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To Live

2015-12-08

Perhaps it's a little difficult for me to understand profound meaning of living as the first time I saw the movie " To Live", at that time I was about 9 years old, the only thing of that movie had attracted my eyes was noodles with boiling oil that all the commune members had in the canteen, pouring the noodles with chili oil, hot oil, peanuts, soy sauce and vinegar, and mixing, which made me get the itch to swallow the whole screen by the temptation of delicious food. For a kid, what she likes to see is perhaps more interesting than what she needs to think. In the movie, the son of the lead poured the delicious noodles on some little boy in order to take revenge on him for what those villains had done to his mute sister, this move had caused a big trouble to his parents, although this little boy refused to apologize for what he'd done, obviously, the apology is really hard to make to whom they don't deserve, and as a kid, to distinguish what should be right and what should be wrong is not an easy task. the life has taught us a lot as we grow up, just like the movie tells, Fugui (the leading actor) was originally a playboy who had been infatuated with gambling that finally led him to lose his family, following this he had been caught as a soldier, and had no choice but to experience the cruelty of war, the truth of death. After all these Fugui started to realize what is the most precious to life, like what he said to his wife, "It's good to be simple person". To be a simple person, that's so easy to talk rather than to act. In the movie, the "simpleness" of human nature has been expressed as the word "forgiveness" that is likely to ask, and unlikely to give. To the people you hate, you should forgive what they’ve done; to yourself, you should also learn to forgive what you’ve encountered in the life, like Fugui, his daughter had been mute because lack of money to cure her fever, and lost his son in a car accident, the perpetrator was the comrade-in-arms who had been in the battlefield with him. Although life had set up many barriers to stop him, Fugui didn't stick in the place where he had been hurt. Instead, he tried to forgive and gave the comrade-in-arms strong backing when his life was about to fall into ruin. In past Fugui lost too much, his fortune and family, and now he finally gained what he had wished for, love and peace. Life should be simple, but our infinite desires make it complex, sometimes the more material pursuits we have, the more spiritual loss we get. That's what I could learn from a good movie, simple but meaningful.

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As the Gods Will

2015-11-15

15 years ago,"Battle Royale", which was famous for the bloody and violent scenario, had revealed the introspection of the elitism that the Japanese have believed in for so long, and till now, " As the Gods Will", based on the manga, as the updated version of "Battle Royale" that has pushed the elitism to a new level. Fight for survival, it is the common theme of the two films. In the movie it made an assumption that there was a law of competition among the juveniles, only the winner could have the right to survive, and in the process of competition there were no friends, but killers who wanted to kill you for their survival. The same story has been labeled as different titles in different cultures, it's been called "Hunger Game" in America, " Battle Royale " and " As the Gods Will" in Japan, the difference is obvious. Literally the word "hunger" of " Hunger Game " has the meaning of strong desire for something, and at a deeper level the strong desire had been interpreted as the desire for living, lust for power and greed for money in the movie. Unlike the tragic of the American version, " As the Gods Will ", the work of Takashi Miike who's been honored as the wizard of Japanese directors, that is similar to a quiz game filled with competitive and stimulative factors. As to the auteurism of Takashi Miike, killing a person just like playing a game, which has tended to heighten the entertainment of the movies, and weaken the artistry. For this movie " As the Gods Will", it's apt to attract more attentions on the funny but cruel "Murder Game" that means if any of the competitors lost the game then he'd be killed, Takashi creatively used the red glass beads instead of real blood In order to making the bloody scene less bloody, the tense atmosphere and cute murder dolls have only reminded the audiences of its competitive and entertainment, but not the extreme elitism of Japanese that should be rethought . Obviously, the violence aesthetics in movies have two sides, for the good one it can amuse the audience, but for the bad one it's difficult for us to have deeply thought while enjoying the amusement. that's the misconception the movie gives us, just as the dialogue of the end, Survivor A: there is definitely no God. Murder Doll: No, you're wrong, all of those what you'd experienced that was designed by God. However, some ''God" has also designed by human, and that's also the misconception we get from our real lives.

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Money is just like the Pandora's box, the more take, the more lose. Even so, the taste of money still attracts the majority running after it of all the ways. In the recent reunion, after a few minutes of small talk about some trifles, the topic of our conversation had soon changed into another discussion about how to make money, and then the whole atmosphere got very lively and hot, "making money" seemingly has become the only one of their lives, but still not enough, they even talked about making easy money banteringly only for being richness in the future. Maybe it's just a joke for relieving the heavy burden of life, and in their eyes, money is a belief, rather than a tool. If we could run back over the age of barter, in which people made trades so as to get what they liked or what they needed, by then, money was nothing but an equivalent to shell or cattle, people took it as a tool that could enrich the life, instead of expressing their personal value. Not until the Marxism has been widely known, as well as "Das Kapital", one of his famous academic books, using the theory within we were beginning to know about the dark side of money, which could blind the workers' eyes to exploit them as a slave, however, it's not terrible because the capitalism would be overturned by the power of mass people, that's what we've been taught from the school. Unfortunately, here are so many clumsy students, and smart imitators. The above talks of the first paragraph will no longer be Individual phenomenon among all society members, as " Money Worship " has become the main impetus for personal development in China nowadays, naturally the remarks of the " Das Kapital " may be confirmed in one day: we are not being the salves of the capital, but of the ghost with insatiable desire.

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This movie takes place in the darkest time of Europe, the Middle Ages, the preparation period of the Renaissance in another interpretation though. In the semantics, the word "dark" can also be understood as suppression, " renaissance " means freedom, keeping balance between the two words of the humanity that's what the story brings to us. At the beginning of this movie, the spectacular view of the mountains all around has created the visions of being immersive for us, with using the CGI and 3D. The following scene of a fierce fight between the ghost buster and his ex-lover dark queen has given us a vivid preface of this great epic, of which love is the core spirit, to make the horrible journey of killing ghosts not so boring. As for love, obviously the story of the younger has taken a large part of the whole movie, just like a dark version of " Romeo and Juliet", because of misunderstanding they won their love at first sight, and then the misunderstanding almost do them apart. In comparison with the lucky young lovers the relationship of the older couple seemed not so romantic, they baited various kinds of traps to kill the other from the start till the end, they hate, while they love, just like a paradox, the more you pay, the more you want to take back, that's the dark side of the humanity. The Buddhist's words may teach us how to remove it from our mind, to be a calm and poised person, " No want no more", from where we can also get the strength to face any challenge. As the one of the magical fantasy movie, " The Seventh Son " maybe less deeper than " The Lord of the Rings", and more understandable than " The Hobbit", in spite of all those weakness "The Seventh Son" still has its own place before the festival movie season. After all, there is little possibility for people to refuse the power of good, to hate the sunshine of love, especially in this era of "losing myself".

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This is the story of a father going alone to an alien country with language difficulties and feeling of helplessness, only for finding a Chinese drama and keeping a record of it as the last gift to his dying son. It’s a simple story containing something thought provoking, and a lonely journey filled with warmth and hope. As the keyword of this movie, the word “loneliness”, its connotation has been enlarged since the philosopher started to think. In this movie, it has been condensed as an insurmountable barrier being set between father and son, the locals and the foreigner, also the figures who lived under different living circumstances,and beyond the movie, the meaning of “loneliness” has been abstracted as an eternal weakness in the human’s moral being. You can say it’s so common to feel, or you can refute it’s too complex for us to know. “People who lead a lonely existence always have something on their minds that they are eager to talk about”, a quote from the great novelist Anton Chekhov, coincidently, the similar feeling of loneliness has been expressed by a great Chinese film director Mr. Zhang Yimou, through one simple story. The setting of this movie is a small village of Yunnan province in China, a beautiful city where has the magic to keep people away from sorrow and worries, in here a Japanese man tried to find a Chinese drama for his dying son, and the only way to accomplish it is to get permission to filming it in the prison, after overcoming all the difficulties happened during the whole case, the drama actor, who was being in prison, hadn’t met his son for a long time that made him almost fell apart while filming. The lives of the two men had been intertwined as a result of the guilt of the son, for the purpose of fulfilling his son’s wish the Japanese man had to get in touch with the prisoner’s son, a lonely and naughty boy, who finally made this father start to reflect on the relationship with his own son and being relieved in a few days. Perhaps, the loneliness can help people to be more sober while they’re in trouble, and the passing of time can teach people how to sooth the pain. According to this idea, the depiction of father and son in this movie has not only aroused us emotionally, but to lead us to understand the purity of human nature, the complexity of the life. As for the film art, how to make a good movie depends on the storyline, the photography, the music, and so on, the most important of which is the sincerity we should never lose. That’s what I see from the movie, and the great man whose name is Takakura Ken.

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Kyongju

2014-10-26

Love is a memory of the solitude, and memory is the solitude of lover. It’s not a quote from some romantic poem, but emotional experience of the Korean movie “Kyongju”. Unlike other traditional Korean movies, there are something anti-tradition exsiting in this movie“Kyongju”, which means the romantic story, the design of unusual character, and the balanced composition that formed the basis elements of Korean movie that has been weaken and replaced by personal style of this movie, as well as Ki-duk Kim and Joon-ho Bong, who are the outstanding representatives of Korean filmdom. It is therefore filled with some contradictions in term of the film technique. Firstly, about the composition, the “Balance” is usually accepted as the prior rule of aesthetical standard, keeping balance of the frames can lead people to concentrate on the plot development, rather than implying feelings with some puzzling images. But in this movie, the balance has been redefined since we get to know the beauty of unbalance that this film expresses. In one scene, the man, who was on his journey of seeking memory, had went back the town of Kyongju, and suddenly he had an interest on practicing Tachi when he saw an old people doing exercise with soft music in the forest, in which the image spacing of the characters was much smaller in proportion to that of the scenery, and the imagery of the “Lilliput” style that the director try to make, is probably aimed at teaching this truth similar to the principle of Chinese Taoism, that is, let nature take its course. Mostly, the image design doesn’t attract much attention when the fascinating plot development overwhelms, but the movie is unable to show the unique charm without it. Secondly, something about the story line, it’s the best way of understanding the connotation of the movie. “Kyongju”, a simple story filled with profound meaning of life, in this story, the man, who might have some troubles in his marriage and his overseas life, made his decision on returning to the place where he won the first love after he attended the funeral of his best friends, accidentally he made acquaintance with a beautiful teahouse owner and her friends during the journey. However, this romantic encounter didn’t go as everybody thought, just like the life itself, it could give us the chance of love, happy or hate, but never teach us how to control. The strange friends and apparently warmhearted strangers, goal-directed flattery and a talk heart in heart, seemingly contradictory, and factually all of those constitute the life we have. Like what the end of this movie, everyone had found the path to the heaven on their minds since they knew such truth of living, people should learn how to keep balance even in the unbalance environment, that’s what we’re living for, also what we’re fighting for.

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