Kong Liu's next science fiction masterpiece, "Xu Fu", was released in South Korea on April 15.
The Koreans' "take-ism" problem has been committed again, and this time it directly used Xu Fu, a famous alchemist of the Qin Dynasty in China, as the title of the film, which also attracted the attention of mainland audiences.
Xu Fu (徐福), courtesy name Junfang, was a famous alchemist of the Qin Dynasty and a native of Langya, Qi.
When Qin Shi Huang was the first emperor of Qin, he wrote that there were immortals living in the sea, Penglai, Abbot, and Yingzhou Three Sacred Mountains, which could seek the medicine of immortality. Qin Shi Huang therefore asked him to take three thousand virgins, boys, and girls into the sea to seek immortals, and never returned.
Legend has it that Xu Fu came to Japan, and in 1339, the "Orthodox Record of the Divine Emperor" written by the Japanese Minister of the Southern Dynasty, Kitahata, has a record of Xu Fudong's crossing to Japan, and now there is also a tomb of Xu Fu in Japan.
But the movie "Xu Fu" is not about the story of Xu FuDongdu, but borrows the name "Xu Fu" to tell a science fiction story about "immortals".
One
Kong Liu, who is familiar to mainland audiences because of "The Melting Pot", has always given people the image of Sven's type of man, but in this film, he has changed his appearance and played a former agent Min Jixian who is plagued by brain tumors and has only a few months to live.
In the Intelligence Bureau, he was found again by Min Ki-hyun's former superior, Minister An, and asked him to perform a task that could not be refused.
It turned out that the Xu Ren Group, which cooperated with the South Korean government in human genetic research, was secretly conducting research on the "Xu Fu" project.
Researchers Shin Xueshan and Lin Shien introduced to Min Ki-hyun that they inserted hematopoietic stem cells into fertilized eggs through nuclear replacement to cultivate "immortals" whose bone marrow can produce differentiated IPS stem cells, which can treat all human diseases.
This immortal man is called Xu Fu, he is only 10 years old, but he is already an adult, and he also has the superpower of manipulating objects with brain waves. But the cells on Xu Fu's body divide too quickly, and they need to suppress the growth of the body by hitting antibody agents every day.
At the same time, he was also restricted in his personal freedom, and never left the institute on the giant ship after birth.
The FBI decided to sabotage the project by assassinating the person in charge, Dr. Anderson, and then bribing Minister An, who was involved in the project, to transfer Xu Fu to them.
Minister An decided to put Min Ki-hyun in charge of escorting him, and in exchange, they would use the IPS cells on Xu Fu's body to treat Min Ki-hyun.
But things did not go well, and they were attacked by a group of armed men in the middle of the convoy's journey.
It turned out that this gang was sent by Jin Shengwu, the chairman of Xu Ren Group, who learned of the plot of the FBI and Minister An and sent his men to try to take back Xu Fu. After some fighting, Min Jixian escaped from the control of the two gangs with Xu Fu.
Min Jixian, who did not know the truth, took Xu Fu to the nearest safe house, and he planned to send Xu Fu back to the research institute, but at this time he found that Xu Fu, who had not been vaccinated for more than 24 hours, was no longer under his control.
Seo Fu asks Min Ki-hyun to take him to the Inhon Church in Ulsan, where a child named Han Jingrun and his father's ashes are stored.
Han Jingrun, the son of Dr. Lin Shih-eun, was in a car accident at the age of 10 and died with her husband.
Because Lin Shien missed his son, he cloned Xu Fu with his son's genes, so Xu Fu has always regarded her as a mother since she was born.
But Xu Fu is an immortal man with IPS cells, and he has to be pumped every day for the needs of experiments, just like experimental animals.
In the torture day after day, year after year, Xu Fu began to think and examine his own life, but he could not find the meaning of his existence in this world.
Through Xu Fu's "soul torture", Min Jixian also began to re-examine his past.
3 years ago, Min Jixian betrayed his girlfriend in order to survive, resulting in his girlfriend being killed by the organization, and Min Jixian secretly gave birth with guilt, his life seems to have no meaning, and he has lived until now only because he is afraid of death.
Xu Fu decided to return to the institute, first to save Min Jixian and second, to return to his mother.
However, when Seo Fu and Min Ki-hyun return to the institute, what they see is the body of Lin Shi'en, who was shot by the security personnel around her when she tried unsuccessfully to assassinate President Kim Sung-moo.
When he learned that his mother had been killed, Xu Fu fell into extreme grief and indignation, and he completely released the energy in his body and exploded with a powerful destructive force.
Xu Fu, like the god of death, kills all the members of the Institute, including President Jin Shengwu, and rushes to the scene to try to capture his Minister An, and eventually dies under his hands.
Xu Fu knew that as long as he was alive, he would become the object of human pursuit, because he hid the secret of human eternal life. Therefore, Xu Fu finally asked Min Jixian to kill himself, only if he died, could he end all this, a hundred...
Two
This is South Korea's first clone film, following the common Hollywood road movie model.
When director Li Yongzhou first created the script, he considered setting the clone as a woman, but then felt that the plot of female clones and guardian male protagonists who had gone through hardships and produced love was too old-fashioned, so he simply set the clones as males.
In the process of writing the script, he began to imagine kong Liu and Park Baojian as the male protagonists of the film, and eventually the film was determined to be starring the two of them.
It is also a film made by the 28-year-old Park Baojian before he joined the army on August 31, 2020, and he is currently serving in the South Korean Navy for 20 months, and is expected to be discharged by the end of April 2022.
Park Baojian debuted in August 2011 as Dong Hyun, the younger brother of actress Soo-ah, in the film Blind Witness. He also starred in films such as "Car Police Officer", "To the End", "The Battle of Mingliang" and "Chinatown", but only played supporting roles.
At the same time, Park Baojian has also participated in more than 10 TV series and produced 6 sets of song albums.
"Xu Fu" is Park Baojian's first film starring, he plays Xu Fu is a 10-year-old high-IQ clone, with deep thinking about the ultimate meaning of life, is a very deep character.
Unfortunately, Park Baojian's own acting skills are average, and his wooden and dull expression is difficult to interpret the heart of this character, which somewhat affects the perception of the movie.
On the other hand, Kong Liu's performance is much more natural, after all, he is an old drama bone who has been working hard in the TELEVISION circle for many years, and the desire to survive, pain and struggle, sadness and anger of Min Jixian can be well grasped.
From the beginning of the struggle to survive, to the later look down on life and death, the growth and transformation of the characters can also be well interpreted.
This movie belongs to the personal performances of Kong Liu and Park Baojian, two men, and the rivalry between them also accounts for a large proportion.
Although Park Baojian's acting skills are average, he has not been able to show the inner world of the characters well, but Kong Liu's film emperor-level performance makes up for it, and also saves a lot.
Three
The film borrows the name "Xu Fu", but it has nothing to do with the historical legend of Xu Fu, but only uses "Xu Fu" to bring out the theme of human pursuit of immortality.
Legend has it that after the unification of the Six Kingdoms, Qin Shi Huang once fantasized about immortality, and therefore invested a lot of manpower and material resources to study the immortal medicine, and Xu Fu was the most famous of the alchemists around him.
In 1989, Cheng Xiaodong's "Ancient and Modern Wars of Qin Figurines" was adapted from this legendary story.
Hong Kong cartoonist Ma Rongcheng's comic classic "Wind and Clouds" also introduced the character of Xu Fu and shaped him into a worldly master who had lived for thousands of years, with extremely powerful cultivation behavior, and gave himself another name called "Emperor Shi Tian".
But whether it is Qin Shi Huang in "Ancient and Modern Wars and Qin Figurines" or Emperor Shi Tian in "Wind and Clouds", they will eventually find it difficult to escape the fate of extinction.
Immortality is the ultimate goal of human pursuit, but as the FBI officials in this film say: Human beings will pursue a meaningful life because they know that they will die one day.
If there is no death, there is no end to human life, then all that people seek is to satisfy their own greed and desires. Eternal life leads to unsatisfactory desires and endless disputes, and death is the ultimate factor that makes life meaningful. If human beings can live forever, then human beings will also go to extinction.
These philosophical reflections on life are the themes of the film. In fact, there are many movies that discuss "immortality", but the theme expressed in "Xu Fu" is extremely frightening.
In addition, the film has some flaws in the creation of action scenes:
First, Kong Liu's gunfights, confrontations, and car chase scenes are not many, and there is no impressive performance;
Second, the special effects of "destroying the world and destroying the earth" when Xu Fu's character exploded were too simple, and compared with the similar theme of "Witch" produced in 2018, the obvious gap can be seen.
Four
The film explores the meaning of life, brings out the philosophical proposition of life and death, and is a bit literary, but as a commercial film, it has to use commercial elements such as special effects and action to attract the audience.
In the end, agent Min Ki-hyun killed the immortal Xu Fu, which puzzled some viewers, which may be a thought or a deep reflection that the director wants to leave to the audience.
Due to the appeal of Kong Liu and Park Baojian, the film is currently performing well in Korean theaters, and if you are a fan of Kong Liu, this will be a movie that cannot be missed.
(Rotten Tomatoes Movie Editorial Department: Blood Dan Heart)