Original title: Can "Article 20" solve Qiu Ju's dilemma?
Let’s count down several movies released during the Spring Festival. “Hot and Spicy” is sincere and inspiring. The topic of Jia Ling losing 100 pounds has dominated the screen for a long time. Behind this is not only hardship and transformation, but also traffic and capital. However, as far as I can see Come on, both fat and thin have their own beauty, that’s good. "Flying Life 2" is another racing-themed movie by Han Han. The same people and things interpret different connotations, achieving a breakthrough from a juvenile narrative to a middle-aged breakthrough. "Days of Future Past" is a family-friendly animated film that has a stable audience and achieved good box office results. I voted for "Article 20" as a movie. I wanted to see how it could tell a story that reflected serious reality in a lively and festive atmosphere.
"Article 20" focuses on Article 20 of the Criminal Law, which is a legal provision on legitimate defense. Whether it is illegal infringement or legitimate defense, there are many typical cases in reality that have aroused widespread social concern. The justice and humanity hidden behind the law of self-defense has led some scholars and lawyers to stand up and carry out targeted legal popularization work. The producers of "Article 20" include the Film and Television Center of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, but it is not just a rule of law film, but a drama film with comedy characteristics and realist artistic style, especially in its ideology, which demonstrates civilian awareness and justice ethics.
The movie consists of three cases: the bus driver acted bravely and was convicted of intentional injury; Wang Yongqiang was coerced and bullied by the village bully and stabbed the other person; high school student Han Yuchen witnessed the bullying on campus and stood up, but because he injured the bully Thus falling into a passive situation. The three incidents are connected in series by Han Ming (played by Lei Jiayin), a temporary prosecutor in Yongen City. The first is a case he has handled. The driver insisted on petitioning after being sentenced to three years in prison; the second is his temporary job. The case that Zhongzheng is facing; the third is the situation that his son is encountering. The past and present, career and family, legal principles and human relationships, all kinds of contradictions are intertwined, making a middle-aged civil servant who is slightly fat and slightly oily is stretched.
The film completely abandons the personal heroic creation method and integrates civilian consciousness into the creation of ordinary characters and the expression of daily life. As a prosecutor who works from county to city, Han Ming lives within the system and hopes to be promoted. Most of the time, he is obedient and hesitant. He is a realistic and cowardly ordinary person. If Han Ming's passionate statement at the hearing at the end of the film gave him a bit of heroism, I would rather see it as the stress reaction of ordinary people after being inspired by various influences such as first love, son, witness, etc.
Characters such as the deputy prosecutor, the criminal police captain, and the presiding prosecutor do not have the power to transcend the system or the ability to save people. Instead, they live cautiously within the existing structure, which appears concrete and real. Han Ming's wife, played by Ma Li, effectively enhances the comedy color of the film through the actor's comedy quality. The bickering between Han Ming and his wife provides most of the film's jokes. Although the scene is a bit noisy, it is this kind of bickering that resolves part of the heavy and depressing atmosphere. Wrapping a serious core with a sense of joy is a safe strategy for entering the Spring Festival stalls.
Justice and ethics are the most fundamental ideological core of this film. If the civilian consciousness of the film is a concern for life, then the ethics of justice is a concern for life. Behind the criminal case is the conflict of life. Who is right and who is wrong among the participants needs to be given a fair trial. The legal provisions are concise and authoritative, but the specific circumstances of the cases are different. They all involve the joys and sorrows of the world, life and death, and human relations. They need to be judged and adjudicated based on the actual facts. In the film, the tragic situation of Hao Xiuping and his wife is arousing sympathy, and it best represents the check and balance between love and law. In broad daylight, Hao Xiuping's husband was chained in the courtyard of her home. She had been bullied for a long time and was unable to resist. Her husband accidentally killed the bully, and she ran away with her daughter. In order to calm the trouble, she stood on the top of the building and made a decisive jump, using her life as the final bargaining chip.
The 20th century political philosopher Rutgers believed that justice is the primary value of social systems, just like truth is the primary value of ideological systems. Justice is justice as fairness, taking into account the difference principle. Justice is divided into two parts. The first part is the ideal part, which establishes the principles of a well-organized society; the second part is the non-ideal part, which solves the injustice problems in reality. Hao Xiuping is an individual who has been harmed by injustice, and she is the epitome of a vulnerable group that has been violated. In the movie "Article 20," there is no concession to justice. The prosecutor emphasized: The law cannot give in to illegality. What we handle is not a case, but other people's lives. Desperate people are saved on the verge of death, and kind people are rescued from cold prison. The film skillfully integrates law, ethics, and justice to respond to the simplest emotional expectations of the people.
The video ended, and the work of director Zhang Yimou was displayed on the screen, and I suddenly felt a little magical. There is no obvious Zhang Yimou flavor in the entire movie viewing process, and the director’s ultimate pursuit of visual effects is nowhere to be seen in the film. Some people say that Zhang Yimou took Qiu Ju's lawsuit to Article 20. In fact, both "Article 20" in 2024 and "Qiu Ju's Lawsuit" in 1992 are seeking justice, but the story background, narrative method and audience mentality are completely different.
In 2002, the movie "Hero" directed by Zhang Yimou was released and became a landmark work in the process of Chinese film industrialization. More than two decades later, will Article 20 become another symbol? That is, the increasingly mature Chinese film industry no longer relies too much on the director's personal style, but pays more attention to collective production and industrial operations. (Author: Zhou Caishu, associate professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, Nankai University)
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