This year’s May Day box office war staged a classic counterattack. Zhang Yimou's new film "Above the Cliff" managed to catch up despite a bad start, not by luck but by hard power. This is partly due to the charm of the spy drama and the visual impact of the bloody storm in the ice and snow. The other half comes from the outstanding performance of the actors. They are either good or evil, black or white, heavy or light, thick or light, and together form a group portrait that makes people unable to calm down for a long time.

Zhang Yimou's "On the Cliff" has been a hit recently. There are a lot of deconstructions and comments about this movie on the Internet, so I don't want to repeat it here. Personally, I still like this work very much. In terms of script, photography, editing, art, acting, and costumes, the quality is relatively superior among domestic films. Compared with "One Second", the story of this spy film is more attractive. The complex and multi-layered presentation of the characters, the creation of the atmosphere, and the grasp of the rhythm are all beautiful.

Zhang Yimou can also shoot realistic themes, such as "No One Less", "Qiu Ju's Lawsuit", "Hawthorn Tree Love", "One Second", etc., all of which are telling stories At the same time, it shows the social style and humanistic emotions of a specific era. People say that Zhang Yimou never repeats himself. Today, the 70-year-old Zhang Yimou is still trying to break through himself. "Above the Cliff" is Zhang Yimou's first espionage suspense-themed film.

This is a typical noir film. Although it has the main theme, it does not have too many preaching elements. Even the explanation of the final task to be completed is given in one stroke, and it is consistent with Hitchcock's "McGuffin" theory (something in a suspense movie that the characters must chase desperately, but the audience can not care about). That is to say, what the story is about is not important, but how it is told is more important. Just like a writer writing a novel, a second-rate writer can tell a complete good story. For a truly literary novelist, the story itself is not important, but the method of telling it (how to tell the story) is important.

This movie can be analyzed on many levels, and of course there are imperfections, but for a good-looking work, some flaws can basically be ignored. As a commercial film, "Above the Cliff" is much more advanced than domestic films of the same type. As the 70-year-old director Zhang Yimou, after having made works of various styles, I vaguely felt that he might be more suitable for making such black-type films. As a director who is best at shooting films and television works with women as the main subjects, I did not expect that he would shoot men. He is also very good at making movies. To be honest, there are very few domestic male films that can capture a sense of coolness and masculine charm. Either there is something wrong with the values ??of the work, or the greasy feeling of straight men is everywhere. Although Jiang Wen is also a director who mainly shoots films about men, the men in his works are always too narcissistic, greasy, and conceited. I think this is a misunderstanding of male aesthetics.

The actors in "Above the Cliff", especially Yu Hewei, are the best in the role of undercover Zhou Ji. The quiet and subtle performance method makes the viewer chewy. I think acting well is just a matter of acting skills. The most important thing is that the actor himself needs to accumulate years of life experience, as well as the richness of your heart, which can automatically fill your facial expressions, even if you don’t want any expression. , stood there very calmly. And a director with vision is the discoverer of beauty. Therefore, some people on the Internet joked that the real "girl hunter" in this movie is Yu Hewei.

First of all, let’s talk about Yu Hewei’s acting skills as an “old man”. The acting skills he showed were not the kind of over-exertion, but the kind of tough-guy "calmness under pressure" described by Hemingway. Two of these famous scenes are impressive. One is when he burned the gay newspaper after reading it. The ignited paper was like a Rubik's Cube in his hand, being turned into ashes by his familiar "plate". The proficiency, sharpness, and charm of the technique can be expressed in Li Ya's famous saying in "Latent": "The Bolsheviks can't do it, and neither can the U.S. Strategic Intelligence Service." The details are revealed. Sometimes acting does not require lines, or even no lines. Expressions are needed, and only a character's actions that meet or even exceed the audience's psychological expectations are enough.

The extreme contrast of "the late emperor started his business before he started his career in disco" made netizens lamenting that the old actor is indeed "wild enough", and with the recent "Inspection Team", "The Age of Awakening" and With the intensive release of "Above the Cliff", more viewers have discovered that "everything can be achieved by Hewei".

For him, this praise was indeed "amazing" when he first heard it. However, over time, it inevitably created unnecessary constraints and distractions in his creation. In Yu Hewei's view, the secret of "everything is possible" lies in not labeling oneself -? In this fast-paced era, he is willing to take the initiative to get closer to new things, such as understanding what it means to "get out of the circle" and mastering a variety of The abbreviation of "Fanquan" refers to the identity of "Uncle Quan", which follows the young people to "play music and dance".

It is of course very difficult to portray such a "distinctive" character who is more of an agent than an agent. However, Yu Hewei has performed a light and subtle effect. Not only does he act well, but he is also very special. It's clever, because in the first half of the film, Zhou Yi has always appeared as a villain. He must wear double masks to complete the mission. The first one is a slippery and experienced spy. He has won the trust of the section chief with his strong business ability. At the same time, he It is necessary to show extraordinary emotional intelligence and moderate loyalty to the world, so that the agents around him can relax their vigilance, and even treat him as a brother, so as to facilitate their work.

Of course, other actors also performed very well, and their roles made the audience immersed in them. ?Many people nowadays like to say that many Chinese movies are not good at telling stories, as if this is a criticism. I don't think this is a problem. If you want to see a good and engaging story, you can choose to go to a story show instead of going to a movie. Film art is a comprehensive art form, and story is only one of them. When I watch a movie, I never pay attention to the story itself. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I am a writer. Whether to write a good story is not within the scope of my attention and consideration. I prefer to look at things beyond the story, the metaphysical part. This part is the keynote of a good work and determines whether it is a good work of literature and artistry.

All in all, Teacher Yu Hewei has really brought us too much excitement. He staged exciting and thrilling psychological games with the enemy, and parted with the revolutionary comrades holding back tears. He was full of perseverance and decisiveness, which made people laugh. Very enjoyable to watch. Of course, Mr. Yu Hewei’s brilliance goes beyond that. He has created too many characters that are deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, such as the shrewd planner Mr. Zhang in “A Good Show” and the extremely greedy Li Mu in the recent Spring Festival movie “Assassination of Novelists”. , or today's Zhou Yi, Yu Hewei speaks with his strength and conquers the audience with his performance. I look forward to more different types of challenges from Mr. Yu Hewei, who can also bring us more exciting "drama scenes".