In August 2020, Director Chen Musheng died of illness. A year later, his posthumous work "Rage: Serious Crime" was released. In this era of innovation and breakthrough in everything, we have read invaluable perseverance and perseverance from this film. As a Hong Kong filmmaker of the previous generation, Chen Musheng stubbornly adhered to the artistic style of the golden age of Hong Kong film, uncompromising and uncompromising, and devoted his whole life to filming Hong Kong. To a certain extent, he and Qiu Litao, two directors who were not very smart or even not very popular, used their "stupidity" to prop up the final decent of Hong Kong movies.
What the hell are we talking about when we talk about Hong Kong movies?
In fact, one of the core expressions of Hong Kong movies is resistance, which is the growing pains of little people when they resist the oppression of external power. Hong Kong movies have never been willing to go to great lengths to explore human nature. They prefer black-and-white good and evil to be rewarded, and the output is a kind of minimalist logic, similar to fairy tales, of punishing evil and promoting good. Since the 1970s and 1980s, the protagonists of Hong Kong movies have been locked in the grass-roots class. They are often a group of little people who have no power and money but are extremely optimistic. These people are either loyal to love, or they swear to defend the morality of the rivers and lakes. It's "a rib". Abang, the protagonist played by Donnie Yen in
"Rage: Serious Crime", is such a small person. As a grass-roots police officer, he has never been observant, never been promoted, and even offered opportunities to his lips, but he didn't appreciate it. In the court, telling a lie clearly can save the good brother, but he refuses. But he would save children he never knew at the juncture of life and death, and he would also go to the graves of colleagues who died wrongly every year. This kind of person setting is like those ideal conditions in physics class when reading, I have heard of it but never seen it. The dream-making attributes of Hong Kong movies are reflected in that it not only created such a group of small characters, but also finally allowed these small characters to defeat the evil forces, and finally made the audience feel full of satisfaction in the extremely strong substitution process.
This is the charm of Hong Kong movies in the past, and it is also the shortcoming of today. After all, it is difficult for too single characters to exchange for lasting recognition, just like although there is an Abang in our hearts, but in the extremely complicated real world, there are several people who can choose to stand for justice every time. on the side? Director Chen Musheng also gave his own thinking in this dimension, but he chose to interpret it from the opposite direction-if he chooses to make peace with the authoritarian, the result will be good?
So, there is another protagonist of this film, Ao. A Ao is also a small person, but he is obviously much more flexible, and he is promoted faster than A Bang. During the rescue of Mr. Huo, the boss said that I only need the result, so A Ao resolutely implemented it. Is such a scene familiar? The leader said that I only need the result, you just let it go, and I will be responsible for any problems! Sounds great, but what if something went wrong? At least Director Chen told you, don't believe it.
So far, Director Chen has clearly stated his point of view through this film: stubborn resistance may not win in the end, but blindly catering to it will also lead to a tragic ending. Abang chose to offend from beginning to end, although in the end nothing was accomplished, at least he retreated, while Aao always chose to obey, but in the end he gave himself a dead end. Although there is no clear explanation in the film, the audience can infer from the details that after Ao and his teammates took the blame for their boss and went to prison, they experienced unimaginable torture and torment, and finally made them decide to persecute their own authority. Terrible determination.
It is not difficult to see that Director Chen showed great sympathy for Ao in the film. They are criminals in the legal sense, but also victims in the eyes of ordinary people. They act decisively and have little justice, but they can only choose the most tragic way to express their grievances. At the end of the film, Ao asked Abang, if you were the one who went after the suspect Ale that day, would our fates be exchanged? Such a question about parallel universes pushes the film to the height of fate speculation. In fact, we might as well imagine that Ao and Abang are basically the same person, and their different fates are just the result of individual choices in the face of oppression. The temporary compromise seems smooth, but it has planted the seeds of crisis in the future.
In recent years, the view that "Hong Kong cinema is dead" has been rampant, the sudden death of director Chen Musheng seems to add to the pessimism of this argument. However, in "Rage: Serious Cases", we seem to vaguely see the glory of Hong Kong movies in the past, and see that uncompromising power is still stubborn despite its weakness.
It can be said that in the last work of his life, Director Chen Musheng fluently and accurately explained his interpretation and emotion of Hong Kong movies. The luxurious cast lineup and exciting action scenes are only the genre elements of Hong Kong movies, and the spirit of insubordination and uncompromising is the life gene that grows tenaciously in Hong Kong movies.
In the new era, Hong Kong has become more tolerant and brave, and Hong Kong movies will inevitably usher in some changes in expression. "Rage: Serious Cases" is definitely not the last cry of Hong Kong movies. A new generation of Hong Kong filmmakers is taking over the salary handed over by their predecessors and shouldering the mission of inheriting Hong Kong movies. This must be what director Chen Musheng in heaven wants to see. of.
