text | Linghu Boguang
has written too many articles about the Spring Festival recently. Today I will analyze a Hollywood movie from across the ocean. That is the action film "The Beekeeper " directed by David Ayer and starring Jason Statham. Strictly speaking, this film is not a new film, because it will be released in the United States and China on January 12, 2024. Released in China.
February has almost passed, and it is actually an old movie that has been released.
Bo Guangjun didn't go to the cinema to watch it. He saw the movie on the online platform early, but he didn't watch it because he was busy with trivial matters during the Spring Festival. I recently watched this movie on an online platform, and I can only say that Hollywood action movies are a bit over-the-top, directly realizing the "Return of the Dragon King" and "Return of the Soldier King" routines in Chinese Internet cool articles.
Strictly speaking, the male protagonist is much stronger than the King of Soldiers. He can directly beat the Secret Service, FBI, SWAT, SEAL Team 6 veterans, Delta Force veterans, mercenaries... Even the top elites around the President of the United States are not enough for the protagonist. . But in terms of action scenes and action design.
is indeed not as good as the "Kingsman" movies from previous years (one is worse than the other), and the popular "Kingsman" series in recent years has gone deep and made breakthroughs in genre films. It is completely reduced to the Hollywood assembly line agent action movies like "Red Notice" and "The Gray Shadow" (in some aspects, it is worse).
On the surface, it cracks down on electronic fraud, but actually saves the United States? This Hollywood blockbuster is indeed "too ridiculous"
The setting of this film is the template of a Hollywood action movie that is very routine nowadays. It is probably the male protagonist played by Guo Dasen, who is a retired top expert who works for the US government (free). outside the government), retired, with a very nice neighbor.
Other similar films are for innocent girls, for a dog, for anything.
As a result, innocent people were involved in the incident and died, and the King of Soldiers returned to kill everyone. This time, Guo Dasen's neighbor committed suicide after being defrauded of all his savings by electronic fraud, and then he began to crack down on electronic fraud. It would be fine if we were just fighting against electronic fraud. At most, the bosses we would fight in the end would be those gangster groups, shady capitalists, evil foreign forces, corrupt government departments and the like.
The controller behind the electronic fraud company where the male protagonist of this film is Denge is the son of the current female president. There is a former CIA executive who provides advice and advice, and the purpose of the electronic fraud is to make political donations to his mother, the president. The identity of the male protagonist is set as a top master of the Hive, a top organization parallel to the government.
This time, because of electronic fraud, he felt that the safety of the entire hive was endangered, and then he started killing everyone. From electronic fraud companies, gangsters, CIA, FBI, retired soldiers, mercenaries, all the way to the President of the United States, except for the last military master, there is almost no one who can match them.
This movie is the bald version of " John Wick " and the bearded version of "Killer 47". The routine of a typical B-level or R-level movie is simple and crude, just look at how Guo Dastanson punches and moves. However, the plot is completely copied from "John Wick", which is a bit out of place (it always feels like a bald man suddenly transforms into Victor Zhuang in a transition).
Guo Dastanson's fighting scenes are the most beautiful among European and American action stars. There are many close combats and they are clean and neat, but this movie still has many problems. Overall, it was pretty cool, but not that exciting.
has always been the second line, never the first line? Why did the Jason Statham movie come so close?
Guo Dasen is an old friend of Chinese audiences, but if you pay attention, you will find that he is a first-line action actor in Hollywood, but action movies are always in the second-tier. That is, the starring movies are never top-tier investments, they are all B-level action movies.
The reason is that his action movies have followed the B-level action movie route since the early "Trafficker". He is better than the ordinary leading actors in Hollywood action blockbusters who are not action actors. The director of this series is Yuen Kui and Hong Kong Action. Design, so it plays to its greatest advantage.
But many action movies later just hit people with an unhappy expression on their faces. There are gun battles but they are not intense. The action design is not the work of a Hong Kong director. You will feel that his fighting ability is very high. There are no small soldiers, medium soldiers or bosses that he can defeat. Anyway, it was quite enjoyable to watch, but I couldn’t remember any of the action designs and there weren’t any classic action scenes left. The same is true for
's "The Beekeeper". Those gun battles are not interesting. When fighting a villain, no matter what type of soldier he is, he will be knocked down in two or three hits. The final big boss can still be beaten a few times, but you feel that it is not as recognizable as the final battles in "John Wick".
If the "Quick Chase" series is rated at 10 points, I personally feel that Beekeeper is about 7 points. The difference is mainly due to the fact that the gameplay is a bit sci-fi and the combat power is erratic. All the people in the Speed series who have combat capabilities are worthy of their counterparts. The shaping brought about by the scenes, the soldiers are always defeated, and the boss always comes and goes.
But the portrayal of "The Beekeeper" is very lame. One moment, he talks about how beekeepers are so powerful, and the next moment, he kills the current beekeeper like a pig. If you can accept the collapse of combat power like this, you can still take a look at it.
I think there are two interesting points in this movie. First, it is mentioned in the movie that all the FBI's cooperative agencies are unwilling to admit the existence of beekeepers. The side explains that the secret of "Beekeeper" is not actually a secret, and all major security agencies should know about this plan.
The second point is that both the CIA and the FBI tried to remain neutral after learning that it was a beekeeper who was acting. Even if they learned that the president was in danger, they did not dare to take sides. The movie expresses that in fact, to some extent, each department also assumes the function of "beekeeper" to supervise each other. As the embodiment of fairness and justice, beekeepers are not subject to interference. Once CIA and fib in the drama take action ( Those who interfere with beekeepers' law enforcement outside the scope of their duties are likely to be considered corrupt by other beekeepers and departmental agencies and removed.
In all the dramas, fib and cia have always tried to deal with problems within the rules and did not dare to cross the line. The only person who can limit the entire hive system is the beekeeper.
Hollywood movies have become "model shows" in the United States
There is actually no analysis of the plot of this movie. The concept in the movie is very interesting, that is, "the [beekeeper] organization that is independent from the system", and The Continental Hotel in "John Wick" is the same as the external government organization in "Little People" and "The Vengeful Man".
In recent years, many European and American action movies have set up an organization that is not restricted by government systems or has considerable power to perform some special tasks, such as MI6 in the "007 Series", Kingsman in "Kingsman", etc. etc., crossing international laws and sneaking into other countries to carry out assassinations or rescues, or being responsible for supervising the order of the entire country outside the law and system.
Movies with this theme will depict the necessity of the existence of these "mysterious organizations", because when problems arise that cannot be solved by laws and systems, they can only be solved by "mysterious organizations" that bypass or directly jump over the laws and systems. these questions. The essence of these questions is: When public power is not controlled by the system, exceeds the law and infringes on private interests, what should ordinary citizens do in the face of the powerful power of power?
The director raised this implicit and profound question through the corruption of public power reflected in the film by the president's son playing with power, and has actually answered this question through the actions of the beekeeper: idealistic means are needed to Achieve true fairness and justice. The beekeeper's restraint on public power shows the director's ideal power structure: establishing an organization independent of laws and systems to supervise and correct the order of the entire country.
Many people feel that the plot of the film cannot withstand scrutiny. How could a person kill so many armed enemies? If the three mercenaries in the warehouse were eliminated through the terrain because of the beekeeper's amazing combat power, there is logic to follow, then there is absolutely no logic in killing all the way to the top floor of the presidential villa. A cool plot with any realistic logic.
When looking at this problem, it depends on the angle from which it is approached. If you look at it from the perspective of a classic one-man revenge fight in Jason Statham's movie, there are indeed many aspects of the battle design that lack rationality. But from a deeper symbolic perspective, beekeepers, as empowered private rights, are a symbol that can fight against public power.
The process of killing enemies along the way is a concrete demonstration of solving the problem of public power through idealistic means. The interpretation of the process of realizing the power of one enemy against many by beekeepers is only secondary. The detailed and specific tactical details are only means and tools. Its main purpose is to present to the audience a private power that has the power to fight against public power. image.
Therefore, even if the artistically treated confrontation process is full of drama, even if the beekeepers have lost the rationality of human combat power, from the perspective of symbolic idealism, this artistic treatment is precisely reasonable.
The individual image of the beekeeper is a reflection of the will to pursue fairness and justice. Through the display of the beekeeper's "law enforcement process", the film presents the operation of an idealistic power order constructed by the director and the problems it may cause. That is, by establishing an organization independent of laws and systems to supervise and correct the order of the entire country.
Personal heroism is only the appearance of "The Beekeeper", but what it really wants to express internally is the director's thinking about power, system, and law.
This is actually the same as the core and setting of superhero movies. This expresses the current American culture to a certain extent. At least the projection of reality in American movies is quite interesting.
After all, we are not talking about a top killer, agent or anyone else in the movie who is free from (and dependent on) the government. Anyway, just like superheroes, there is no reality, and it has really become an American model show.
The most important thing is that most of this film has nothing new and is not very good-looking.
