1. Not inferior to "Mogadishu"
is also the theme of evacuation of overseas Chinese . "The Road Back" is inevitably compared with South Korea's "Mogadishu". One of the posters in the video is very Korean-style. In the poster, the actor , the side face of Tae-shen is very similar to the Korean actor Xue Jingqiu (although Xue Jingqiu did not star in "Mogadishu").
But the two movies are completely different.
"Mogadishu" is an "additional movie".
South Korean diplomats and North Korean diplomats originally evacuated their own overseas Chinese, but the changes in the current situation forced the two sides, which were originally hostile, to unite together, share information and resources with each other, and jointly develop a plan.
This addition pushes the film to the north and south themes that Korean movies are most obsessed with and are best at, as well as the themes they like to express most about putting aside their positions and going to human nature. In order to reach this level, the film has to give up its investment in the war scenes and portrayal of the villains.
So the final impression that "Mogadishu" gives people is the love and killing of North and South Korea , and its expression depth is far less than that of movies on the north and south themes such as " Joint Guard Zone " and "Agents".
"The Road to Return" is a "subtraction movie". For Chinese diplomats such as Zong Dawei ( Zhang Yi ), Cheng Lang ( Wang Junkai) and other Chinese diplomats, the number of evacuees they were responsible for was large at first, but as some overseas Chinese obtained security guarantees, the number of people they were responsible for decreased to 125. These people were further diverted in the progress of the plot. Finally, the focus of was on Zong Dawei and his responsible overseas Chinese.
Because of this, the film can gather strength. clearly concentrates the contradictions from abstract countries to concrete individuals, that is, between Zong Dawei and the film villain Mufta. The showdown between
effectively stripped away the promotional nature of "The Road to Return" as the main theme movie, making it an adventure-type film full of tense moments.
has been reduced from group narrative to individual narrative . This not only makes the power of "The Road to Return" gradually clear and concentrated, but also gives the director the effort to arrange more impactful war scenes.
At the same time, during the long process of the evacuees' transfer from the warring site Sebrata to the safe Dilat, borrows the story of Sinbada's voyage adventure in the Arab myth "One Thousand and One Nights", which is a fable about the dangers and hardships of the evacuation of overseas Chinese, which gives the film a hint of anthropology.
Therefore, compared with "Mogadishu", the purpose of evacuating overseas Chinese in "The Return of the World" is clearer, and the portrayal of the battlefield and villain characters is more prominent. The director maintains a little literary creative consciousness in a genre story.
so the view and intensity of "The Road to Return" are actually better than "Mogadishu".
2. The smartest main theme
"The Way to Return" is very smart from promotion to film. After the video of
was scheduled, a shooting video was released on the short video platform. In the
behind the scenes, Zhang Yi took out his passport from his arms, got out of the car, and walked in front of the camera very calmly. In the distance were Numiya soldiers holding guns.
This is similar to the plot in "Wolf Warrior 2" back then, and instantly aroused the pride of many people, but at the same time, some people questioned the film's use of this emotion to consume.
In this regard, the handling of "The Road to Return" is amazing -
video does not cut this paragraph into the main film, but only retains the scene of Zhang Yi taking out his passport and getting off the car, which is in line with the tense plot of Zong Dawei and his men being forced to get off the car by Numiya's army in the film, and does not deliberately exaggerate the power of the passport.
Outside the play, the film satisfies the audience's sense of national pride. In the play, the film strictly follows the narrative logic and abandons it if it is abandoned.
From the perspective of film marketing and expression, this is a bit like the Billy Wilder comedy " Seven Years Itch " made a sensation with the flying skirt photo of Marilyn Monroe , but in the end, this classic picture of Monroe was not cut into the main film.
finds a balance between film promotion and narrative logic, which is just one of the clever things about "The Road to Return", which reflects the friendship of videos to different groups of audiences.
's friendliness is also reflected in the film's efforts to present a high-level display of the domestic film industry.
Guo Fan and Wu Jing have both participated in the film's production, so it is hard to say that the film's mature dispatch of war scenes is not without the shadow of these two people. It is precisely because of this that Rao Xiaozhi transformed from the non-scene narrative of "The Unknown" and "The Crowd of " to the large-scene narrative of "The Road to Return", thus becoming one of the Chinese commercial blockbuster directors.
Of course, the film still has a lot of reference for the Hollywood film industry.
For example, you can shoot from the first perspective of gunfight night vision laser aiming (green picture), and see the shadow of "Hunting Bin Laden"; the ruins reflected in the night water light, and the scene of war hell is a bit like "1917";
The hot metal urge of the helicopter crashed into the van is as hardcore as "Black Hawk Down"; the rebels chased evacuees in the desert, and they can also taste a bit of the wasteland apocalypse of "Mad Max 4"...
"Going Back" highly unified these visual effects in a Chinese narrative without any sense of tearing. It can be said to be one of the best industrial standards of domestic films at present.
The smartest thing about the video is a kind of "opposition".
The "opposition" between Zong Dawei and Cheng Lang.
evacuation from Sebratta to Dilat, both of them understood that Dilat might not have rescued. Zong Dawei advocated concealing the facts, but the young and energetic Cheng Lang could not tolerate a trace of lies. The climax of the hilarious passage of
also arises from this opposition in concepts. The opposition of concepts of
is of course based on realistic basis. As long as you go to major social media, you will find that this kind of young people's doubts and confusions can be seen everywhere. As the main theme movie, "The Road to Return" has eliminated this suspicion and confusion with a very convincing screenwriter, making people believe in the necessity of lies.
Zong Dawei's words "All actions are obedient to the command" also created a convincing power.
So, whether editing or directing, "The Road to Return" is the best balanced domestic film in recent years.
It uses highly ornamental typographical narratives to output the views it must output to the audience.
3. As the root, Zhang Yi
and other things are not the most important, because Zhang Yi's performance surpasses everything.
In "The Road to Return", the performances of Zhang Zixian, Cheng Taishen, Yin Tao, Wang Xun, and others are actually good (Wang Junkai and Wan Qian are slightly behind), but compared to Zhang Yi, they are all as light as leaves, while Zhang Yi is the root.
Zhang Yi is different from everyone.
cheng Taishen, Yin Tao, Wang Xun and others have all completed their roles in a proper manner and have no outstanding characteristics.
Zhang Zixian's performance is light and his short but efficient role, as well as the determination and lightness maintained in the war, make his role almost a legend.
legend is charming, but legend is also far away.
In comparison, Zhang Yi is very close and heavy.
close refers to his ability to pull the audience into his role. Heavy means not to use too much force, but to be able to tighten the character's emotions to an absolute critical point, point forward, get fierce, step back, and get soft again. What reflects its business level more is that can fully present the gradual process of emotions from zero to critical point.
This process is very clear and there are no deliberate traces. In the
film, Zhang Yi speaks Haji (a foreign language), plays jokes with border officials, and talks with his wife on the phone. Although it is already good, it is just his "basic fuck". His real highlight lies in the two "Russian roulette" scenes (using revolvers and life as gambling tools).
In these two scenes, facing death that could come at any time, Zhang Yi gradually turned his face into a pig's liver color, and his facial features slowly emerged, creating a strong sense of presence that fear squeezed his soul out of his body. His performance also made the latter bet complete the progress of the previous bet, as if it was not the diplomat Zong Dawei who participated in the bet, but the audience himself. There is another wonderful thing in the gambling game after
, which is Zong Dawei's last shot. Before the shot of
, the film gave a lot of emotional preparation and flashed back to many Zong Dawei's family moments. Ordinary movies may deal with it as a righteousness after an epiphany. However, "The Road to Return" still firmly grasped the fear created by death, which made Zong Dawei quickly fire a shot without having time to think!
There is no righteousness, no calmness, no courage.
Some are still selfish, fragile and fear.
fired this shot just because he was pushed to the extremely dangerous place of evacuation and the last bet.
This is the same as life. In many cases, the reason why you can endure the limits and overcome difficulties is actually nothing to do with your will, it is just because life is pushed there, and endurance and survival are the only choice.
From this perspective, "The Road to Return" is actually a very real movie.
