Written by Zhou Haoyu and Hu Xueyi
On April 11, Beijing time, the Cannes Organizing Committee announced some of the entries and screening lists for the 77th Cannes Film Festival. Surprisingly, there are four Chinese-language films on the Cannes list this year: Jia Zhangke's "The Romance", Chen Kexin's "Jiangyuan Lane", Guan Hu's "Dog Formation" and Cheng Baorui's "Kowloon Walled City: The Siege ".
Press conference of the 77th Cannes International Film Festival in France. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Gao Jing
It can be said that domestic films have made great progress in recent years!
Among them, Jia Zhangke was once again shortlisted for the Cannes main competition with "The Romantic Generation". This is the sixth time "Section Chief" has been shortlisted for the main competition unit. Previously, Jia Zhangke won the Best Screenplay Award in the main competition of the Cannes Film Festival for "Destiny".
"It has been filming continuously for 22 years, so sad." After the film was shortlisted for Cannes, the heroine Zhao Tao wrote on the social platform. This is also a highlight of "The Romantic Generation".
Actually, the movie started filming in 2001. According to the information disclosed so far, there is only a synopsis of the movie, which tells the story of young people in a small town wandering in the changes of the new century. Besides, nothing is known. The filming of a movie stopped, and it took more than 20 years to complete it. This operation is rare, but the work produced by "Section Chief" is full of expectations.
"Qiaoqiao" and "Guo Bin" - the names of the two protagonists of "The Romantic Generation". Audiences who are familiar with Jia Zhangke will quickly notice that these two names are almost the same as the names of the protagonists in " 江湖 sons and daughters " released in 2018. Whether it is the time of setting the background or the choice of perspective, they are all very similar. Six years is enough time for things to change. I don’t know how the protagonists will rise and fall in the torrent of the times, and how much changes will occur.
As the absolute number one female lead in Jia Zhangke's films, Zhao Tao has starred in most of the feature films of "Section Chief" since "Platform" in 2000.
This reminds me of another master of Chinese film, Tsai Ming-liang. It is also through a movie that records the growth path of the core characters. Under the lens of Director Cai, Li Kangsheng has gone from a young life to the age of destiny, creating a time art in which gray hair dyes his temples.
Guan Hu, another sixth-generation director who appears in the Cannes film list this time, was shortlisted for the Un Certain Regard category with "Dog Formation". Compared with other sixth-generation directors, Guan Hu's path to filmmaking was much smoother. The movie "Messy Hair" made him famous instantly. " Bullfighting " was shortlisted for the Venice Film Festival and won the Golden Horse Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Then " Cook, Actor and Scoundrel ", "Old Paoer" and " Eight Hundred " "King Kong River" and so on are all box office successes. From independent films to large-scale productions with main themes, Guan Hu is perhaps the most successful among the entire sixth generation of directors in adapting to the market.
Talking about "Dog Town" itself, although the name of the movie has the same pronunciation as "Dog Town", the masterpiece of Danish director Lars von Trier, the stories of the two are quite different. There are no dogs in "Dog Town", but there are dogs in "Dog Formation". According to the current filing information, the movie tells a story that takes place in the Northwest. Erlang, played by Peng Yuyan, makes a career of transporting stray dogs. He accidentally develops feelings for a stray dog named Ma Sheng, and thus embarks on a journey to save more stray dogs.
is different from "Bullfighting", which has one person and one cow. This work revolves around one person and one dog. The open and desolate wilderness, the yellow-green sky, the lonely and silent figures... the overall aesthetic style of the film can be seen. As far as Guan Hu is concerned, he has been struggling in the market and the main theme for half his life. After returning, he still retains the collective imprint of the sixth generation of directors. Fighting against fate is his unchanging theme.
The cast of "Dog Formation" includes Peng Yuyan, Zhang Yi, Yuan Hong, and even co-starred with Jia Zhangke. It is simply a "multi-chef ecstasy" and it can be said to have earned enough attention. But whether it can continue its glory depends on the quality of the film.
Speaking of the cast lineup, we have to mention "Jiangyuan Nong": Zhang Ziyi , Lei Jiayin, Zhao Liying, Wang Chuanjun, Yang Mi and others are all star-studded. Compared with the first two films shortlisted for the competition unit, "Soy Garden Lane" was shortlisted for the non-competition screening unit.
"The film is adapted from real events" is "terrifying to think about". Coupled with the "husband-killing" theme and the huge traffic brought by the actors, the film has attracted much attention since the filming started, with constant topics and more Director Peter Chan means to "give it a go" in the mainland market. At the same time, the movie may still be a melee scene for the "big flowers" to PK their acting skills. Whether they return to their peak, successfully transform, or join the film industry from then on depends on how individuals use their best skills.
From the content of the three project registrations for "Jiang Yuan Lane", we can see that director Chen Kexin made a choice that was both ambitious and compromising. The ambition is that the film is not limited to the case itself, but gradually turns to "it turns out that the truth is not that important anymore" and inevitably looks for the status and development traces of female consciousness in history to reflect the changes in social thought. The compromise is the disappearance of keywords such as "appalling", "bullied" and "divided into 16 pieces", as well as the blurring of the details of the story, retreating to a safer scale.
The presentation of a good movie is inseparable from the mutual success of the director and actors. "Jiaoyuan Lane" is of great significance to Zhang Ziyi, the "Three Golden Movie Queen". At the film's wrap-up party, Zhang Ziyi said with tears in her eyes that she was grateful to the director for giving her a chance to be reborn. "I believe it is a new starting point in my life." Director Peter Chan also publicly stated that he has been looking forward to cooperating with Zhang Ziyi for 20 years. From the preparation in 2016 to the screening in 2024, the two people appreciated and supported each other during the period, and their friendship through the troughs was believed to add a lot to the film.
The last one is "The Siege of Kowloon Walled City" which will be released on May Day. This action film directed by Paul Cheng has attracted many Hong Kong film fans with its strong Hong Kong flavor and exciting martial arts trailer.
The Kowloon Walled City is a historical walled city during the colonial period of Hong Kong, China. It was demolished in 1993. In this "Sin City", the director assembled the original cast of the previous film "Wisdom Teeth", including Louis Koo, Sammo Hung, Yan Xianqi, Lin Feng, etc., to stage a treacherous turmoil in the village. The former slums and "three no matter" areas now provide creators with unique historical samples and an imaginative space for another world of rivers and lakes.
's annual movie feast, a rare number of Chinese-language movies have been "on the table" one after another. Regardless of whether these films are staged in the mainland, the efforts and breakthroughs of Chinese directors are obvious to all.
However, how far can domestic films go? It also requires Chinese directors’ consistent persistence in artistic creation.
