The current situation is turbulent and precarious.
1975, the streets of Saigon.
After many days of artillery fire, Saigon city was filled with dilapidation and disorder, falling into a deathly silence, and the smell of burning fires wafted in the air. General
rode a motorcycle to clear the way in front, followed closely by two buses carrying people on the evacuation list.
A large passenger plane is waiting at the airport, carrying these people to leave Saigon and flee to the United States, including a North Vietnamese undercover agent who has been lurking for a long time.
He took his good brothers and his family and followed the large army on the road to evacuation.
However, just as the crowd arrived at the airport, violent artillery fire suddenly rained down. Not long after the vehicle moved forward under the artillery fire, it was hit and caught fire.
People climbed out of the car windows and rushed towards the passenger plane in a hurry. Shells continued to explode around people.
The huge flow of people was like a lake constantly hit by stones. A bomb exploded and people spread around. Drive away.
Although people kept falling down, most people still rushed to the passenger plane.
But just when the male protagonist was only one step away from the passenger plane, he discovered that the brother and his family running behind him had disappeared. When he looked back, he found that the fragments of the downed US military helicopter hit the throat of the brother's wife, and the woman was holding the man in his hand. The children lost their breath.
The good brother looked miserable and couldn't walk at all. The male protagonist threw his package to the plane and strode to the brother. He was miserable and speechless. The helicopter not far away had started. The general shouted loudly for him to get on the plane. Under bombardment, the plane could no longer wait. Where should the male protagonist of
go?
Did he get on the plane?
A few years later, why was he imprisoned in his own prison?
Above, this is the finale of the first episode of the latest American drama "The Sympathizer", an American spy drama.
For many people, this is a must-watch new drama in April.
Just rely on this combination: Park Chan-wook + Robert Downey Jr. + Vietnam Spy.
Robert Downey Jr., who will no longer return to Iron Man, plays multiple roles in the play, and his bald look is really hard to do.
In addition, the spy war theme in the context of the Vietnam War also feels fresh.
But after watching the first episode, many domestic spy war drama fans said, "This is the least spy war drama".
Why do you say that?
In the words of a Douban netizen, it is neither action nor funny, it is straightforward and a waste of time.
But it’s strange. It’s such a bad drama in the mouth of netizens. It has 89% on Rotten Tomatoes, 81 points on MTC, and 9.1 points on imdb for the first episode. It is absolutely the best.
Why?
Park Chan-wook, the director of "Determination to Break Up" and "Joint Security Area", Fernando Meirelles, director of "The Succession of the Pope", plus the popularity of Robert Downey Jr. and Sandra Oh.
is adapted from Nguyen Thanh Viet’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name.
But I don’t think these are the most important. The biggest key to
is that the drama has a completely different flavor.
shoots spy wars in Park Chan-wook's style, with cinematic scene scheduling, audio-visual language and narrative techniques, and a black and absurd treatment. Compared with traditional spy war dramas, the look and feel of the series is obviously closer to " Infernal Affairs ".
If you want me to say, this is a spy war drama, an unprecedented hard dish.
Compared with the domestic spy war dramas "Storm Chaser", "When the Stars Shine" and the upcoming "Harbin 1944", it turns out that spy war dramas can still be shot like this.
01, HBO's standards
HBO's standards are never just pornography, but there is nothing they want to shoot but dare not.
The story this time is more complicated.
The original work of "The Sympathizer" combines history, politics, espionage, thriller and other elements. It tells the story of a French-Vietnamese spy's struggle in the last days of the Vietnam War, and his new spy life as a refugee in Los Angeles. .
It is not that there were no film and television works that showed the Vietnam War in the past, but there seemed to be very few works that showed this special history. As a spy, the male protagonist of
lurks deeply beside the South Vietnamese general. At the same time, he has to face the constant temptations of the CIA personnel played by Robert Downey Jr.
The spy battle here is also in dire straits, especially when the war is about to end, the outcome is decided, and the hero's side wins.
But the male protagonist had to go around and around to avoid being exposed, and he also had to continue to complete the tasks assigned to him by his superiors. In the end, he was forced by his superiors to continue to lurk.
I have to say that this spy war story is too special for viewers who are used to watching domestic spy war dramas. The
series also examines this tumultuous history from the perspective of this "lurker".
But before understanding this story.
Be prepared for Park Chan-wook's unconventional storytelling style.
's disrupted storyline and maze-like echoes of details are Director Park Chan-wook's consistent approach.
When the audience is suddenly thrown into a plot that begins and ends, they must find the context of the story by themselves. As the information given increases, they gradually piece together their own understanding of the story. The same goes for
's "The Sympathizer" this time.
"Two months before the fall of Saigon" and "A few days before the fall of Saigon" are several important time points in the first episode, which respectively correspond to several chopped up but interrelated plots in the play.
The male protagonist's apparent identity is the live-in confidant of the South Vietnamese general, and he is also in charge of the South Vietnamese intelligence department. The first episode of
shows three dramas in which the male protagonist performs a mission:
The first episode, get the list.
On the eve of victory, the male protagonist was assigned an important and arduous task, allowing him to obtain the complete list of Saigon secret police.
The male protagonist used his familiarity with the general's secretary to pry open the secretary's mouth with a dessert and got the specific location of the list: the last drawer of the general's office.
The drawer is locked and cannot be accessed directly.
But before setting off with the general to complete a speech, the male protagonist suddenly made an excuse to go back to get something. In less than a minute, he pried open the drawer, took out the list, and completed the filming with a small camera.
Then he walked out of the door with a book and told the general that he went back to get it, which was the secret weapon used in speeches.
The second scene: arresting "our own people".
What triggered this mission was the list obtained by the male protagonist.
Although he got this important list, when a beautiful female spy came to get the list, the female spy was exposed.
As the head of the intelligence department, his mission is to catch this female spy, who is one of his own.
Although he notified the network immediately,
but the other party had no time to notify the female spy to transfer, the male protagonist still led someone to capture the female spy.
At the scene of the arrest, the female spy swallowed the list in one gulp, recognized him at a glance, leaned into his ear and said: Beat me.
The male protagonist has no choice but to beat up the spy.
But the bigger test lies behind.
The third big drama is being tempted.
After catching the female spy, CIA agent Claude, played by Robert Downey Jr., asked the male protagonist to meet in front of the theater. However, when the two walked into the theater, they saw the female spy tied up at the front desk of the theater.
Under the projection screen, everyone was invited to watch a cruel interrogation drama.
The female spy on the stage was brutally tortured and stared at the male protagonist fiercely, but did not say a word.
And Claude has been insinuating and testing and observing vaguely. The audience knows that he is not "training your lieutenants" as he said to the general, but he is testing the male protagonist.
This is not the cruelest thing. The next scene really made me see the scale of HBO.
In the small interrogation room, several male interrogators, including Claude and the male protagonist, gathered together, quietly waiting for the female spy sitting on the bedpan.
The reason is very simple. The female spy swallowed the important information, so there are only two ways to get the information: either open her stomach and take it out, as the Japanese army often did.
Or take laxatives and wait for the female spy to excrete it on her own.
This scene is definitely the most breathtaking spy drama scene I have seen this year.
The last time I saw such a shocking spy torture scene was in "风声", where Huang Xiaoming's character forced a confession Li Bingbing.
From this, we can also see that the scale of HBO is not to exaggerate those exciting spy operations, but to pay more attention to the inner world of the protagonist and his emotions as a person.
people is the greatest measure.
What you see in the play is not just a spy, but a person with flesh and blood, emotions and struggles.
02 Park Chan-wook's Spy Game
Some people may say, why bother?
I just want to watch a spy war.
But Park Chan-wook + HBO’s spy drama is destined to be different.
If you put aside the story, as a spy drama, it basically has no elements.
For example, there was no thrilling shootout during the arrest.
didn’t even go through the process of catching the beautiful spy. When the male protagonist arrived, the female spy had already been caught.
During the interrogation, there was no blood plasma spraying.
A fight to the death that is common in domestic spy war dramas. Even less.
What are you looking at? What
sees is that director Park Chan-wook buried a lot of details and designs.
For example, transition.
I have never seen such an exquisite transition in a domestic spy drama -
In the previous scene, the male lead's contact person received the call from the male lead. Knowing that it was too late to notify the female spy, he continued to pull the customer's teeth without changing his expression, white light A dozen lights.
The next shot is of a female spy tied up on the theater stage.
There are several precise transitions, which can only be recalled with trepidation after watching the drama...
In short, every scene of Park Chan-wook is not shot casually.
In other words, the real joy of Park Chan-wook is not just these commercial things.
His spy dramas, like movies, will have a strong sense of "high-end".
For example, before "The Fall of Saigon", the general and Claude bargained for an extra plane to escape, but the other party was only willing to give one. The two sides were talking and tense, and the male protagonist had to translate.
This scene creates a narrative atmosphere through the character’s eyes, through music, and through body movements.
There are no long lines or arguments, but a few glances can make you feel the inner emotions of the characters and the urgency of the story.
The word "high-end" is very vague, but in Park Chan-wook's spy drama, it is obvious.
There is another scene in the first episode that left a deep impression on me.
cinema. It's the theater where Claude meets the hero.
Once upon a time, this was a special torture ground for interrogating female spies.
But times have changed, and a cannonball came and blew up the theater directly.
The male protagonist ran away with the brigade that night. Looking at the ruins of the theater, he couldn't help but sigh.
There is an old-school filmmaker’s intention in this scene.
The lens is exquisite and the content is rich...
A theater seems to have completely announced the end of an era.
The entire drama series has obvious "sculpture" from the behavioral logic of the characters to the theme thinking of the story. The director relied on piling up a large number of details to finally complete the author's expression, and the final logic is self-consistent.
This is the advanced level of Park Chan-wook’s spy drama.
Sometimes the director can let you guess the progress of the plot without using lines, just by relying on some lens language, screen design, and transition editing.
The timeline jumps non-linearly back and forth. The spy game is not the highlight, but the changing times.
also shows the cruel group portraits of war.
uses big vision to sculpt historical images.
Although the traditional spy elements are missing.
But "The Sympathizer" can also capture the attention of most viewers with its audio-visual effects.
This is a real "spy drama".
03 The acting skills of "Iron Man"
Of course there is another important aspect to watch, that is the outgoing Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr.
Putting aside his Asian Oscar controversy, in terms of acting alone, I think he is still outstanding.
It is his unique flamboyant temperament and performance that make the character of Claude very charming.
Even if he is bald, you can still feel the personality of the character.
This also makes me look forward to Sandra Oh’s next role.
As for the male protagonist, he still performed the huge contradiction and complexity of the male agent very well.
In domestic spy war dramas, the audience will never see such a tangled male protagonist.
or , Liu Yunlong, , , Zhang Jiayi, , , Sun Honglei, . They endure humiliation, are extremely witty, have a perfect IQ at the beginning, never make mistakes, and are almost perfect.
Or, he is such a growing male protagonist in "Storm Chaser".
Perhaps only in HBO's spy dramas, the audience will see a spy drama male protagonist who is so entangled, painful, helpless, and even fragile and helpless.
Many people have noticed the special eyes of the Vietnamese-French male protagonist.
Park Chan-wook probably deliberately used these details and the identity and experience of the protagonist to let the audience feel the cultural collision and conflict that the characters encountered in the changing years of history.
From the beginning, "The Sympathizer" was not a simple spy drama, but a profound discussion about history, identity, culture and human nature.
For mainland audiences, watching this kind of spy drama that is not exciting enough will definitely make them feel uncomfortable.
But a spy drama that is incomprehensible may not be without value.
In fact, although domestic spy war dramas have found the password to become popular, they have also fallen into a certain routine and been unable to extricate themselves.
routines may not necessarily look good.
In this era when the entertainment industry is booming, the competition for attention has become fierce.
hbo gave Park Chan-wook permission to film such a spy drama that was not exciting enough. What confidence did he have? Is it too extreme? The good reputation gained by the
series may be some answer to this question.
Even if it does not take the initiative to please the majority of thrill-seeking viewers, even if it loses the largest group of viewers.
but.
Those results that are done sincerely will eventually be seen for their shining true nature.
And I always think that the audience's tastes and demands for spy dramas may have begun to change.
The audience needs more than just mindless venting.
is a work that truly penetrates people's hearts and faces human nature.
Creators always have the responsibility to raise the audience's aesthetic threshold. Park Chan-wook has been walking this road for many years.
Only this time, it’s the spy drama’s turn.
The emergence of "The Sympathizer" has refreshed my original concept of spy dramas.
It turns out that spy dramas can also be shot in other ways besides Liu Yunlong’s mode.
Let’s see what kind of surprises Park Chan-wook will bring us.
