author|Xie Minghong
editor|Li Chunhui
"Pipe" said: "The earth is the origin of all things, and the root of all life. The beauty and the evil are not born of fools." It is difficult for people to separate from the geographical environment. close relationship. Take the Big Three in the National Day file as an example. On the surface, it says: "Each party celebrates the New Year, and there is no shortage of Jin Ou." But after checking his birthplace, he knew: " chef from Beijing, Hong Kong people peeling garlic ".
There are 9 directors in the three National Day films, 3 directors from Beijing and 2 directors from Hong Kong. This is almost a miniature of the current ecology of Chinese film directors.
In the list of the top 80 in the box office of mainland movies, Hong Kong directors are firmly in the top spot with 13 people, Bohai Rim (Beijing+Shandong+Liaoning) is second with 10 people, and the head and tail of the Yangtze River (Chongqing+Shanghai) It slightly beats other places with 5 people, and the rest of the area is dotted and not clustered.
Of course, when Mr. Hu Huanyong studied population density 84 years ago, the “straight line from Aihui, Heilongjiang to Tengchong, Yunnan” drawn by Mr. Hu Huanyong still affects today's film resources. In the list, only Wu Ershan of Hohhot and Su Lun of Xilin Gol ("Overtime Cohabitation") are in the northwest of "Hu Huanyong Line", and the rest of the directors are all in the southeast.
Under the One Belt One Road strategy, the northwestern half of the wall has a long cultural accumulation and the lack of film resources. This is constantly reiterating a question: how to break through the "Hu Huanyong Line" of the development of the Chinese film industry? Except for the "Hu Huanyong Line", the problems of uneven distribution of Chinese film resources, serious urban clustering, and the collapse of the central region are still serious. The
cross-cultural communication theory believes that a person’s cultural background and life experience determine how he views the world and how he interacts with the world. Examining geographical factors in the territory of Chinese movies can provide us with a one-dimensional linear paradigm that is different from the unity of time.
The Yellow River Basin is masculine and magnificent. Shaanxi natives Zhang Yimou and Jia Zhangke have become the inevitable existence of "film geography"; the Yangtze River Basin is romantic and delicate, with the grace and comfort of the upper reaches of the Bashu region and the Shanghai-Nanjing region of the lower reaches; Hong Kong in the Pearl River Basin , There are both the hinterland of the east in the interior, and the straightforwardness of the west in the sea.
has not been recognized in the seventh generation of directors for a long time, and when the eighth generation does not know when it will take shape, this issue of "China Flow Geography" may use box office theory as a hero and region as a ruler.
Lin Chaoxian, Guan Hu, Wu Jing, Xu Zheng, Tian Yusheng (from left to right)
Because director is not only a symbol of an era, but also a testimony of the soil and water that gave birth to them.
Hong Kong: Going south and going north
is different from the 1930s and 1940s when Shanghai filmmakers went south to Hong Kong. Now it is the return of Hong Kong filmmakers to go north. This National Day file is the highlight moment of Li Rengang and Liu Weiqiang. Whenever new and cutting-edge themes appear, Hong Kong filmmakers always balance the universal choices of different tastes.
In the 1990s, for Li Rengang, "the best and the worst". He grabbed the tail of the golden years of Hong Kong movies and showed his head in this period, but at the same time he also endured the darkest moments of decline. He has the momentum to become a martial arts master director, but he lacks a good opportunity.
Li Rengang
From the first director's work "94 One-Armed Sword Love" to "Jinyiwei", Li Rengang spent 15 years writing his sword dreams in the martial arts arena. In the meantime, there have been movies like "A Tiger" that let Andy Lau leave a story, and there have been controversial period movies like "Resurrection of the Dragon". When
entered the industry, Li Rengang no longer had the relaxed environment of his predecessors such as Zhang Che and Tsui Hark. And when he made a bold move northward, his unique aesthetic style made him ridiculed as the "Godfather of UFO Hat Quadruple". has never changed the Hong Kong-style sensational gene in his blood, even if the objective plot and the performance of the actors have been "unsupportable" from "The Lion of the Sky" to "The Notes of the Tomb" and even the "Climber" in the movie.
Liu Weiqiang's "Premature Power" broke out from "The Great Cause of Army Building". He added more commercial elements to the main theme and obeyed the flow logic of the fresh meat actors. Before that, he was the "best portable panning technology in the industry" in Du Ke's claim.
In 1996, Liu Weiqiang directed "Young and Dangerous People in the Rivers and Lakes", which even became a collective memory of a generation of mainland teenagers. "Infernal Affairs" is Liu Weiqiang's first film after starting his own company. thenMany people say that he is the "savior" of Hong Kong movies, but Liu Weiqiang just feels that he is lucky, "Our generation after 60 cannot break Hong Kong movies."
Liu Weiqiang
is the backbone of Hong Kong directors born in the 1960s. The reason for Liu Weiqiang's "Northward" breakthrough lies in "the old and the new". While maintaining the commercial nature, the use of complex narratives, interlaced time and space, and sophisticated shots give the film new vitality. Although neither the "Heroes of Fire" produced during the tribute period and the "Chinese Captain" directed by them are not perfect, they are still commercial films "near the center line".
The terrible thing about Hong Kong filmmakers is not the pyramid tip, but the stable base.
When presenting gifts to Li Rengang and Liu Weiqiang, the new film "Emergency Rescue" directed by Lin Chaoxian, who is carrying the "Big Three" in the north, released the poster of "My Motherland" on October 2. This is Lin Chaoxian's "three consecutive killings" of the main theme following "Mekong Operation" and "Red Sea Operation".
Lin Chaoxian
For "Northbound" Hong Kong directors, "Mekong Action" has a strong reference. It allows the Hong Kong film of "everything goes too far, it's crazy" to find a combination with the main theme. In the movie, the public security role is no longer flat and rigid, and has the common problems of emotional failure and marriage breakdown common to ordinary people, and is endowed with more contemporary and authenticity.
When Hong Kong directors Tsui Hark and Wang Jingbao were not old in the 50's, and the 60's Li Rengang, Liu Weiqiang, Lin Chaoxian, Zhuang Wenqiang and Zhou Xingchi used the Hong Kong film industry model to "go north" and played an excellent chemical reaction in the Mainland.
Going back and forth, traveling north and south, the "frontier" of the mainland and Hong Kong movies may have started with Hu Jinquan, who left Peiping and went south to Hong Kong 70 years ago.
Beijing: The previous generation of Beijing-born directors in Kyoto and Li Capital
have a strong "Kyoto complex", and directors in the Bohai Rim also love "entering Beijing". As a common cultural psychology, expressed in specific works, the emotions towards the capital are different from person to person. The more concentrated one is the emotional catharsis of people living in Beijing representing the marginal figures of different eras.
Zhang Yuan's "Beijing Bastard" and Guan Hu's "Hair Messed" are permeated with rebellion against the established order and the pursuit of their own dreams, and they strive to show the living conditions of the characters brought about by the fusion and conflict between the two. Jiang Wen's "Sunny Days" metaphors the past of a city with the growth story of the "fatherless generation" of teenagers breaking away from social constraints and indulging youth in a specific historical environment.
管虎
A new generation of directors from Beijing (including Shandong, Liaoning, and Hebei in the Bohai Sea Rim), represented by Wu Jing, Xue Xiaolu, Chen Sicheng, Peng Damo, Song Yang, and Huang Bo, presents a distinct "tendency to leave the capital" : Beijing and people living in Beijing are no longer the focus of the lens.
"Wolf Warrior" is in Africa, "Beijing Meets Seattle" is in Seattle, the trilogy "Detective Chinatown" moved from Thailand to New York and then to Japan, "West Rainbow City" in "The Richest Man in Xihong City" even Is fictitious, "A Good Show" takes place on a desert island. We can certainly say that this is a "coincidence" that opens up a new narrative space, but they do reflect a collective unconscious that is "far away" from Beijing.
Wu Jing, from the "Wolf Warrior" series to "Wandering Earth" to "The Climber", personal traits are greater than character traits, and role traits are greater than director traits. What he reflects is a trend of Beijing-born directors shifting from urbanization to personalization. "Kyoto" is no longer the most important symbol in the director's resume. The business card replacing "Beijing Director Wu Jing" is "Tough Guy Director Wu Jing".
It should be said that "Wolf Warriors 2" won the mainland box office throne with 5.6 billion, and it is not only the main theme. Wu Jing integrates his own personality and life pursuit into the movie, standing in the wave of the era of the rise of great powers, selecting typical events as the main line of narration, leading the era of tribute to heroes in the movie market in recent years. The fusion of autobiography and the main theme has become the biggest feature of his director style.
is symmetrical with the traits of tough guys, and Xue Xiaolu's movies have sprouted more female consciousness. The "Beijing Meets Seattle" series is a successful case of localized transplantation of the sub-genre "Little Girl Movies". When using the elements of fashion and comedy, it has completed the care of the living conditions of the modern Chinese female group. Although this state has lost its "Beijing flavor", the discussion on the inner core has also ceased.
Xue Xiaolu
In some works, "Li Du" isAn invisible escape. Chen Sicheng's "Tang Detective" series has both the humor of traditional comedy and the suspense of suspense, but its narrative matrix is actually "a foreign space as a dojo." The constantly switching overseas scenes and exotic cases provide a "sanctuary" for the movie’s human nature exploration and thematic minefields; Lu Yang’s "Embroidered Spring Knife" series abandoned "modern Beijing" and instead grafted on to Kyoto’s A "historical dilemma".
"Leaving the capital" is actually a helpless move. After the essence of "Kyoto" is exhausted by the fifth and sixth generation directors, a single city and theme can no longer provide milk for the new generation of filmmakers. "Old Cannon" is Guanhu's resistance, he suddenly let out a "scream" in the wave of "escape", come back and have a look! movies sometimes lag behind the times, but the director may abandon a city.
Shanghai: young and middle-aged
directors on the Yangtze River axis. He has created both the humanistic care "Fishing Light Song" and the soul-realistic "Goddess", but also the "Angels on the Road" that pays attention to life at the bottom of the troubled times and tortures by singing Love's "Midnight Song".
It is actually an agglomeration of cultures from various regions in the basin, a complex of time and space. The new generation of directors of the Yangtze River fully embodies this compositeness: Dumplings, Tian Yusheng, and Zhang Yibai from Sichuan and Chongqing in the upper reaches of focus on the speeding youngsters; Xu Zheng and Han Han from Shanghai in the lower reaches of Shanghai together present the sad and happy middle-aged.
The protagonist in the works of directors from Sichuan and Chongqing, grows up, falls in love, and breaks up forever. Dumpling, the director of "Nezha: The Devil Boy Comes into the World", like Nezha, shouted "I can't help but let my fate", and realized "change fate against the sky." The producer of the film revealed that the reason why Caitiaowu "photographed" dumplings: first, because he was poor enough, and second, because he was crazy enough.
dumplings
today's animation film investment, only among the many directors pick the most "perverted", bet that this "madman" can complete his own personal heroic adventure in three to five years. The core of Nezha's "crazy" is the director's "crazy", and they are all "teenagers who have not grown up."
dumplings are poor and crazy enough, and Tian Yusheng and Zhang Yibai are crazy enough. is also the dream machine of urban hypocrisy and love, Tian Yuyu is the rough catharsis of the mood of the times, and Zhang Yibai is the floating reconstruction of urban imagery. In the "Predecessor" series, the "Sea King" boys are cynical, and the "monsters" girls are sentimental and sad; while in Zhang Yibai's "Passing by Your World", the enchanting and bewildered Chongqing is the best "inhabitation" for Tian-style movie characters Land".
Han Geng, Tian Yusheng, and Zheng Kai (from left to right)
The protagonists in the works of Shanghai-born directors, "the beasts are still fighting" in the mid-life crisis. Xu Zheng’s "Tai囧", "Hong Kong 囧", and "I am not the God of Medicine" (produced), in the protagonist's farce-like behavior, reflects the dissatisfaction of middle-aged people with the current life situation, and the mental anxiety of the characters is symptomatic of the times Focus on exposure.
is the same as "The Future Will Be Unexpected" and "Riding the Wind and the Waves", Han Han still uses nostalgic golden songs and small town spaces in "Flying Life" to talk about the alienation of people and disappointment in the city. The protagonist of "Speedy Life" is a racer who has achieved fame but has fallen to the bottom. People are most afraid of losing confidence in the middle age. So his slogan is not "I want to win" but "I don't want to lose".
The ends of the Yangtze River, Sichuan and Chongqing are young and confused in the new development of the west, Shanghai is middle-aged exhaustion in the late urbanization period, and the Exiang district, which is stuck in the middle reaches, seems too late to think. The emerging directors in recent years are not limited to the three regions mentioned above. Guizhou has Bi Gan ("Roadside Picnic"), Jilin has Wen Muye and Yan Fei ("Charlotte Trouble"), Henan has Yang Chao ("Yangtze River Map"), Hong Kong has Zeng Guoxiang ("July and Ansheng") .
Bi Gan
a hundred years of history weaving the territory of Chinese movies, directors from all corners of the world together write touching memories in light and shadow. Crossing regions and time and space, we expect that Chinese-language films can break through the limitations of specific regions and cultures in the multi-level structure of the world's films to create works with a more global perspective.
