What is jianghu? What is Wuxia? Fan Zhongyan of the Song Dynasty once said in the famous "Record of Yueyang Lou" that "if you are far away from the rivers and lakes, you are worried about the king, and if you live in the temple, you are worried about the people." The so-called jianghu is actually a place where the literati are self-exiled. In the history of our country, there have been many loyal and righteous people who have been forced to go far away because they could not display their ambitions above the court. This includes the founders of the martial arts world, such as Huan Zhu Lou Lord, Jin Yong, Hu Jinquan, Zhang Che and others. Whether these people are the authors of martial arts novels or the directors of martial arts movies, they all have a dream of worrying about the country and the people in their hearts, but in the face of the ruthless reality, they can only express their feelings and thoughts in the art world far away from the rivers and lakes.
In fact, for a long time, the public has misunderstood martial arts and jianghu, whether we talk about Jin Yong's novels or Zhang Che's films, many people first think of those kung fu of flying cornices, and everyone prefers to engage in some "martial arts gossip" such as martial arts rankings compared to the spiritual connotation in works of art. In fact, these are the public's misunderstanding of the spirit of martial arts, we just said, it is difficult for the jianghu to be a real place to exist, but in this created world, it carries the feelings of many literati and inkers to serve the country.
However, after the 1980s, many literary and artistic works under the guise of martial arts completely followed a kind of hunting route, and which works were not so much martial arts works as strange things. Especially in the film industry, many movies have martial arts in their names, but in essence they are like some anecdotal stories. As a business card of Chinese culture, wuxia has been damaged by many people. Although there are also excellent martial arts film works such as "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Heroine", they are still a minority after all. Especially in recent years, good martial arts movies are even rarer.
And today we will talk about a rare series of martial arts movies in the past 10 years, this film was released in 2010, is a famous Chinese director Wu Yusen supervised and directed a martial arts film "Sword Rain". It is interesting to say that Wu Yusen was an assistant to the famous martial arts film director Zhang Che in his early years, but later became famous by shooting the gunfight movie "The True Colors of Heroes". However, Wu Yusen himself admitted that the gangster movies he shot actually only replaced the knife in Zhang Che's hand with a gun.
Therefore, although Wu Yusen taught martial arts, he rarely directed martial arts movies himself. The reason why Wu Yusen directed the movie "Sword Rain" is because he was moved by the script of this film, and Wu Yusen said that he had not seen such a wonderful martial arts movie script for a long time. Friends who have seen "Sword Rain" can feel that this movie does not use too many unnecessary special effects, and the fight in the film is very realistic. However, for the creation of the atmosphere of the whole film, the creators are not sloppy at all.
The traditional jianghu is like this, this jianghu is really not the jianghu of those martial arts masters, but the jianghu of those weak scholars. In this jianghu, those literati with pen holders in their hands will use the jianghu world to realize their ideals. And Jiang Asheng, the male protagonist of "Sword Rain", is such a literati personality. Although the role of Jiang Asheng appears very frequently in the film, in most cases, he shows a weak scholar.
The movie "Sword Rain" has a number of classic settings of traditional martial arts, the plot of the film is legendary enough, and the kung fu is also very distinctive. However, under the many curious factors, the directors have cleverly created a jianghu that everyone yearns for. In this jianghu, there are beautiful women who love heroes, there are also swords that are fixed, there are killings, there are also love and hatred, there are many tricks, and there are more true feelings and moving feelings. Strange feelings, strange encounters, strange kung fu, sinister and cunning human nature, in this work, are vividly reflected. This is a very slow and hot film work, and the taste in it can only be well appreciated if it is chewed repeatedly.
Although the setting of the film about changing faces is somewhat similar to Wu Yusen's Hollywood film "Changing Faces", the creators of the film are very good at integrating this detail into the traditional martial arts culture. In particular, the presentation of the fairy rope in the film is based on the bridge section in the traditional mythical novel "Liaozhai Zhiyi". This practice is very common in traditional martial arts movies, such as the famous "Heroine", in fact, the inspiration for this movie also comes from "Liaozhai Zhiyi". Here we return to the beginning of the topic, these strange stories, in fact, the literati talk about masturbation of spiritual illusions. Wuxia film masters Hu Jinquan and Zhang Che are like this, and so is Pu Songling, the author of Zhiwei novels.
When they are frustrated in life, they have a strong desire to have a world where people with special abilities can help them achieve their ambitions without being bound by popular rules. And the movie "Sword Rain" echoes the themes of martial arts and jianghu very well. In this work, everyone's identity is hidden, they walk the rivers and lakes for their own purposes, some people for the family, some people for the right. The film reveals the darkness of human nature by searching for the remains of Rama who can practice martial arts.
Everyone has a desire and fantasy about life, people with disabilities want to get up and walk, eunuchs want to marry wives, people in the rivers and lakes want to be ordinary, and ordinary people want to be valued. In the chaotic jianghu, what is right and what is wrong. Through the remains of an omnipotent Rama, the creators of "Sword Rain" explore the meaning of life in the jianghu. Whether a person should be prosperous or an ordinary life. In fact, these are not important, the important thing is what kind of life everyone wants to get.
Due to the details in place, the three-dimensional sense of character shaping is stronger. The story of "Sword Rain" is very substitutionary, and as the secrets of Zeng Jing and Jiang Asheng are unlocked step by step, the audience seems to be torturing themselves in the story, what kind of life we should have. This is the situation of the jianghu, this is the value of martial arts. Its existence is not to please the audience without a bottom line, but in some details, it can enlighten the audience and let the audience have their own objective evaluation of life.
Although "Sword Rain" is not particularly high at the box office, this film is still a successful masterpiece, especially in recent years, under the environment of the lack of martial arts films, this movie is even more precious, at least it creates a jianghu that conforms to the public's ideas, in this jianghu, it is an adult fairy tale.