Chen Kaige: As we said before, we should be familiar with life. When shooting these scenes of the Ninth Army, I felt like I was back in the army. I know how to salute in the army, how to stand at attention, how to speak, what kind of thinking a soldier is and so on. So the experience of joining the army actually helped me invisibly, so that I wouldn't feel strange or at a loss. I had the same experience as I used to shoot "Parade". There are similarities between the Battle of Changjin Lake and the "military parade", and they all attach great importance to the sense of ceremony, such as procession, assembly, military parade, how to shout passwords and how to respond. This is a very unique spiritual temperament of China People's Liberation Army. Why is the morale of soldiers particularly high? This largely depends on the strength of the spirit and the tempering of the hard environment. During my years in the army, I have a strong feeling that the China People's Liberation Army is a unique army in the world, armed with ideas. This army knows why it is fighting and has the spirit of overwhelming the enemy. As long as there is one person left, it will continue to fight. This belief comes down in one continuous line. Morale and spirit permeate every soldier's words and deeds. This is the "people's army" that our audience is very familiar with. When the country is in trouble, they stand up and defend their country and people.
Chen Kaige: The screenwriter Lan Xiaolong's script begins with brotherhood. I have always had a view that a war movie is, in the final analysis, a story about "people". A good war movie must start with characters and end with characters. If you don't have enough feelings for a character, it's hard for you to follow him to the battlefield and go through this life-and-death test. You have great concern for him. Under such conditions, the film can be successful; Otherwise, it will become a scene of seizing the day. If you can only see the fighting scenes, it is very easy to make people tired. Young friends may say that good pictures, strong voices and burning emotions are enough, but in fact, my standard still feels that in the face of these martyrs, we still have to write their spirit.
I hope I can make a good opening and lay a certain foundation for the characters. I think the roles of Jason Wu and Jackson Yi, Li Xi and Wan Li, are the most basic things in the film. We need to establish their personalities and describe them vividly.
Li Qian is a war hero and an old soldier with fighting capacity, thinking, wisdom and vision in our army. Wan Li, the elder brother who is not sensible, is a very grown-up figure. At first, he only knew how to play by the river, and his vision did not exceed dozens of miles. Finally, by stepping on the battlefield, he began to understand what the motherland was and why he wanted to fight as a soldier. Through Wan Li's eyes, we can see that these eyes are full of nostalgia for the motherland and the life we once had. Brother Wan Li doesn't want his brother Wan Li to be a soldier, because their brother Baili is dead. He wants his brother to stay in his hometown, but he respects Wan Li's wishes, so I think this brotherly relationship is still interesting.
We have also made great efforts to ponder these two characters. Finally, I hope to extend the narrow sense of brotherhood to the whole company. Jason Wu's poem says that everyone in Qilian is my brother. I think the movie The Battle of Changjin Lake is a battle story condensed with brotherhood.
Chen Kaige: Obviously, Wu is the soul of the whole story, and the first scene of the movie started from him. I think Li Qian is a war hero, but we didn't make him superficial. He is the company commander of our army. He has experienced countless battles and life and death tests, but in fact he has pain in his heart. His brother's death, the names written all over the notebook but painted in countless red boxes, and many comrades died before him. So in this sense, Li Qian is a hero, and he is also sad. This is the soul of the character Wu. He is not a reckless man, but bravely rushes forward. He has his own unique understanding of war, especially of life.
When I was a soldier, I knew many company commanders, and it was not easy to be a company commander "Wu". Many people think that Mr Jason Wu was a soldier, but he didn't. When we were filming, he did one thing, that is, called the 157 group performance, which played the soldiers of the Seventh Company, to have dinner together, and called the roll calls one by one, and everyone's morale was lifted at once.
Wu Wanli, played by Jackson Yi, is a growing figure. On the river, he can be a bully, but not necessarily in the army. For example, when shooting a shot of a flare hitting the sky directly, Jackson Yee was really startled and subconsciously looked up at the sky. At this time, you really feel that you have seen a little boy who has just joined the army and has never experienced life and death on the battlefield. From a recruit an egg shaped thing to see life and death on the battlefield, become a real soldier.
Hu Jun plays Lei Gong, and I personally look very cordial, because when I was a soldier, almost every company had such a person as Lei Gong, a veteran who had served for an extended period of time. He is neither a company commander nor an instructor, but he is more respected than a company commander or an instructor. Where does this respect come from? Why do a group of recruits have such a good impression on such veterans? In fact, it comes from his concern for all recruits. The recruits are all retired, and he is still here, and a new batch of soldiers are brought in to continue training. There is a strong energy in Lei Gong's character. War and countless life and death tests have given him a calm tolerance. The war tempered him and gave him a calm bearing and sense of humor that ordinary people didn't have. This is what I felt in the character Lei Gong, and it was also what I felt when I was talking to the actors. The role of tripterygium wilfordii has aura in the performance, unique feeling and taste in the performance, and finally the play comes out.
Including the roles played by Zhu, all come from life, not fiction. Only the characters from life have strong vitality, and the audience can follow them "on the battlefield" and feel the same with them.
Chen Kaige: I like this stroke in the middle of Lan Xiaolong's script: the car door opens, and behind the speeding train car, everyone inadvertently sees the Great Wall. In the film, the Great Wall of Xiongguan Wan Li appeared in front of the soldiers of the Seventh Company, changing from Wu's personal perspective to a panoramic visual presentation. Under the picturesque background of Wan Li, defending the country and defending the country has shown very specific significance. What impressed me the most is that the Great Wall has always existed tenaciously. It can be said that it is a spiritual symbol and has always been there.
At first, I thought two things were very important. The first point is the first anniversary of the founding of New China, like an infant. At that time, the whole country was thriving. Another point is the hometown of thousands of miles-Jiangnan water town. Why do you want to return home from thousands of miles as the first scene, followed by the expedition? Because returning home and going abroad add up to your motherland.
We hope to shoot beautifully and shoot great rivers and mountains. Whether you leave your hometown thousands of miles away by boat or just return to your hometown, the colorful autumn leaves on the river are actually writing about peace. After decades of war, the people of China have finally gained the possibility and opportunity of peace, which is in sharp contrast with the tragic war. If there is no way to write peace, there is no way to feel so strongly about the destruction of peace by war. Whether it's Beijing or a water town in the south of the Yangtze River, in fact, in the final analysis, we all found a key word-defending our country.