he can hold the Holy Grail.
This bald sweater otaku and computer master is the instructor of the male protagonist Egsy, named Merlin. Don't look at him not much, it's not small. According to legend, Merlin was King Arthur's best friend and mentor, and King Arthur's most trusted person.
The specific plot of "Ace Agent" is very different from That of King Arthur, for example, halfway through the film, Arthur, the head of Agent, betrays the Kingston Secret Service.
But we can still see some shadow of the legend of King Arthur.
The "knight" agents in the film no longer support a certain "king", they only insist on chivalry and personal glory, and also affect the gentlemanly spirit of future Generations of British people. They want to be heroes, save the world, and embrace beauty.
The movie "Ace Agent" seems to be novel and playful, humorous and ridiculous, but in the celebration of bravery and justice, it promotes the return to traditional Britain and calls for the return of gentleman's character.
More than 1500 years later, Arthur opened a new chapter of his own in the fantasy plot and the music with feelings, mixed with Guy Richie's black humor. After this test, will any director be willing to challenge this epic masterpiece? Where else could his fate go?