Zhang Yimou's latest movie "On the Cliff" is about to be released on May Day, which marks Lao Mouzi's first foray into the field of spy war-themed films.
A problem arises.
When many people see this name at a glance, they will immediately think of the classic spy war drama "Cliff".
The screenwriters of "On the Cliff" and "On the Cliff" are all Quan Yongxian, and the story of both works is set in Harbin in the thirties of the last century. "Above the Cliff" can be seen as a further development of the TV series "The Cliff". Zhang Yimou chose "Cliff" as his creative prototype, which fully demonstrates the classics of this drama.
"Cliff" is a spy war drama directed by Liu Jin and starring Zhang Jiayi, and it is also the opening drama of 2012. This drama, like "Latent", "Secret Calculation", "Before Dawn", and "Kite", is the best of Chinese spy war dramas.
Many people may not know that "Cliff" starring Zhang Jiayi is his second spy war drama. In 2011, he also participated in the filming of another spy war drama "Borrowed Gun", and the directors of this drama, Jiang Wei and Fu Wei, had also participated in the filming of "Latent" before.
In 2009, after the popularity of "Latent", the two directors seized this favorable opportunity and invited Zhang Jiayi, whose career was booming, to participate in the filming of "Borrowed Gun". They wanted to be able to recreate the glory days of Latent, and in the process of publicity, they directly labeled it as a sister chapter to Latent. Following "Borrowed Gun", Zhang Jiayi also personally participated in the filming of "Cliff".
In the end, both "Latent" and "The Cliff" were great successes, but at the same time, "Borrowed Gun", the sister story of "Latent", suffered a failure. On Douban, less than 5,000 people have participated in the selection so far, and they have won 76 ratings.
Now the question is, despite both being well-known directors and starring Zhang Jiayi, what is the difference between "Borrowed Gun" and "Cliff"?
First of all, let's talk about this work called "Borrowed Gun", to understand the origin of the play "Borrowed Gun", we must first mention its sister "Latent".
The success of a drama is often like a sword with two edges, bringing both fame and benefits to the creators, but also great challenges for their next work.
In the pursuit of innovation, creative teams often choose different approaches, but this often leads to the opposite effect.
For example, in the past, the spy war film "The Wind" and the spy war drama "Before Dawn" were very popular. Director Liu Jiang invited Hu Jun and Guo Xiaodong to shoot another spy war of the Mai family, "Wind Language", and also invited Feng Enhe, who played the stationmaster in "Latent".
It stands to reason that such a strong collaboration should have unexpected results. This drama showed a strong momentum in the broadcast of CCTV 8, but unfortunately, it did not achieve the expected effect. The biggest problem is that the main creative team wants to make a breakthrough, which leads to a deviation in the direction of the protagonist's shaping.
For example, after "Latent" was warmly welcomed, Jiang Wei and Fu Wei both hoped to make a breakthrough in the process of making "Borrowed Gun", and their creative ideas mainly focused on anti-routines.
In common spy war dramas, a common premise is: the protagonists don't need to worry about life, and when they go on undercover missions, their daily lives, intelligence tools, and ** ammunition will be endlessly replenished. Their only mission is to compete between wits and courage and experience a live-action game of "Werewolf Killing" in front of an audience.
However, at the beginning of the movie "Borrowed Gun", the protagonist played by Zhang Jiayi is from a poor family, not only does he have no job, but also owes rent, has no money, and is a poor person every time he appears.
He is not like Yu Zecheng, who is able to skillfully obtain high-level intelligence, and spends most of his time dealing with the small things in daily life, and finally only obtains some less valuable information.
The tone of this drama is anti-routine, and the general spy war dramas are tense and thrilling, but the atmosphere of "Borrowed Gun" is very life-like, the characters in the film are like our colleagues at work, and the first half of the whole drama is spent in their humor and ridicule.
This treatment does reveal more accurately the real life conditions of intelligence workers throughout history, but that's not what the audience really wants.
From an objective point of view, Zhang Jiayi's performance in the work "Borrowed Gun" is quite outstanding. He used to always play the kind of elegant and kind middle-aged male character, but in this drama, he successfully created a character full of "tearing".
Under his skillful control, Xiong Kuohai successfully showed multiple real and false faces behind his identity, which also won the trust of the audience.
He was outraged in front of his colleagues, adding a protective layer to his identity as an underground party member;
When he meets Yang Xiaoju, Anderson and Miss Pei, his expression is always changeable, sometimes humorous, sometimes deep, sometimes sentimental;
Even when he was face-to-face with his wife, he chose to hide his true identity and cover it up with a cynical attitude, but at some moments, he revealed his indebtedness to his family.
Zhang Jiayi gives a smooth and natural interpretation of these emotional fluctuations and role shifts.
However, the real problem is that excellent actors can't make up for the shortcomings in the script, and the audience is more concerned about the plot of "borrowing a gun", while the role played by Zhang Jiayi is "borrowing money". Although the whole show is coming to an end, the audience's memory of him is still "the poorest ** in history".
The original agreement to deceive each other, the surface of the agreement is harmonious but the heart is estranged, and the agreement turns the crisis into safety, why are these plots not shown, but interpreted into some trivial details?
After only a few episodes, the audience's patience was consumed, so the show didn't attract much attention.
The problem with "Borrowed Gun" is not how low its quality is, but how big its pace is, which makes it difficult for the audience to accept.
Although the TV series "Borrowed Gun" did not receive widespread attention, Zhang Jiayi won the Magnolia Award for its innovation and artistry. After becoming emperor, he sensitively noticed that the story concept of "Borrowed Gun" was quite good, but it did not achieve the desired effect. Therefore, based on the play, he created a new play "Cliff", not only as the lead actor of the play, but also offered to take on the role of artistic director.
Reading this, I am sure you will understand that "Cliff" is actually an upgraded and improved version of "Borrowed Gun", and the core idea of the two dramas is the same.
Compared with "Borrowed Gun", we can go deeper into the work "Cliff".
In the TV series "Borrowed Gun" and "Cliff", Zhang Jiayi played the role of **, and in "Borrowed Gun", although he is named an employee of Yixing Foreign Company, he is actually a member of the underground party; In "Cliff", he is known as the captain of the Harbin Police Department's special operations team, but in fact he is also a member of an underground organization.
In the TV series "Borrowed Gun", Zhang Jiayi cooperated closely with Yan Bingyan and Luo Haiqiong, and in "Cliff", Zhang Jiayi's life is also accompanied by two real wives.
The endings of these two TV series are very similar, both describe Zhang Jiayi's betrayal by women, his daughter was kidnapped, and Zhang Jiayi paid for his life in order to save his daughter.
Although the suicidal ending in "Borrowed Gun" was criticized by the audience, Zhang Jiayi still firmly chose this ending method during the filming of "Cliff".
On the premise of keeping the core content unchanged, Zhang Jiayi reflected on the mistakes of "Borrowed Gun" and made four major adjustments to the whole play.
Although it looks like a new wine in an old bottle, this new bottle has been replaced from Erguotou to Moutai.
First of all, the personal background and identity of the male protagonist have been adjusted accordingly.
The most significant difference between the two plays is that Xiong Kuohai, the protagonist of "Borrowed Gun", has no wealth, while Zhou Yi, the protagonist of "Cliff", is not short of money.
According to Zhang Jiayi's description, Xiong Kuohai is known as "the poorest ** in history" and Zhou Yi is "the richest ** in history".
When the protagonist's livelihood problem is solved, the audience will have the opportunity to watch the original spy war drama.
Secondly, the plot in the new drama presents more magnificent changes.
Screenwriter Quan Yongxian made full preparations in the process of writing the script. He moved the setting of the story to Harbin and spent three months in Harbin before the creation began. He consulted a large number of historical materials and recorded in detail in the script information about the "Ussuri Tiger", the incident of the People's Livelihood League, and the mysterious organizations such as the "Comintern Section".
As a result, all the details in the whole show have been cut out, and only so many repetitions have been added that make the whole show look even better.
The third point is that the protagonist played by Zhang Jiayi in the play has changed.
In the work "Borrowing a Gun", Xiong Kuohai shows his sophistication and wit, he skillfully transforms all the pressure of ** into other emotions, and quickly dissolves them.
However, in the work "Cliff", Zhou Yi shows a forbearance and wisdom character, and his character depth is immeasurable, and he shoulders a major mission.
Throughout the play, Zhang Jiayi strives to suppress his emotions, and the whole work uses many film-like long shots to present his inner world, and Zhang Jiayi vividly shows the artistic conception of "thunder in the chest and face like a peaceful lake".
The benefits of this energy storage can be clearly felt through just one play.
In the two works "Borrowed Gun" and "Cliff", a farewell drama was staged.
In the work "Borrowed Gun", Xiong Kuohai said an affectionate farewell to his married wife Shuzhen, who hugged Shuzhen tightly and burst into tears, like a child. "I'm a man, I can't cry anymore! I'm going to find a woman! However, due to Xiong Kuohai's previous "emotional exposure", this overly intense performance did not really touch the hearts of the audience.
In the TV series "Cliff", Zhou Yi said his final goodbye to his daughter Sasha. At first, he behaved rather calmly, but a surge of emotions quickly destroyed his defenses. Although Zhou Yi endured the pressure of the whole show, he finally showed his true face here. His eyes were full of tears, and he felt deep guilt and reluctance for his daughter, and this energetic emotional moment brought a strong emotional impact to the audience, and many people burst into tears when they saw this scene.
Fourth, the overall tone of the show has changed.
The drama is remarkable because it removes the trivialities of everyday life, adds a lot of historical material, the transformation of the protagonist's personality, and the tragic ending. From the very beginning, the whole play shows a solemn and solemn atmosphere, and the climaxes of the first half are endless, and the tense rhythm is continuous, making the audience almost feel suffocated.
In a tight rhythm, the show shows a revolutionary friendship that transcends the emotions between men and women through real and fake husband and wife relationships. Compared with the real interpretation of Yu Zecheng and Cui Ping in "Latent", the fake husband and wife emotions in this play are more real and touching with the reference of real husband and wife emotions, even exceeding the emotional depth in "Latent".
If the whole drama can maintain such a rhythm, then "Cliff" is definitely capable of competing with "Latent" and becoming a direct opponent of the king of spy war dramas.
Unfortunately, there are some cracks in the second half of the story, many of the initial problems are not resolved, and the protagonist's actions lack enough motivation to support them, which ultimately leads to the beginning and end of the story.
However, compared to "Borrowed Gun", the progress of "Cliff" is obvious, and it has emerged on the basis of "Borrowed Gun" and has become a rare classic spy war TV series.