On the first day of the Lunar New Year, " Article 20 " directed by Zhang Yimou was released in major theaters. Editor, I have just watched the film and would like to share some of my personal views and shed some light on it. I look forward to more comments from the Fang family.
My first personal opinion is that this movie is not a family movie, and there are many "not suitable for children".
In this film, there is content about coercing women and then doing that. This content can of course be summed up in two words. However, if these two words appear in my film review article, I will probably get stuck. From a film creation perspective, of course this content should appear. If the movie is rated, this content can even appear on a larger scale, thereby arousing the emotions of movie fans.
Our movies are not rated. Therefore, when director Zhang Yimou was filming this content, he clicked to the end. The more detailed process of the crime was not filmed directly, but the middle was cut off, leaving the beginning and the end. The film's emotional impact on moviegoers has certainly diminished. But this weakening does not seem to be enough for children to bear. Therefore, I say this movie is not a family movie.
At the same time, when I was watching the movie in the theater, I witnessed with my own eyes several parents in the front row covering their children's eyes. The male protagonist chases his brother on a motorcycle, who is suddenly hit and killed by a car coming from the side. This is the first place. In the second scene, the character played by Zhao Liying jumped from the building and fell on the roof of the car. Children may not be able to bear these two violent moments. Otherwise, the parents in the front row wouldn't have covered their children's eyes.
The above are not problems with the movie itself. The film directed by Zhang Yimou is presented in this way, or even on a larger scale, which is reasonable from the perspective of the film itself. During the Spring Festival, parents tend to bring their children for "family fun" - this is a problem with family fun. This film is not suitable for family fun. Based on this, I believe that "Article 20" will inevitably fail at the box office - this is caused by the rules of Spring Festival movies.
My second personal opinion is that the theme of the film is valuable and it promotes the rule of law, which is also correct.
"Article 20" talks about the issue of "justifiable defense". It doesn't talk much about the boundary of "justifiable defense". It talks a lot about how an important criminal incident is finally recognized as legitimate defense. The overall value of the film is to promote the rule of law and encourage people to do good. This is all correct.
The third personal opinion is that the specific narrative of this film lacks rationality, and there are at least three points that need to be discussed.
The first aspect of that needs to be discussed is the role of Lu Lingling played by Gao Ye, which lacks a reasonable "premise shaping" segment. After watching "Article 20", I believe that the vast majority of movie fans agree with this - Lu Lingling is one of the most important prosecutors who led this case to legitimate defense. Without her, there would be no final outcome. This ending made movie fans applaud.
The character Lu Lingling is different from the comrades around her as soon as she comes up, showing her uniqueness. This is a good comrade who sticks to the bottom line. However, from the perspective of script creation, such a character lacks a reasonable explanation for why the character is like this. If a reasonable explanation is not given, fans may think that this character is fictional and unreal, and then think that the entire movie is more like a fairy tale. It is the job of the screenwriter and director to give "inevitability and rationality" to the character's personality and behavior, and it is the top priority in the creation of film and television dramas.
"Article 20" fundamentally fails to accomplish this most important task. Why can Lu Lingling persevere? What is her spiritual source of motivation? The movie needs to give fans a reasonable explanation, but it doesn't. So, the film suddenly felt empty. The screenwriter failed in his duties, causing the film to fail.
The second point that needs to be discussed is the personal heroism of Han Ming's character played by Lei Jiayin. Is it really reasonable? Why did Han Ming finally side with Lu Lingling and insist that the suspect acted in self-defense? The film tells many stories about Han Ming.Compared with Lu Lingling's character, Han Ming's character was obviously created with more care. Han Ming once judged a "justifiable defense" case. The motorcycle guy felt aggrieved, and so did Han Ming. Han Ming's son is experiencing self-defense being denied recognition. Han Ming was stimulated by his ex-girlfriend and so on.
These are Han Ming's "inner construction" that finally insisted on the suspect's legitimate defense. The external construction is the truth that Han Ming found. If the era and regional background of this movie are ignored, this more Westernized story will certainly hold up. Many Western movies like to feature this kind of personal heroism, in which the protagonist achieves a shocking reversal of the case by his own efforts.
However, in our actual work, personal heroism does not work. The reversal of this case was achieved with the support of collectivism. The film over-emphasized Han Ming's personal heroism, making it seem unreal and false.
The third point that needs to be discussed is . If the character Hao Xiuping played by Zhao Liying had not jumped off the building, wouldn't the film be able to solve the case?
After reading the entire "Article 20", this question has been bothering me. Han Ming initially insisted that the suspect was guilty of intentional injury and used previous cases to vent his emotions to his ex-girlfriend. The captain played by Chen Minghao looked very experienced, but he insisted that there was no knife. After Hao Xiuping jumped from the building, the knife was found within a few days. Even the villagers were unwilling to testify, but after Hao Xiuping jumped from the building, everyone came forward. Obviously, Hao Xiuping's jumping off the building changed the progress of the entire case. The twist of
seems reasonable, but in fact it lacks narrative rationality. Hao Xiuping and his wife insisted that there was a long knife in the deceased's car and that it was taken away. And why does the captain played by Chen Minghao insist that there is no such thing? Especially when the captain attacked Lu Lingling at the door, he was so steadfast in his vows. This captain, I haven’t seen the video saying that he was irresponsible in handling the case. In this case, there is a serious lack of rationality here.
Even Hao Xiuping, a deaf-mute, knows how to find the witness at the construction site. If she knows that if she finds him, she can ask about the whereabouts of the knife. Why doesn't the captain played by Chen Minghao know? Is it true that Lu Lingling and Han Ming can only be relied upon to solve the case? If the film fails to solve this rationality, the film's narrative logic will not be established.
Based on the above three considerations, I think "Article 20" is of extremely low quality at the script level. A film that lacks character and narrative plausibility is the result of a failure on the part of the screenwriter. Director Zhang Yimou worked very hard, and so did the many actors. But the script, the script, is the basis of a play. If the script is bad, there is no need to talk about anything else.
In summary, I think that "Article 20" has a correct idea, there are no problems with the filming, and the actors are good, but the script is seriously lacking in rationality, resulting in a very low quality film. At the same time, some "inappropriate" issues in the film are not a problem of the film itself, but this "problem" directly defeats "Family Fun". Therefore, the film is destined to be a hit at the box office. (Text/Ma Qingyun)
