I think that even if Hollywood is at the top of the sky, Chinese always prefer Chinese stories, Chinese always love Chinese movies more.
Objectively speaking, the current Chinese films really can't make visual effects blockbusters like "Ready Player One". However, to tell a good story, Chinese movies are not useless: "Bursting into Silence"
In 2004, in the bitter winter, a mining town in northern China.
A shepherd boy herds herdsed sheep, passing shallow ditches, walking through barren barren mountains, small figures, disappearing on the horizon...
Two days later, the miner Zhang Baomin received a call from his wife: hurry home, his son disappeared while herding sheep...
Miner [Zhang Baomin] is played by [Song Yang].
Zhang Baomin was a mute, hot-tempered man, who often fought in the village, and once used a sheep bone to burst one of the eyes of the lamb shop owner, so he ate for several years in prison.
Knowing that his son was missing, Zhang Baomin rushed home eagerly, and he kept thinking: His son is familiar with every mountain, every river, and every tree in the village, and he will not lose it himself, unless...
Chang Wannian is a famous "capable person" in the county, he is the chairman of Hongchang Mining Group, and he can eat well in both black and white.
Recently, Chang Wannian has been very distressed, on the one hand, the public security organs are collecting evidence of his illegal mining, bullying, extortion...
On the other hand, he also has a big secret in his heart...
[Chang Wannian] is played by [Jiang Wu].
Xu Wenjie, a well-known barrister in the city, is the defense lawyer for the illegal mining case of Hongchang Group.
For the sake of self-interest, he disregarded professional ethics and provided perjury for Chang Wannian. Unexpectedly, he was thus involved in more complex events, putting him on the brink of collapse...
[Xu Wenjie] is played by [Yuan Wenkang].
Three unrelated people, two unrelated disappearances, accidentally linked together, all inseparable, all falling into the abyss of sin...
This "Bursting Silence" is the second work directed by Xin Yukun, whose debut film "Labyrinth of Hearts" directed in 2014 won acclaim and became internationally renowned, receiving a high score of 8.6 against the sky and ranking 167th in the Douban TOP250...
Labyrinth of Hearts poster
As a novice director, Xin Yukun achieved such an amazing result in his first work at a cost of only 1.7 million yuan, which is rare in the Chinese film industry.
What is valuable is that after the fire of "Labyrinth of Hearts", Xin Yukun did not inflate himself, did not mess with himself, and he did not hesitate to spend three years to shoot this sincere work.
Compared with the previous work "Labyrinth of Hearts", the production of "Bursting Silence" is more exquisite, the lineup is more powerful, but it is slightly inferior in the complexity of the script and characters, and the pace is relatively slow, so the Douban score has declined, but it still has a high score of 7.9, proud of most domestic cinema movies.
The distributor even openly played the subtitle of "Lock in the Annual Chinese Top Ten in Advance" in the trailer, and this is the first time I have encountered such a confident domestic film.
More importantly, "Bursting into Silence" is a rare domestic film that reveals the "evil of human nature" and can also be released in Chinese mainland theaters.
You know, Ning Hao's "No Man's Land" was hidden in the snow for four years because "no good person" in the film... And in the early days of this movie, its title was even called: "Wicked Man"
For thousands of years, the debate on whether "human nature is inherently good" or "human nature is inherently evil" has never stopped.
Mencius said: At the beginning of man, nature is good...
Xun Zi said: Human nature is evil, and its good ones are false...
How can we mere mortals easily say what the saints cannot say clearly?
In the 1990s, CCTV broadcast a program called "International College Debate Competition" in prime time, one of which was the final between Fudan University and National Taiwan University, which was far more popular at that time than today's "Strange Story", and the theme of that debate was: Is human nature inherently good or human nature inherently evil?
In the end, Fudan University, with the argument of "human nature is inherently evil", defeated Taiwan University with an absolute advantage of five to zero and became the annual champion.
In that debate there was a defense that the reason why man can become the primate of all things is not because the white wall is flawless and perfect, but because man has the courage to know himself and admit that human nature is inherently evil.
Hegel said: People think that when they say that human nature is inherently good, they are speaking a great idea. But they forget that when they say that human nature is inherently evil, they are speaking of a much greater idea.
In this "Burst into Silence", Xin Yukun focuses the camera on human nature rolling in desire, at the cruelty and selfishness in human nature...
Yes, this is not a comfortable movie, especially the ending is very shocking, that is the real thought, chilling, shocking.
However, probably for the sake of the review, after the end of the film, a superfluous "little tail" was added, diluting the cruelty of the story and forcibly pulling the film to the realm of "quiet years"...
I have two pieces of advice for this: 1. If you want to see a profound crime noir movie, when the first subtitles appear in the film, leave the scene immediately and don't look back. 2, if you want to see "good and evil will eventually be rewarded", then sit for a while, after reading the unnatural "little tail", you will be much more comfortable.
We all know that in China, making movies about the dark side of human nature is a very, very, very difficult thing.
As I said earlier, Ning Hao's "No Man's Land" could not pass the trial for up to four years, which is lucky, and there are many more who died before they could enter the theater...
No Man's Land poster
In addition to the difficulty of passing the review, there are also box office difficulties. Just like I can read such a message every day: I am tired to death during the day, and going to the cinema at night is to have fun, to relax, why do I have to add to my own blockage?
Therefore, all the movies that "add to the blockage" to the audience are not optimistic at the box office.
So why do so many great directors around the world make so many shady movies? Why add to the crowd? Are they perverts?
Because film is a cultural product, although it has entertainment attributes, it has both cultural attributes and artistic attributes.
Why go to movies that make us uncomfortable? Why is a movie on the dark side of human nature worth watching?
Because, recognizing the evil of human nature is not shame, and not daring to face the evil of human nature is shame.
Because, Chinese we say "knowing shame and then being brave", knowing that the evil of human nature is "knowing shame", and abandoning evil and promoting good is "courage after".
Because, although the night gives us black eyes, we have to use it to find the light.